PERFECT HAPPINESS.
_Argument_:--The uncertainty of human happiness--What the world aims
at is physical well-being--This is not profitable even to the body--In
inaction alone is true happiness to be found--Inaction the rule of
the material universe--Acquiescence in whatever our destiny may bring
forth--Illustrations.
[This chapter is supplementary to chapter vi.]
Is perfect happiness to be found on earth, or not? Are there those who
can enjoy life, or not? If so, what do they do, what do they affect,
what do they avoid, what do they rest in, accept, reject, like, and
dislike?
What the world esteems comprises wealth, rank, old age, and goodness
of heart. What it enjoys comprises comfort, rich food, fine clothes,
beauty, and music. What it does not esteem comprises poverty, want
of position, early death, and evil behaviour. What it does not enjoy
comprises lack of comfort for the body, lack of rich food for the
palate, lack of fine clothes for the back, lack of beauty for the
eye, and lack of music for the ear. If men do not get these, they are
greatly miserable. Yet from the point of view of our physical frame,
this is folly.
Physically we can, and most of us do, get along very well without
these extras.
Wealthy people who toil and moil, putting together more money than they
can possibly use,--from the point of view of our physical frame, is not
this going beyond the mark?
Officials of rank who turn night into day in their endeavours to
compass the best ends;--from the point of view of our physical frame,
is not this a divergence?
Man is born to sorrow, and what misery is theirs whose old age with
dulled faculties only means prolonged sorrow! From the point of view of
our physical frame, this is going far astray.
Patriots are in the world's opinion admittedly good. Yet their goodness
does not enable them to enjoy life;
Patriotism has been illustrated in China by countless heroic deeds,
associated always with the death of the hero concerned.
and so I know not whether theirs is veritable goodness or not. If the
former, it does not enable them to enjoy life; if the latter, it at any
rate enables them to cause others to enjoy theirs.
It has been said, "If your loyal counsels are not attended to, depart
quietly without resistance." Thus, when Tzŭ Hsü
The famous Wu Yüan, 6th century B.C., whose opposition to his
sovereign led to his own disgrace and death.
resisted, his physical frame perished; yet had he not resisted, he
would not have made his name. Is there then really such a thing as this
goodness, or not?
As to what the world does and the way in which people are happy now, I
know not whether such happiness be real happiness or not. The happiness
of ordinary persons seems to me to consist in slavishly following the
majority, as if they could not help it. Yet they all say they are happy.
"The general average of mankind are not only moderate in intellect,
but also in inclinations: they have no tastes or wishes strong enough
to incline them to do anything unusual." Mill's _Essay on Liberty_.
But I cannot say that this is happiness or that it is not happiness. Is
there then, after all, such a thing as happiness?
I make true pleasure to consist in _inaction_, which the world regards
as great pain. Thus it has been said, "Perfect happiness is the absence
of happiness;
The non-existence of any state or condition necessarily includes the
non-existence of its correlate. If we do not have happiness, we are
at once exempt from misery; and such a negative state is a state of
"perfect happiness."
perfect renown is the absence of renown."
Now in this sublunary world of ours it is impossible to assign positive
and negative absolutely. Nevertheless, in inaction they can be so
assigned. Perfect happiness and preservation of life are to be sought
for only in inaction.
Let us consider. Heaven does nothing; yet it is clear. Earth does
nothing; yet it enjoys repose. From the inaction of these two proceed
all the modifications of things. How vast, how infinite is inaction,
yet without source! How infinite, how vast, yet without form!
The endless varieties of things around us all spring from inaction.
Therefore it has been said, "Heaven and earth do nothing, yet there is
nothing which they do not accomplish." But among men, who can attain to
inaction?
Lin Hsi Chung condemns the whole of the above exordium as too closely
reasoned for Chuang Tzŭ, with his rugged, elliptical style.
When Chuang Tzŭ's wife died, Hui Tzŭ went to condole. He found the
widower sitting on the ground, singing, with his legs spread out at a
right angle, and beating time on a bowl.
"To live with your wife," exclaimed Hui Tzŭ, "and see your eldest son
grow up to be a man, and then not to shed a tear over her corpse,--this
would be bad enough. But to drum on a bowl, and sing; surely this is
going too far."
"Not at all," replied Chuang Tzŭ. "When she died, I could not help
being affected by her death. Soon, however, I remembered that she had
already existed in a previous state before birth, without form, or even
substance; that while in that unconditioned condition, substance was
added to spirit; that this substance then assumed form; and that the
next stage was birth. And now, by virtue of a further change, she is
dead, passing from one phase to another like the sequence of spring,
summer, autumn, and winter. And while she is thus lying asleep in
Eternity, for me to go about weeping and wailing would be to proclaim
myself ignorant of these natural laws. Therefore I refrain."
* * * * *
A hunchback and a one-legged man were looking at the tombs of departed
heroes, on the K'un-lun Mountains, where the Yellow Emperor rests.
Suddenly, ulcers broke out upon their left elbows, of a very loathsome
description.
"Do you loathe this?" asked the hunchback.
"Not I," replied the other, "why should I? Life is a loan with which
the borrower does but add more dust and dirt to the sum total of
existence. Life and death are as day and night; and while you and I
stand gazing at the evidences of mortality around us, if the same
mortality overtakes me, why should I loathe it?"
* * * * *
Chuang Tzŭ one day saw an empty skull, bleached, but still preserving
its shape. Striking it with his riding whip, he said, "Wert thou once
some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought him to this
pass?--some statesman who plunged his country in ruin and perished in
the fray?--some wretch who left behind him a legacy of shame?--some
beggar who died in the pangs of hunger and cold? Or didst thou reach
this state by the natural course of old age?"
When he had finished speaking, he took the skull, and placing it under
his head as a pillow, went to sleep. In the night, he dreamt that the
skull appeared to him and said, "You speak well, Sir; but all you say
has reference to the life of mortals, and to mortal troubles. In death
there are none of these. Would you like to hear about death?"
Chuang Tzŭ having replied in the affirmative, the skull began:--"In
death, there is no sovereign above, and no subject below. The workings
of the four seasons are unknown. Our existences are bounded only by
eternity. The happiness of a king among men cannot exceed that which we
enjoy."
Chuang Tzŭ, however, was not convinced, and said, "Were I to prevail
upon God to allow your body to be born again, and your bones and flesh
to be renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife,
and to the friends of your youth,--would you be willing?"
At this, the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and said,
"How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king, and
mingle once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?"
Reminding us strangely of _Hamlet_.
When Yen Yüan
See p. 179.
went eastwards to the Ch'i State, Confucius was sad. Tzŭ Kung arose and
said, "Is it, Sir, because Hui
Yen Yüan's personal name.
has gone east to Ch'i that you are sad?"
"A good question," replied Confucius. "There is a saying by Kuan Chung
Prime Minister to Duke Huan of the Ch'i State, 7th century B.C.
of old which I highly esteem: 'Small bags won't hold big things; short
ropes won't reach down deep wells.' Thus, destiny is a pre-arrangement,
just as form has its limitations. From neither, to neither, can you
either take away or add. And I fear lest Hui, on his visit to the
prince of Ch'i, should preach the Tao of Yao and Shun, and dwell on
the words of Sui Jen and Shên Nung. The prince will then search within
himself, but will not find. And not finding, he will doubt. And when a
man doubts, he will kill.
_Lit._ "he will die." But the verb "to die" is often used in the sense
of "to make to die;" and this seems to be the only available sense
here.
"Besides, have you not heard that of old when a sea-bird alighted
outside the capital of Lu, the prince went out to receive it, and gave
it wine in the temple, and had the _Chiu Shao_
Music composed by the legendary Emperor Shun.
played to amuse it, and a bullock slaughtered to feed it? But the bird
was dazed and too timid to eat or drink anything; and in three days it
was dead. This was treating the bird like oneself, and not as a bird
would treat a bird. Had he treated it as a bird would have treated a
bird, he would have put it to roost in a deep forest, to wander over a
plain, to swim in a river or lake, to feed upon fish, to fly in order,
and to settle leisurely. When the bird was already terrified at human
voices, fancy adding music! Play the _Hsien Ch'ih_
Music of the Yellow Emperor.
or the _Chiu Shao_ in the wilds of Tung-t'ing, and birds will fly away,
beasts will take themselves off, and fishes will dive down below. But
men will collect to hear.
See p. 244.
"Water, which is life to fishes, is death to man. Being differently
constituted, their likes and dislikes are different. Therefore the
Sages of the past favoured not uniformity of skill or of occupation.
Reputation was commensurate with reality; means were adapted to the
end. This was called a due relationship with others coupled with
advantage to oneself."
Several sentences of the above are clearly in imitation of parts of
ch. ii. The whole episode is beyond doubt a forgery.
* * * * *
Lieh Tzŭ, being on a journey, was eating by the roadside, when he saw
an old skull. Plucking a blade of grass, he pointed at it and said,
"Only you and I know that there is no such thing as life and no such
thing as death.
_Lit._ "that you have never died nor lived."
Are you really at peace? Or am I really happy?
Who can say whether what we call death may not after all be life, and
life death?
"Certain germs, falling upon water, become duckweed. When they reach
the junction of the land and the water, they become lichen. Spreading
up the bank, they become the dog-tooth violet. Reaching rich soil, they
become _wu-tsu_, the root of which becomes grubs, while the leaves
comes from butterflies, or _hsü_. These are changed into insects,
born in the chimney corner, which look like skeletons. Their name is
_ch'ü-to_. After a thousand days, the _ch'ü-to_ becomes a bird, called
_Kan-yü-ku_, the spittle of which becomes the _ssŭ-mi_. The _ssŭ-mi_
becomes a wine fly, and that comes from an _i-lu_. The _huang-k'uang_
produces the _chiu-yu_ and the _mou-jui_ produces the glow-worm.
The _yang-ch'i_ grafted to an old bamboo which has for a long time
put forth no shoots, produces the _ch'ing-ning_, which produces the
leopard, which produces the horse, which produces man.
"Then man goes back into the great Scheme, from which all things come
and to which all things return."
Such is the eternal round, marked by the stages which we call life and
death.
Many of the names in the above paragraph have not been identified even
by Chinese commentators. On all counts then they may safely be left
where they are.