Daoxu — False Tales of Immortality道虛篇

The Confucian books say: The Yellow Emperor mined the copper of Mount Shou and cast a cauldron at the foot of Mount Jing. When the cauldron was finished, a dragon came down with its whiskers hanging and welcomed the Yellow Emperor, and the Yellow Emperor went up and rode the dragon, and of the ministers and the palace women more than seventy went up after him, and the dragon then rose away. The lesser officials left behind could not get up, and so they all took hold of the dragon's whiskers. The dragon's whiskers were pulled out and the Yellow Emperor's bow fell, and the people looked up at the Yellow Emperor already risen to Heaven, and then they held that bow and the dragon's whiskers and cried aloud. Therefore later ages called that place Dinghu after it, and called that bow Wuhao. Where the Taishigong ji gives the eulogy of the Five Emperors it also says that the Yellow Emperor, having finished the feng and shan sacrifices, became an immortal. His ministers gathered his robe and cap, and on that account buried them.

I answer: this is an empty saying. What in truth is the Yellow Emperor? Is it a title, or a posthumous name? If it is a posthumous name, it is what his ministers and sons set out in eulogy. They eulogize what he did while he lived and make of it his posthumous name. If the Yellow Emperor loved the Way and thereby rose to Heaven, then his ministers and sons in their eulogy ought to have said he rose as an immortal, and ought not to have made Huang, the Yellow, his posthumous name. The rules for posthumous names say, "He who quiets the people and gives them law is called Huang, the Yellow."

Yellow is the posthumous name of one who gave the people peace; it is not a name for having attained the Way. Of the posthumous names of the hundred kings, if a king was cultivated they called him Wen, the Cultured, and if he was martial they called him Wu, the Martial. Wen and Wu do not miss the fact, and that is how they urge men to good conduct. If the age of the Yellow Emperor was plain and had no posthumous names yet, then who in the world was it that named him the Yellow Emperor? It was so that the Yellow Emperor's ministers and sons should know their lord, and so that the men of later ages should follow his conduct. Whether titles and posthumous names existed in the Yellow Emperor's age is doubtful and cannot be settled, but it is clear that Huang, the Yellow, is no name for rising as an immortal.

Dragons do not rise to Heaven, so if the Yellow Emperor rode one, then it is clear that the Yellow Emperor did not rise to Heaven. When a dragon raises clouds and rain it rides on them and goes, and when the clouds scatter and the rain stops it comes down and enters the deep again. If the Yellow Emperor truly rode a dragon, he would have followed it and sunk into the deep. Consider that the Yellow Emperor was buried at Mount Qiao, and still it is said that his ministers buried his robe and cap. If he truly rode a dragon and rose to Heaven, his clothes did not leave his body; and if, the feng and shan finished, he went off an immortal, his robe and cap ought not to have been left behind either. If the Yellow Emperor truly became an immortal and did not die and rose to Heaven, his ministers and sons and the people saw it with their own eyes. Having seen him rise to Heaven, they must surely know that he did not die. To bury the robe and cap of one who did not die is no different from burying one truly dead; it is not the mind of ministers and sons serving the fact, nor the sense of parting the living from the dead.

Those who went up onto Mount Tai were seventy-two rulers, and all of them wore out their feeling and toiled in thought, anxious and mindful of the king's business, and only then was their merit accomplished and their work established, and they brought about the rule of great peace. When there is great peace, all under Heaven is harmonious and at rest, and then they went up Mount Tai and performed the feng and shan there. Now cultivating the Way and seeking immortality is not the same as being anxious over one's office and diligent in affairs. When the mind thinks on the Way it forgets affairs, and when it is anxious over affairs it harms the nature. The world says that Yao was like dried meat and Shun like dried flesh, that their minds were anxious and troubled and their bodies wasted away. If the Yellow Emperor brought about great peace, then his body ought to have been like the bodies of Yao and Shun. If Yao and Shun did not attain the Way while the Yellow Emperor rose to Heaven, that is not the fact. If the Yellow Emperor put aside affairs and cultivated the Way, then his mind and purpose were in harmony and his body fat and strong, and in this he differed from Yao and Shun, and differing, his merit was not the same. If his merit was not the same, then all under Heaven was not at great peace and yet he went up and performed the feng, and this again is not the fact. The Five Emperors and the Three Kings were all men of surpassing sagely virtue, and the Yellow Emperor too stands above among them. If the sages all become immortals, then the immortals are not the Yellow Emperor alone; and if the sages do not become immortals, how is the Yellow Emperor alone an immortal? The world sees that the Yellow Emperor loved the arts of the magicians, and since those arts are the business of immortals it says that the emperor became an immortal. It sees too the name Dinghu, and then says that the Yellow Emperor mined the copper of Mount Shou and cast a cauldron, and a dragon let down its whiskers and welcomed him. This is no different from what is said of the mountain Kuaiji. The mountain is named Kuaiji, and so they say that Yu of Xia, on his tour of inspection, reckoned accounts on top of this mountain, and that it is therefore called Kuaiji, the Reckoning of Accounts. Now Yu came to Kuaiji to control the waters and not on a tour of inspection, just as the Yellow Emperor loved the magicians' arts and did not rise to Heaven. That there was no reckoning of accounts is like there being no fact of a cast cauldron and a dragon letting down its whiskers. A village is named Shengmu, Outdoing the Mother: can we say that there was truly a son there who outdid his mother? A town is named Zhaoge, Morning Song: can we say that its people sing when they rise in the morning?

The Confucian books say: The king of Huainan studied the Way, and called together the men of the Way from all under Heaven, and bent the honor of a whole state to bow before the scholars of the arts of the Way. Because of this the scholars of those arts gathered together in Huainan, and there was no strange recipe or outlandish art that did not come pouring out in rivalry. The king at last attained the Way, and his whole household rose to Heaven, and even his livestock all became immortals, so that the dogs barked up in Heaven and the cocks crowed among the clouds. This says that there was some drug of immortality left over, and that the dogs and the cocks ate it and rose to Heaven along with the king. Those who love the Way and study immortality all say that it is so. This is an empty saying.

Now a man is a thing, and though he be honored as a king or a marquis, his nature does not differ from other things. Of things there is none that does not die; how then can a man become an immortal? Birds have feathers and wings and can fly, but they cannot rise to Heaven. Men have no feathers and no wings; with what would they fly upward? Even if they had feathers and wings, it would be no more than being the same as the birds; and how much more, having none, how are they to rise to Heaven? Consider that a thing able to fly upward has from birth the sign of feathers and wings, and a thing able to run has from birth the shape of hooves and feet. What runs cannot fly upward, and what flies upward cannot run. In the nature they are endowed with and the breath they receive, their bodies are set apart. Now a man is endowed with the nature of a runner, and so is born without the sign of feathers and wings, and grows up and comes to old age with nothing strange about him to the end. Yet they say that by loving the Way and studying immortality feathers and wings grow midway and he at last flies upward. If the nature of a thing could be changed, then metal and wood and water and fire could be altered as well. That a toad turns into a quail, and that a sparrow goes into the water and becomes a clam, is an endowment of their own nature; it is not a thing that studying the Way can accomplish. Those who love the Way, fearing that they may perhaps be of some such kind, say that a man can grow feathers and wings, and that when the feathers and wings are complete he can rise to Heaven. Moreover, in the birth and growth of things there is nothing suddenly finished or abruptly sprung up, but in all of it there is a soaking in by degrees. If a man who practices the Way and studies immortality could first grow feathers a few inches long, and rouse himself up from the ground and rise to the steps of a terrace, then we might say that he rises to Heaven. Now with no sign of a small rising there is all at once the proof of a great flight; how is it that the study of the magicians' arts alone is accomplished without any soaking in by degrees?

The great proof of feathers and wings is hard to observe as fact. Let us for the present test youth and age by a man's beard and hair and by the color of things.

When a thing is born its color is green, and when it ripens its color is yellow. When a man is young his hair is black, and when he is old his hair is white. Yellow is the proof that a thing has ripened, and white is the proof that a man has grown old. When a thing has yellowed, though a man water it and bank it up and tend it, it can never be made green again; and when the hair has whitened, though he swallow drugs and nourish his nature, it can never be made black again. Black and green cannot be brought back; how then can age and decay be driven back? Yellow and white are like meat that was raw and has been roasted, or fish that was fresh and has been boiled until it is done. What is done cannot be made raw again, and what is done cannot be made fresh again. Fresh and raw are like youth and vigor, and done is like decay and old age. Heaven nourishes things, and can make a thing flourish until autumn, but cannot stretch it as far as spring. Swallowing drugs and nourishing the nature can keep a man free of illness, but it cannot lengthen his life into immortality. If becoming an immortal makes the body light and the breath strong, still one cannot rise to Heaven; and even if the proof of lightness and strength were shown, there is still no proof of feathers and wings, so with what does one rise to Heaven? Heaven and earth are both bodies. If the earth has no below, then Heaven has no above. Heaven has no road for rising up, so what would it be to bore through the body of Heaven? The strength of a man cannot enter it. If the gate of Heaven is in the northwest, then one who rises to Heaven ought to go up from Kunlun. The state of Huainan is in the southeast of the earth. If he truly rose to Heaven, the whole household ought first to have gone by way of Kunlun, and only so obtained its steps. If they beat their wings and flew aslant and hurried toward the northwestern corner, then the king of Huainan had wings. Now it is not said that he went by way of Kunlun, and it is not said either that wings grew on his body; it is emptily said that he rose to Heaven, and in the end it is empty and not fact.

Consider Liu An, the king of Huainan: he was of the time of Emperor Xiaowu. His father Chang was removed for a crime to Yandao in Shu, and reached Yong and died on the road. An succeeded him as king, and resenting that his father had been removed and had died, he harbored a rebellious heart and called together the masters of the arts, wishing to do a great thing. The likes of Wu Bei filled his halls, composing books of the arts of the Way and putting out strange and outlandish writings, gathering shadows and confusing the head. The company of the Eight Masters wished to show marvels as though they had the look of men who had attained the Way, but the Way was never accomplished and no proof was established, and so he plotted rebellion with Wu Bei, and when the affair came out he killed himself; some say that he was put to death. Being put to death and killing oneself are one and the same fact. The world sees that his books are deep and dark and strange and outlandish, and sees too that the company of the Eight Masters seemed to have proofs, and so it is handed down that the king of Huainan became an immortal and rose to Heaven. This misses the fact.

The Confucian books say: Lu Ao traveled to the Northern Sea, passed through Taiyin, entered Xuanguan, and came to the heights of Menggu, where he saw a certain gentleman. His eyes were deep and his nose dark, he had the neck of a wild goose and the shoulders of a kite, buoyant above and spare below, and he was dancing lightly, facing into the wind. Looking about, he saw Lu Ao, and in confusion he let down his arms and fled and hid beneath a stone tablet. Lu Ao then looked at him, and he was crouched like a turtle's shell, eating clams. Lu Ao thereupon spoke with him and said, "You will surely take me, Ao, for one who has turned his back on the common world, left the crowd and parted from his party, and looked out to the end beyond the six directions. There is none but Ao. Ao has traveled since he was a child, and has not slackened even to his full growth, and has gone all round the four ends of the earth; only the shadowed north I had not yet peered into. Now all at once I have seen you here. May I perhaps be your friend?" The gentleman burst out laughing and said, "Ha! You are a man of Zhongzhou, and it is not fitting that you should come this far. Here too the sun and the moon shine and the ranked stars are borne overhead, here the four seasons run and the yin and the yang give birth. Set beside that nameless land, this place is a mere bump on the ground. As for me, I have traveled south to the wilds of Wanglang and rested north in the country of deep silence, and I have gone west to the end of the dim and distant quarter and pierced east through what lies before Hongmeng. There is no earth below that place and no Heaven above it; listen for it and there is nothing to hear, look at it and the eyes are dazzled. Beyond it there are still things with shape, and past the things with shape, at one lifting they can go a thousand thousand li, and I have still not been able to be there. Now you have traveled and come only this far, and already you speak of having looked out to the end. Is that not far from it! Still, you stay here. I have an appointment with Hanman above Jiugai, and I cannot stay long." The gentleman raised his arms and flung up his body, and went off into the clouds. Lu Ao lifted his eyes and gazed after him, and when he could see him no more he stopped; and his glad heart did not slacken, yet he was downcast as if he had lost something, and he said, "Set beside that gentleman, I am as a yellow swan to a worm in the soil. I go all day and do not get a foot away, and I thought myself far gone. Is it not sad!"

As for Lu Ao, he said that only the dragon, having no wings, rides the clouds when it rises. If Lu Ao had said that the gentleman had wings, his words could be believed. Now he does not say that he had wings; with what then did he rise to the clouds? Moreover, whatever can lift itself lightly and enter the clouds does so because its food and drink differ from a man's. The dragon's food differs from the snake's, and so its bearing is not the same as the snake's. I have heard that those who practice the Way eat the essence of metal and jade and feed on the blossom of the purple mushroom, and that eating essence makes the body light, so that they can become divine immortals. That gentleman ate the flesh of clams and ate the same as the common people, and had no proof of being made light by essence; how then could he fling up his body and rise to Heaven? I have heard that one who feeds on breath does not eat things, and that one who eats things does not feed on breath. If that gentleman ate things and so did not feed on breath, then he could not lift himself lightly.

Perhaps Lu Ao studied the Way and sought immortality and traveled to the Northern Sea, and left the crowd and went far off, and had no proof of having attained the Way, and was ashamed before his village and a burden in men's talk. Knowing of himself that he would surely be reproached by the world over a matter so certain, he made up boastful and wild words and said that he had seen a certain gentleman; and his meaning was that there are immortals, and that his seeking one and not yet finding was because the appointed number had not yet come. That Liu An, the king of Huainan, was caught in rebellion and died, all under Heaven heard and all at that time saw, and still there are those in the Confucian books who say that he attained the Way and went off an immortal and that his cocks and dogs rose to Heaven. How much more would Lu Ao, one man alone walking in a land where tracks end, not have made up dark sayings out of nothing? This is no different from the words of Xiang Mandu of Puban in Hedong. Mandu loved the Way and studied immortality, and abandoned his household and disappeared, and came back after three years. His household asked him how it had been, and Mandu said, "When I went I could not tell it of myself. All at once it was as if I were lying down, and there were several immortals, and they took me up to Heaven and stopped a few li short of the moon. I saw that above and below the moon it was dark, and it was dark so that I could not tell east from west. Staying beside the moon, the cold there was bitter and desolate. When my mouth was hungry and I wanted food, the immortals would at once give me a cup of flowing rosy cloud to drink, and each time I drank a cup I was not hungry for months. I do not know how many years and months I went, and I do not know by what I was at fault; all at once it was as if I were lying down, and I came down again and arrived here." In Hedong they called him the cast-out immortal.

One who argues from the fact, hearing this, knows at once that it is not so. If Mandu could go up to Heaven, why did he not become an immortal? It had already been three years; for what reason did he come back? When a man leaves the world of men and rises above the august Heaven, his essential breath and his body are changed from what they were. In the changes of the ten thousand things there is none that comes back again. When the grub turns into the cicada and its wings are complete, it cannot turn back into a grub. Everything able to rise has wings, and when it has risen and come down again its wings are as before. Had wings been seen on Mandu's body, his words could be believed; but there were no wings on his body, and so his words are empty and false. Being empty, they are one and the same fact with Lu Ao's. Perhaps Mandu loved the Way, and silently abandoned his household and went, and wandered about distant parts, and in the end got nothing. When his strength was worn out and his hopes were at an end, he silently came home again, and being ashamed and having nothing to say, he then said he had gone up to Heaven. His meaning was to say that the Way can be got by study and that there truly are immortals, but that he himself had perhaps some fault, and so having succeeded he was cast out again, and having risen he came down again.

The Confucian books say: The king of Qi fell ill and sent a man to Song to fetch Wen Zhi. Wen Zhi came, and looked at the king's illness, and said to the crown prince, "The king's illness can certainly be ended." Even so, he said, when the king's illness is ended the king will surely kill Zhi. The crown prince said, "For what reason?" Wen Zhi answered, "If the king is not angered, the illness cannot be cured. And if the king is angered, Zhi will surely die."

The crown prince knocked his head on the ground and pressed his request, saying, "If you truly end the king's illness, your servant and your servant's mother will contend for it with the king to the death, and he will surely favor your servant's mother. I beg you, sir, not to be troubled."

Wen Zhi said, "Very well. I ask leave to serve the king with my death." He made appointments with the crown prince, and three times said he would go and did not come, so that the king of Qi was of course already angry. Wen Zhi came, and did not take off his shoes but climbed onto the bed and trod on the king's clothes, and asked about the king's illness. The king was angry and would not speak with him. Wen Zhi thereupon brought out words to make the king's anger heavier. The king shouted and rose up, and the illness was thereupon ended. The king was greatly angered and was not pleased, and was about to boil Wen Zhi alive. The crown prince and the queen contended urgently for him and could not prevail, and in the end Wen Zhi was boiled alive in a cauldron, and the fire was kept under him three days and three nights, and his face did not change color. Wen Zhi said, "If you truly want to kill me, why do you not cover it, and so cut off the breath of yin and yang?"

The king had it covered, and Wen Zhi then died. Now Wen Zhi was a man of the Way, and entering water he was not wetted and entering fire he was not burned, and so he was in the cauldron three days and three nights and his face did not change color. This is an empty saying.

Now if Wen Zhi was boiled three days and three nights and his face did not change color, and at one covering his breath was cut off and he died, this is no proof of having attained the Way. Every living, breathing thing dies when its breath is cut off. A dead thing, when boiled, falls apart at once. Put a living, breathing thing inside a sealed vessel, and cover its mouth and paint its cracks with lacquer, so that the breath within and without is shut off and the breathing cannot escape, and in a little while it dies. Put it in a boiling cauldron and it likewise falls apart at once. Why? Because its body is the same and its breath is even, and it is endowed with its nature from Heaven and is of one kind with us. If Wen Zhi did not breathe and was the same as metal and stone, and entering the boiling water did not fall apart, that is right. If Wen Zhi breathed and was boiled and did not die, that is wrong. If Wen Zhi spoke, then speech is made with sound, and sound is made with breathing in and out. The movement of breathing in and out arises from the stirring of blood and breath. The stirring of blood and breath is attached to bone and flesh. A thing of bone and flesh, when boiled, dies at once. Now to say that he was boiled and did not die is the first emptiness. If he could be boiled and cooked and not die, then he was a true man and the same as metal and stone. Metal and stone, though they be covered, are no different from what is not covered. Now to say that when they covered Wen Zhi he died is the second emptiness. Put a man in cold water, with none of the heat of boiling water or fire, and if the inside of his nose and mouth does not open to the outside, then in a moment his breath is cut off and he dies. If sinking a man in cold water still does not let him live, how much more in boiling water with the fierceness of a raging fire? To say that he entered the boiling water and did not die is the third emptiness. When a man is submerged in water his mouth is not visible outside, and the sound of his words does not carry. When Wen Zhi was boiled, his body must have been submerged in the cauldron.

If he was submerged his mouth was not visible, and if his mouth was not visible his words did not carry. Wen Zhi's speech is the fourth emptiness. That a man who dies at once on being boiled should go three days and three nights without his face changing color, even a foolish and stupid man would know enough to think strange. Even if the king of Qi knew nothing, the crown prince and the ministers would surely have seen the marvel. Had they thought Wen Zhi a marvel, they would have asked that he be taken out, and honored him and favored him and served him with respect, and followed him to ask about the Way. Now it says three days and three nights, and yet there is no word of ministers and sons asking that he be taken out, and this is the fifth emptiness. Perhaps this came of hearing that Wen Zhi was really boiled, and that being boiled he died at once. The world saw that Wen Zhi was a man of the Way, and then made up the empty saying that he did not die. It is like the Yellow Emperor, who really died, and the tradition says that he rose to Heaven, or Huainan, who was caught in rebellion, and the books say that he passed beyond the world. The world loves to hand down what is empty, and so the story of Wen Zhi has been handed down to this day.

The world has no proof of anyone attaining the Way, but it does have men of long life, and the world sees a long-lived man study the Way to become an immortal and pass a hundred years without dying, and all together they call him an immortal. How do we make this clear? In the time of Emperor Wu there was Li Shaojun, who came before the emperor with his recipe for sacrificing to the stove and giving up grain and driving off old age, and the emperor honored him and esteemed him. Shaojun hid his years and the place where he was born and grew up, and always said of himself that he was seventy, and that he could make things drive off old age. He traveled among the feudal lords with his arts, and he had no wife. When men heard that he could command things and could keep from growing old, they sent him gifts one after another, so that he always had money and gold and clothing and food to spare.

Men all thought that he did not work at any livelihood and yet had plenty, and they did not know either what sort of man he was, and so they vied all the more to serve him. Shaojun, with his bent for the arts, was good at putting things cleverly and hitting the mark strangely. Once he went with the marquis of Wu'an to see the emperor, and the emperor had an old bronze vessel and asked Shaojun about it. Shaojun said, "This vessel was set out at Boqin in the fifteenth year of Duke Huan of Qi." Presently they examined the inscription on it, and it was indeed a vessel of Duke Huan of Qi, and the whole palace was astonished and took Shaojun for a man several hundred years old. After a long while Shaojun fell ill and died.

Those whom the present age calls men who have attained the Way are of Li Shaojun's kind. Shaojun died among men, and men saw his corpse, and so we know that Shaojun was a man long-lived by nature. Had Shaojun lived in the mountain forests and gone into wilds where tracks end, and fallen ill and died alone among the rocks, and had his corpse become food for tigers and wolves and foxes and wildcats, then the world would once again have thought that he had truly gone off an immortal.

The men of the world who study the Way do not have even Shaojun's span, and before their years reach a hundred they die along with the crowd. Yet foolish and ignorant men still say that they have shed the corpse and gone, and that in fact they did not die. What is this so-called shedding of the corpse? Does it mean that the body dies and the spirit goes, or that the body does not die and gets free of the skin and leaves? If it means that the body dies and the spirit goes, this is no different from dying, and every man is an immortal too. If it means that he does not die but gets free of the skin and leaves, then the bones and flesh of all those who died studying the Way are there complete, and are no different from the corpse of an ordinary death. Now the cicada leaving the grub, the turtle shedding its shell, the snake sloughing its skin, the deer dropping its horns, these are things of shell and hide leaving shell and hide and carrying their bone and flesh away, and may be called a shedding of the corpse. Those who die studying the Way have corpses that resemble the grub, and even so it cannot yet be called a shedding of the corpse. Why? Consider that when the cicada leaves the grub it is no more divine than the grub; and how much more, when the thing is not even like a grub, to call it a shedding of the corpse is once again empty and false and misses the fact. The Grand Historian was of the same age and the same time as Li Shaojun, and when Shaojun died, though the one who stood by the corpse was not the Grand Historian, it is enough to have seen the fact of it. If in fact he did not die but shed the corpse and went off, the Grand Historian ought to have recorded how it was, and ought not to have said that he died. That the ninety-year-old man in the company had been a child at the time is proof of Shaojun's old age and long life. Perhaps when Shaojun was fourteen or fifteen, the old man was a child following his grandfather. If Shaojun died at two hundred years, how would he not have known it? From Emperor Wu back to Duke Huan's casting of the bronze vessel is a distance Shaojun could not have reached and seen. Perhaps he had heard that there was an old bronze vessel inside the palace, or someone had examined its inscription and told him, and so he knew it on sight. Men fond of such matters nowadays, seeing an old sword or an ancient hook, can often name it; can we say again that they saw with their eyes the time when it was cast and made?

The world sometimes says that Dongfang Shuo too was a man of the Way, that his surname was Jin and his style Manqian, that he changed his surname and altered his name and served in office at the Han court, so that outwardly he had the name of an officeholder while inwardly he was a man who had passed beyond the world. This too is empty.

Now Shuo and Shaojun were both in the time of Emperor Wu, and the Grand Historian lived to see them. Shaojun had his recipe for giving up grain and sacrificing to the stove and driving off old age, and he named the cauldron cast by Duke Huan of Qi, and he had the proof of knowing where the ninety-year-old man's grandfather had roamed and shot; and yet he still had no fact of having attained the Way, and was merely a man long-lived by nature and slow to die. How much more, when Shuo has not even the proof of Shaojun's arts, what did the men of the world see, to say that he attained the Way? Consider that in the time of Emperor Wu the men of the Way Wencheng and Wuli and their like went into the sea to seek immortals and to search out the drug of no death, and had proofs of the arts of the Way, and so were trusted by the emperor. Shuo had no mission into the sea and no proof of anything strange. Even if he had something strange, it would be no more than the kind of Shaojun and the like of Wencheng and Wuli; how much less can it be said that he had the Way?

Perhaps it happened here again as with Shaojun: he hid of himself the place where he was born, and the men then at court did not know how it stood, and Shuo made much of the greatness of his years; and men saw that his face looked young, and that his nature was besides calm and plain and that he did not care for office, and that he was skilled at divining and at guessing what was hidden under a cover and other strange and marvelous games, and so the men of the world said that he was a man who had attained the Way.

The world sometimes holds that by the Way of Laozi one can pass beyond the world, being calm and plain and without desire, nourishing the essence and sparing the breath. Now a man makes his lifespan out of essence and spirit, and if the essence and spirit are not harmed, his lifespan is long and he does not die. As an accomplished matter, they say that Laozi practiced this and passed a hundred years and passed beyond the world and became a true man.

Now how does being calm and plain and of few desires compare with the birds and beasts? The birds and beasts too grow old and die. The birds and beasts harbor feeling and desire, and there are ways in which they are like men, so they are not enough to argue from. What feeling or desire have the grasses and trees at birth, that they are born in spring and die in autumn?

Now the grasses and trees are without desire, and their span does not pass a year; and men have much feeling and desire, and their span reaches a hundred. Here what is without feeling and desire dies young instead, and what has feeling and desire lives long. This being so, the saying that Laozi's art, being calm and plain and without desire, lengthened his years and passed him beyond the world, is again empty. Perhaps Laozi was of Li Shaojun's kind, and practiced the calm and plain Way, and it happened that his allotted span was also long of itself. The world sees his long span and hears of his calmness and plainness, and says that Laozi passed beyond the world by his art.

The world sometimes takes giving up grain and not eating to be the mark of a man of the arts of the Way, and says that Wangzi Qiao and his like, by not eating grain, ate differently from ordinary men, and so had a span different from ordinary men, and passed a hundred years and passed beyond the world and at last became immortals. This too is empty. Now a man at birth is endowed with a nature for eating and drinking, and so above in his body he has a mouth and teeth, and below in his body he has openings. With mouth and teeth he chews his food, and through the openings he pours it out. To follow this nature is to have got Heaven's correct Way, and to go against this nature is to defy what was given him. Having lost the root breath he had from Heaven, how can he get long life? If Ziqiao was born without teeth and mouth and openings, then the nature he was endowed with differed from other men's; and even a nature differing from other men's could still not be called long life, how much less when the body is all the same and only what he practices is different, so that to say he passed beyond the world is not the fact of his nature.

Now a man's not eating is like the body's not being clothed. Clothing warms the skin, and food fills the belly. When the skin is warm and the belly full, the essence and spirit are bright and flourishing. If he is hungry and not filled, and cold and not warmed, then there is the harm of freezing and starving. How can a man who freezes and starves live long? Moreover, a man at birth makes his breath out of food, just as the grasses and trees at birth make their breath out of the soil. Pull up the roots of grasses and trees and part them from the soil, and they wither and die early. Stop up a man's mouth and keep him from eating, and he starves and does not live long.

The men of the Way boast to one another, saying that the true man feeds on breath. He makes his food out of breath, and so a tradition says, "One who feeds on breath lives long and does not die; though he is not filled with grain, he is filled with breath as well." This too is empty.

Now what breath is this breath? If it means the breath of yin and yang, the breath of yin and yang cannot fill a man, for a man may swallow breath, and the breath fills him and his belly swells, and he cannot be sated and full. If it means the breath of the hundred drugs, a man may take drugs, eating a measure of powder and swallowing tens of pills, and the force of the drugs is fierce and strong and his chest is confused and poisoned, and they cannot fill a man. Those who feed on breath must mean blowing out and breathing in, spitting out the stale and taking in the new. Of old there was Pengzu, who once practiced this, and he could not live long but fell ill and died.

The men of the Way sometimes hold that by guiding the breath and nourishing the nature one passes beyond the world and does not die, taking it that the blood and the vessels are within the body, and that if they are not moved and shaken and bent and stretched they are stopped up and do not pass through, and that not passing through they gather and pile up, and this becomes illness and death. This too is empty.

Now a man's body is like the body of the grasses and trees. Grasses and trees on the peak of a high mountain, meeting the buffeting of the swift wind and shaken day and night, can they after all do better than those hidden in the mountain valleys and sheltered from the swift wind? Consider that in the growth of grasses and trees the ones that are shaken are injured and do not thrive; then for what reason do men who guide and pull and shake the body live long and not die? Now the storing of the blood and the vessels in the body is like the flowing of the rivers over the earth. The flow of the rivers is muddy and not clear, and the movement of the blood and the vessels is likewise disturbed and not at rest. Not being at rest, it is like a man toiling and suffering with no ease; how can he get long life?

The men of the Way sometimes hold that by taking medicines and other substances they lighten the body and increase the breath and lengthen their years and pass beyond the world. This too is empty. Now taking medicines and other substances to lighten the body and increase the breath does have some proof. But as for lengthening the years and passing beyond the world, the world has no proof of it. The hundred drugs cure illness, and when the illness is cured the breath comes back, and when the breath comes back the body is light. In all men's endowed nature the body is of itself light at root and the breath is of itself long at root, but they are struck by wind and damp and the hundred illnesses injure them, and so the body is heavy and the breath is poor. Taking good drugs makes the body and the breath come back to what they were; it is not that the breath was originally scant and the body heavy and that on getting the drugs the breath then lengthens and the body becomes lighter than before, for it was there of itself at the time of endowment. Therefore taking medicines and other substances drives off the hundred illnesses and makes the body light and the breath long and brings it back to its root nature; how can it lengthen the years to the point of passing beyond the world? Of the kinds that have blood and vessels there is none that is not born, and none born that does not die. By its being born we know its dying. Heaven and earth are not born, and so do not die; the yin and the yang are not born, and so do not die. Death is the proof of life, and life is the proof of death. What has a beginning must have an end, and what has an end must have a beginning. Only what has no end and no beginning lives long and does not die. A man's life is like ice. Water congeals and becomes ice, and breath gathers and becomes a man. Ice at the utmost lasts one winter and melts, and a man at the end finishes a hundred years and dies. If a man can be made not to die, can ice be made never to melt? All those who study the arts of immortality and take them for a recipe of no death must surely fail, just as one cannot make ice never melt in the end.