Text of Confucianism Part 01

SR No.: 007675
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Legge
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1879
Total Pages: 2829
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 50 MB

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THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK. XII.
and have also forgotten the heavenly element in them, they may be named men who have forgotten themselves. The man who has forgotten himself is he of whom it is said that he has become identified with Heaven?' | IO. At an interview with Kí Khêh 3, Kiang-lu Mien2 said to him, 'Our ruler of Là asked to receive my instructions. I declined, on the ground that I had not received any message 3 for him. Afterwards, however, I told him (my thoughts). I do not know whether (what I said) was right or not, and I beg to repeat it to you. I said to him, “You must strive to be courteous and to exercise self-restraint; you must distinguish the public-spirited and loyal, and repress the cringing and selfish ;—who among the people will in that case dare not to be in harmony with you?" Ki Khêh laughed quietly and said, 'Your words, my master, as a description of the right course for a Tî or King, were like the threatening movement of its arms by a mantis which would thereby stop the advance of a carriage ;-inadequate to accomplish your object. And moreover, if he guided himself by your directions, it would be as if he were to increase the dangerous height of his towers
1 Their action is like that of Heaven, silent but most effective, without motive from within or without, simply from the impulse of the Tâo.
2 These two men are only known by the mention of them here. They must have been officers of Lû, Ki Khêh a member of the great Kî or Ki-sun family of that state. He would appear also to have been the teacher of the other; if, indeed, they were real personages, and not merely the production of Kwang-zze's imagination.
3 That is any lessons or instructions from you, my master, which I should communicate to him.
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