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

Page 1836

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THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK. XIV.
long. If men see us doing so, they will have much to say against us.
'The perfect men of old trod the path of benevolence as a path which they borrowed for the occasion, and dwelt in Righteousness as in a lodging which they used for a night. Thus they rambled in the vacancy of Untroubled Ease, found their food in the fields of Indifference, and stood in the gardens which they had not borrowed. Untroubled Ease requires the doing of nothing; Indifference is easily supplied with nourishment; not borrowing needs no outlay. The ancients called this the Enjoyment that Collects the True.
'Those who think that wealth is the proper thing for them cannot give up their revenues ; those who seek distinction cannot give up the thought of fame; those who cleave to power cannot give the handle of it to others. While they hold their grasp of those things, they are afraid (of losing them). When they let them go, they are grieved; and they will not look at a single example, from which they might perceive the (folly) of their restless pursuits :—such men are under the doom of Heaven".
Hatred and kindness; taking and giving; reproof and instruction ; death and life :—these eight things are instruments of rectification, but only those are able to use them who do not obstinately refuse to comply with their great changes. Hence it is said, “Correction is Rectification.” When the minds of
1 See the same expression used in Book VI, par. 11, used by Confucius of himself. Comparing the two passages together, I must doubt the correctness of my note there (2, p. 252), that
Heaven' is used in the Confucian sense of Tî, or God. The men here pursued and toiled after the pleasures of the world, rather than the quiet satisfactions of the Tâo.
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