Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/77

] and for many months we have tasted neither wine nor flesh. Is not that fasting?"

"The fasting of religious observance it is," answered Confucius, "but not the fasting of the heart."

"And may I ask," said Yen Hui, "in what consists the fasting of the heart?"

"Cultivate unity," replied Confucius.


 * Make of the mind as it were an undivided indivisible.

"You hear not with the ears, but with the mind; not with the mind, but with your soul.


 * The vital fluid which informs your whole being; in fact, "with your whole self."

But let hearing stop with the ears. Let the working of the mind stop with itself. Then the soul will be a negative existence, passively responsive to externals. In such a negative existence, only can abide. And that negative state is the fasting of the heart."

"Then," said Yen Hui, "the reason I could not get the use of this method is my own individuality. If I could get the use of it, my individuality would have gone. Is this what you mean by the negative state?"

"Exactly so," replied the Master. "Let me tell you. If you can enter this man's domain without offending his amour propre, cheerful if he hears you, passive if he does not; without science,