Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/162

128 "Cherish and preserve your own self,


 * In accordance with the above.

and all the rest will prosper of itself.


 * The welfare of the people, the success of their harvests, etc.

I preserve the original, while resting in harmony with externals. It is because I have thus cared for my self now for twelve hundred years that my body has not decayed."

The Yellow Emperor prostrated himself and said, "Kuang Ch'êng Tzŭ is surely God . . . . ."

Whereupon the latter continued, "Come, I will tell you. That self is eternal; yet all men think it mortal. That self is infinite; yet all men think it finite. Those who possess are princes in this life and rulers in the hereafter. Those who do not possess, behold the light of day in this life and become clods of earth in the hereafter.

"Nowadays, all living things spring from the dust and to the dust return. But I will lead you through the portals of Eternity into the domain of Infinity. My light is the light of sun and moon. My life is the life of heaven and earth. I know not who comes nor who goes. Men may all die, but I endure for ever."


 * "A mighty drama, enacted on the theatre of Infinitude, with suns for lamps, and Eternity as a background; whose author is God, and whose purport and thousandfold moral lead us up to the 'dark with excess of light' of the throne of God."—Carlyle.