Latter Collection 1 (nos. 1–45)後集

One who talks of the joy of living among the hills and woods has not yet caught the true taste of the hills and woods. One who says they are sick of talk about fame and gain has not yet forgotten their feeling for fame and gain.

Fishing is an idle pastime, yet it still holds the handle of life and death. Chess is a clean amusement, yet it still stirs up a heart for battle.

Orioles singing, flowers thick, the mountain deep in color and the valley lovely — all this is the world of illusion in heaven and earth. Only when the waters shrink and the leaves drop, when the rocks stand lean and the cliffs go bare, does one see the true self of heaven and earth.

The years are long by nature, but busy people hurry themselves. Heaven and earth are wide by nature, but mean people narrow themselves. Wind and flowers, snow and moon are idle by nature, but those who scramble and strain make them a burden to themselves.

Delight is not had by having much. Between a pond the size of a basin and a stone the size of a fist there are mist and evening glow enough. A fine view is not found far off. Under a reed-shaded window in a bamboo house, wind and moon are plentiful of themselves.

Hear the sound of the bell on a quiet night, and it calls you awake from the dream within your dream. Look at the moon's shadow on a clear pool, and you catch sight of the body beyond your body.

The talk of birds and the cries of insects are all the secret by which the heart is handed on, and the buds of flowers and the color of grass are all writing in which the Way is shown. A student should keep the workings of heaven clear and open in them and their breast bright and fine, so that in everything they meet there is a place that strikes home.

People know how to read the book that has words, but not how to read the book without words. They know how to play the zither that has strings, but not how to play the zither without strings. They use the outward form and not the spirit, so how are they to get the true taste of the zither and the book?

When the heart has no craving for things, it is an autumn sky and a sea after rain. When there are a zither and books where you sit, the place becomes a stone hall and a cinnabar hill where the immortals live.

Guests and friends gather like clouds, the drinking runs deep, the pleasure is real. But before long the water clock runs out, the candle gutters, the incense dies and the tea goes cold, and without knowing it you are left choking back tears, and everything feels empty and flat. Most affairs under heaven are like this. Why then do people not turn their heads back early?

Catch the one delight inside it, and the mist and moon of the Five Lakes all come into the inch of your heart. Break through the working of things before your eyes, and the heroes of a thousand ages all come into the hollow of your hand.

Mountains and rivers and the broad earth already belong to the finest dust, and how much more the dust within the dust. This frame of blood and flesh returns to bubble and shadow, and how much more a shadow beyond the shadow. Without the highest wisdom there is no heart that sees clear through.

In the light of a flint spark they argue over long and short. How much time is that? On the horn of a snail they measure who is the stronger. How large is that world?

A cold lamp with no flame and a worn fur coat with no warmth are only a way of playing at the scene before one's eyes. A body like dry wood and a heart like dead ash cannot escape falling into stubborn emptiness (頑空).

If a person is willing to rest right here, right here it is finished. But if they mean to look for some place to rest, then even when the sons are married and the daughters given away there are still matters enough. Monks and Daoists are all very well, but with such a heart it still is not finished. One of the ancients said, "Rest now and you can rest at once; look for the time when it ends and there is no time when it ends." Their sight was clear indeed.

Only when you look from a cool place at the time when you were hot do you know how useless all that running toward the heat was. Only when you come out of the bustle into a place of quiet do you feel that the savor within quiet lasts longest.

You may have the air of one who treats wealth and honor as a drifting cloud, and still have no need to live in a cave in the rocks. You may have no deep-set craving for springs and stones, and still be always drunk on your own wine and glad of your own poems. Leave the scrambling and chasing to others, but do not hate them for drinking their fill. Suit yourself with the plain and simple, but do not boast that you alone are sober. This is what the Buddhists call "not bound by the law and not bound by emptiness," the state in which body and heart are both at ease.

Long and short depend on a single thought, and wide and narrow hang on an inch of heart. So for one whose workings are at leisure, a single day stretches further than a thousand ages, and for one whose mind is wide, a room the size of a dipper is as wide as the space between heaven and earth.

Take away and take away again, until even the planting of flowers and the tending of bamboo are all handed back to Master Wuyou (烏有先生). Forget until there is nothing left to forget, and burn incense and boil tea without ever asking whether the white-robed boy (白衣童子) is coming.

As for whatever comes before your eyes, to one who knows they have enough it is the land of the immortals, and to one who does not it is the common world. As for the causes that arise in this world, to one who uses them well they are the working that gives life, and to one who uses them badly they are the working that kills.

The disaster that comes of running to the flame and clinging to power is most cruel and also most swift. The savor of nesting in quiet and keeping to ease is most plain and also most lasting.

Walking alone with a staff by the pines and the stream, wherever you stop the clouds rise from your worn robe. Lying high with a book for a pillow under a bamboo window, when you wake the moonlight has soaked into the old blanket.

Desire blazes like fire, but let one thought reach the time of sickness and the flame turns to cold ash. Fame and gain are sweet as syrup, but let one thought reach the place of dying and the taste is like chewing wax. So if a person always worries about death and thinks of sickness, they can burn away illusory karma and grow the heart that seeks the Way.

The road where people push to be first is narrow, and to step back one step is to be one step wider and more level of itself. The taste that is rich and lovely is short, and to be one part clear and plain is to last one part longer of itself.

If you would keep your nature from being thrown into confusion when you are busy, you must nourish heart and spirit clear while you are at leisure. If you would keep your heart from shaking at the hour of death, you must see clean through things while you are alive.

In the woods where a person lives hidden there is neither honor nor shame. On the road of the Way and the right there is no turning hot and cold with the world.

There is no need to remove the heat. Remove the fretting over heat, and the body is always on a cool terrace. Poverty cannot be driven out. Drive out the worry over poverty, and the heart always lives in a snug and easy house.

Think of the step back while you are taking the step forward, and you escape the trouble of the ram with its horns caught in the fence. Plan for letting go before you set your hand to a thing, and only then do you get clear of the danger of riding a tiger.

Give the greedy person gold and they resent not getting jade. Make them a duke and they complain at not being made a marquis. Powerful and rich, they are content to play the beggar. To one who knows they have enough, goosefoot soup tastes better than rich meat and a hemp gown is warmer than a fox coat. A commoner, they yield nothing to kings and nobles.

Boasting of a name is not as fine as the pleasure of fleeing a name. How can being skilled in affairs match the ease of having fewer affairs?

One who loves quiet looks at white clouds and secluded rocks and reaches what is hidden and deep. One who chases advancement watches clear singing and fine dancing and forgets their weariness. Only the scholar who has found it in themselves has neither noise nor quiet, neither flowering nor withering, and wherever they go there is no sky that is not their own free ground.

A lone cloud comes out of the mountain hollow, and in going or staying it is tied to nothing at all. A bright mirror hangs in empty space, and stillness and bustle are neither of them its concern.

A long, slow delight is not had from thick and heady wine, but from what is left over after chewing beans and drinking water. A wistful sadness does not arise out of bare stillness, but out of what is left over after the flute has been blown and the strings have been tuned. Truly one may know that a rich taste is always short, and that only the delight within the plain is real.

The Chan school says, "When hungry, eat; when tired, sleep." The Shizhi (詩旨) says, "The scene before your eyes, the words on your lips." What is highest lodges in what is most ordinary, and what is hardest comes out of what is easiest. Set your mind on it and it moves further off; have no mind about it and it comes near of itself.

The water flows and yet all around it is without a sound: one should get the delight of seeing stillness in a noisy place. The mountain is high and yet the clouds are not blocked by it: one should grasp the working by which a person comes out of being and enters nothing.

The hills and woods are a fine place, but cling and pine for them once and they become a marketplace. Calligraphy and painting are graceful things, but covet them and lose yourself in them once and they become a shopkeeper's trade. When the heart has no stain and no clinging, even the world of desire is a city of immortals. When the heart has ties and longings, even a place of pleasure becomes a sea of pain.

When the hour is noisy and confused, even what you remembered every day is all vaguely lost. When your circumstances are clear and peaceful, even what you forgot long ago rises plainly before you again. One may see that the least parting of stillness from haste makes all the difference between a dark mind and a bright one.

Under a quilt of reed flowers, lying in the snow and sleeping in the clouds, you keep whole the night air of one small room. In a cup among bamboo leaves, chanting to the wind and playing with the moon, you slip away from ten thousand fathoms of red dust.

Put one mountain dweller with a goosefoot staff in a procession of court robes and caps, and it adds a stretch of high feeling. Put one court officer in their robes on a road where fishermen and woodcutters pass, and it adds a great deal of vulgar air instead. Truly one may know that the rich does not beat the plain, and the vulgar falls short of the graceful.

The road that leads out of the world lies in the very crossing of the world, so there is no need to cut off people and run away from it. The work of awakening the heart lies within the full use of the heart, so there is no need to cut off desire and turn the heart to ash.

Keep this body always set down in a place of leisure, and how can honor and shame, gain and loss, order me about? Keep this heart always at rest within stillness, and how can right and wrong, profit and harm, deceive me?

Below the bamboo fence you suddenly hear a dog bark and a cock crow, and it is as strange and lovely as a world within the clouds. At the window of your study you listen to the cicada chant and the crow caw, and only then do you know the other country inside stillness.

Since I do not want glory, why should I worry over the fragrant bait of profit and salary? Since I do not push to get ahead, why should I fear the perils of holding office?

Stroll among the hills and woods, the springs and stones, and the dust in the heart gradually dies down. Wander among poems and books and paintings, and the vulgar air quietly melts away. So although the noble person does not lose their purpose in dallying with things, they still borrow the scene around them to tune their heart.

The air of a spring day is rich and gay and sets a person's heart drifting. It is not the equal of an autumn day, when the clouds are white and the wind is clear, the orchid sweet and the cassia fragrant, water and sky of one color and everything above and below open and bright, so that a person's spirit and very bones are made clear.