Qualities of a Sage: Selections from the Taoist “Book of Lieh-Tzu,” Part 2 of 2

Let us continue with Book 4: Confucius in the ‘Book of Lieh-Tzu,’ written by the Venerated Enlightened Master Lieh Tzu (vegetarian) and translated by Lionel Giles, which discusses the qualities that make a person a sage.

BOOK 4 Confucius Lung Shu and Wên Chih

“Lung Shu said to Wên Chih: ‘You are the master of cunning arts. I have a disease. Can you cure it, Sir?’ ‘I am at your service,’ replied Wên Chih. ‘But please let me know first the symptoms of your disease.’ ‘I hold it no honor,’ said Lung Shu, ‘To be praised in my native village, nor do I consider it a disgrace to be decried in my native State. Gain excites in me no joy, and loss no sorrow. I look upon life in the same light as death, upon riches in the same light as poverty, upon my fellow men as so many swine, and upon myself as I look upon my fellow men. I dwell in my home as though it were a mere caravanserai, and regard my native district with no more feeling than I would another State. Afflicted as I am in these various ways, honors and rewards fail to rouse me, pains and penalties to overawe me, good or bad fortune to influence me, joy or grief to move me. Thus, I am incapable of serving my sovereign, of associating with my friends and kinsmen, of directing my wife and children, or of controlling my servants and retainers. Men are controlled by external influences in so far as their minds are open to impressions of good and evil, and their bodies are sensitive to injury or the reverse. But one who is able to discern a connecting unity in the most multiform diversity will surely, in his survey of the universe, be unconscious of the differences between positive and negative. What disease is this, and what remedy is there that will cure it?’ Wên Chih replied by asking Lung Shu to stand with his back to the light, while he himself faced the light and looked at him intently. ‘Ah!’ said he after a while, ‘I see that a good square inch of your heart is hollow. You are within an ace of being a true sage. Six of the orifices in your heart are open and clear, and only the seventh is blocked up. It was an ancient belief that the sage had seven orifices in his heart’ (the seat of the understanding). This, however, is doubtless due to the fact that you are mistaking for a disease that which is really Divine enlightenment. It is a case in which my shallow art is of no avail.’”

On Government Administrators. […]