"Mêng Sun," said Confucius, "did all that was required. He has made an advance towards wisdom.
Towards TAO, wherein there is no weeping nor gnashing of teeth.
Than mourn outwardly, for fear of committing a breach of social etiquette, in harmony if not in accordance with which the true Sage passes his life.
As seen from the absence of those signs which prove inward grief.
"Mêng Sun knows not whence we come nor whither we go. He knows not whether the end will come early or late. Passing into life as a man, he quietly awaits his passage into the unknown. What should the dead know of the living, or the living know of the dead? Even you and I may be in a dream from which we have not yet awaked.
"Then again, he adapts himself physically,
while avoiding injury to his higher self.
Keeping his soul free from the disturbance of passion.
He regards a dying man simply as one who is going home. He sees others weep, and he naturally weeps too.
"Besides, a man's personality is something of which he is subjectively conscious. It is impossible for him to say if he is really that which he is conscious of being. You dream you are a bird, and soar to heaven. You dream you are a fish, and dive into the ocean's depths. And you cannot tell whether the man now speaking is awake or in a dream.
"A pleasurable sensation precedes the smile it evokes. The smile itself is not dependent upon a reminding nudge.
And just so was Mêng Sun's outward expression of grief,--spontaneous, as being in harmony with his surroundings.
and you shall enter into the pure, the divine, the ONE."
I Erh Tzŭ went to see Hsü Yu. The latter asked him, saying, "How has Yao benefited you?"
"He bade me," replied the former, "practise charity and do my duty, and distinguish clearly between right and wrong."
"Then what do you want here?" said Hsü Yu. "If Yao has already branded you with charity and duty, and cut off your nose with right and wrong, what do you do in this free-and-easy, care-for-nobody, topsy-turvy neighbourhood?"
"Nevertheless," replied I Erh Tzŭ, "I should like to be on its confines."
"If a man has lost his eyes," retorted Hsü Yu, "it is impossible for him to join in the appreciation of beauty. A man with a film over his eyes cannot tell a blue sacrificial robe from a yellow one."