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THE TEXTS OF TAOISM.
BOOK II.
BK. II.
PART I. SECTION II.
Khi Wû Lun, or 'The Adjustment of Controversies 1.'
1. Nan-kwo 3ze-khi 2 was seated, leaning forward on his stool. He was looking up to heaven and breathed gently, seeming to be in a trance, and to have lost all consciousness of any companion. (His disciple), Yen Khăng 3ze-yû3, who was in attendance and standing before him, said, 'What is this? Can the body be made to become thus like a withered tree, and the mind to become like slaked lime? His appearance as he leans forward on the stool to-day is such as I never saw him have before in the same position.' 3ze-khî said, 'Yen, you do well to ask such a question, I had just now lost myself; but how should you understand it? You
1 See pp. 128-130.
2 Nan-kwo, 'the southern suburb,' had probably been the quarter where 3ze-khî had resided, and is used as his surname. He is introduced several times by Kwang-zze in his writings:Books IV, 7; XXVII, 4, and perhaps elsewhere.
3 We have the surname of this disciple, Yen(); his name, Yen (1); his honorary or posthumous epithet (Khăng); and his ordinary appellation, 3ze-yû. The use of the epithet shows that he and his master had lived before our author.
'He had lost himself;' that is, he had become unconscious of all around him, and even of himself, as if he were about to enter
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