Utmost Joy (2)

1 Chuang Tzu’s wife passed away. Wearing white clothes, Huizi came to the mourning hall to express his condolence. When Huizi made solemn salute to the dead, he found that Chuang Tzu himself squatting on the ground, singing and beating time on a basin. Huizi felt that Chuang Tzu did it too far.

2 He scolded Chuang Tzu. “Your wife lived with you, gave births and reared your children and did homework all her life. Now she passed away; accordingly to the custom a man as you are should not shed tear before the public; however, you should not knock basin and sing.”

3 In calmness, Chuang Tzu told Huizi, “When my wife passed away, I surely felt sorrowful; however, I think later that at the very beginning she was lifeless. What’s more, she was formless, even she was soulless. She was something unknown without physical form.

4 My wife was vacant in the beginning and then she transformed into human. Now she is transforming into the level of nothing again.

5 It is like the alternation of the four seasons. My wife now lies calmly in the place between heaven and earth. If I wailed like other mourners, wasn’t it proved my ignorance and stupidity?

6 Now that I know the truth on the succession of birth and death, I don’t cry.”