Questions of King Milinda Part 02

SR No.: 007682
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2240
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

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THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK. VI.
That which stands out (Superior and Alone)?! Some specially regard their ruler as superior to themselves, and will give their bodies to die for him ;how much more should they do so for That which is their true (Ruler) 1! When the springs are dried up, the fishes collect together on the land. Than that they should moisten one another there by the damp about them, and keep one another wet by their slime, it would be better for them to forget one another in the rivers and lakes 2. And when men praise Yâo and condemn Kieh, it would be better to forget them both, and seek the renovation of the Tâo.
6. There is the great Mass (of nature);—I find the support of my body on it; my life is spent in toil on it; my old age seeks ease on it; at death I find rest in it;—what makes my life a good makes my death also a good 3. If you hide away a boat in the ravine of a hill, and hide away the hill in a lake, you will say that (the boat) is secure; but at midnight there shall come a strong man and carry it off on his back, while you in the dark know nothing about it. You may hide away anything, whether small or great, in the most suitable place, and yet it shall disappear from it. But if you could hide the world in the world 4, so that there was nowhere to which it could be removed, this would be the grand reality of the
1 The great and most honoured Master,—the Tâo.
2 This sentence contrasts the cramping effect on the mind of Confucianism with the freedom given by the doctrine of the Tâo.
3 The Tâo does this. The whole paragraph is an amplification of the view given in the preceding note.
4 The Tâo cannot be taken away. It is with its possessor, an ever-during thing.'
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