Biansui — Examining Baleful Influences辨祟篇

The common world trusts in calamity and curses, and holds that when men fall ill and die, meet with trouble and are found guilty, are killed and shamed, or laugh for joy, there is always something they have transgressed against. In raising a building, moving house, sacrificing, burying the dead, traveling and working, taking office, and marrying, if a man does not pick a lucky day and does not avoid the bad year and month, he strikes against ghosts and meets with spirits, and the forbidden hours do him harm. So sickness breaks out and calamity comes, and he is caught in the law and falls into guilt. Even death, the wasting of a household and the wiping out of a family, is all said to come from not being heedful enough, from transgressing and striking against what is forbidden. Argued from the facts, this is wild talk.

Now a man in the world cannot help doing things, and after a thing is done there cannot but be luck and ill luck. When men see luck they point to it as the blessing of a day picked beforehand; when they see ill luck they stab at it as the calamity of striking against a forbidden thing in the past. Often a man picks a day and gets calamity, or strikes against a forbidden thing and gets a blessing. The craftsmen and the technicians who guess at affairs wish to carry their art through, so when they see calamity and a forbidden thing they do not say so, and when they hear of a blessing they hide it and do not pass it on. They heap up calamities to frighten those who are not heedful, and set out blessings to spur on those who fear the hours. So the men of the age, foolish or wise, worthy or unworthy, ruler or man in hemp clothes, all fear it and trust it and turn to it, and none dares go against it or transgress. They put it back to what is old and far off, and no one can make it plain, and they hold it to be the book of Heaven and earth and the art of the worthy and the sage. The ruler is careful of his office and the common people are careful of their lives, and they follow one another in trusting it and no longer waver. So when a ruler raises a work, craftsmen and technicians fill the courtyard, and when the common people have something to do, they ask about the hours for fear of striking against harm.

Crooked books and false writings grow out of this. Men bring out ideas cleverly and knowingly for the sake of gain, they startle and delude the foolish and the dark, they angle among the rich and steal from the poor. All the further is this from the old measures and from the utmost meaning of the sages.

When a sage raises an affair, he settles it first upon what is right. Once what is right is settled and fixed, he decides it by divination, to show that he does not keep it to himself alone, and to make clear that his meaning is one with the ghosts and spirits and that they point the same way, so that the many below him may trust and use it and not doubt. So the Shu sets out the seven divinations and the Yi carries the eight trigrams. To follow them does not surely bring a blessing, and to go against them does not surely bring calamity. Yet the coming of calamity and blessing is the hour, and the coming of death and life is the destiny. A man's destiny hangs upon Heaven, and his luck and ill luck lie in the hour. When the destiny runs out, Heaven cannot lengthen it though his conduct be good. When the destiny is long, Heaven cannot take it away though his conduct be evil. Heaven is the master of the hundred spirits. The way and its virtue, kindness and duty, are the way of Heaven; trembling and fear are the heart of Heaven. To cast out the way and destroy virtue is to hold the way of Heaven cheap; to be harsh and narrow and unruly is to go against the meaning of Heaven. In the world none went further in not practicing the way and its virtue than Jie and King Zhou, and none went further in wild and lawless conduct than King You and King Li. Jie and King Zhou did not die early, and King You and King Li were not cut off young. Said from this, it is clear that meeting a blessing and getting joy does not lie in picking days and avoiding hours, and that crossing into trouble and being caught by calamity does not lie in striking against the year and transgressing the month. Confucius said: "Death and life have their destiny; wealth and rank rest with Heaven."

If there truly were such hours and days, and there truly were calamity and curses, what would a sage grudge that he did not speak of them, and what would he fear that he did not explain them! Look into the old charts and records. In the safety and danger of men in office, among a thousand rulers and ten thousand ministers, in their gaining and losing, their luck and ill luck, the height and lowness of their posts, the fall and rise of their place and their salary, each has his own grade. In a household's managing of property, in poverty and wealth, increase and loss, in the length and shortness of life, each has his own reach. It is not that the high and great and honored raise their affairs on lucky days and the low and small and mean on ill-omened hours. Argued from this, it is known that calamity and blessing, death and life, do not lie in meeting with a lucky omen or in transgressing an ill-omened thing that is forbidden. So a man's life is the nourishing of his essential breath, and a man's death is his destiny running out and being cut off. A man's life was not surely got by meeting luck and coming upon joy. Why then should his death alone be called a transgressing of ill luck and a striking against what is forbidden? Proving it by Confucius and arguing it by death and life, it is known that the hundred calamities and the thousand ill fortunes are not brought about by what a man does. Confucius was a sage, a storehouse of knowledge; death and life are the great affair; and the great affair is the proof of the way. Confucius said: "Death and life have their destiny; wealth and rank rest with Heaven."

It is clear that the many writings and their fine words cannot take this away, and that common men and foolish fellows cannot change it. For a man in the world, calamity and blessing have their destiny, and his own conduct also brings them upon him. When he dwells at peace and does nothing, and calamity or blessing comes of itself, that is the destiny. When he does a thing and raises a work, and luck or ill luck reaches his person, that is the man. Of the sicknesses of men, few do not come from wind and damp and from drink and food. A man lies in the wind and sleeps on damp ground, and then grips his coins and asks about a curse. He eats his fill and stuffs himself, and then purifies himself to undo a calamity.

Then if the sickness is not cured, they say the curse was not found; and if the destiny is cut off of itself, they say the divination did not look closely. They want men to think they know.

Now of the three hundred and sixty naked creatures, man is the head. Man is a thing, the thing among the ten thousand things that has knowledge and wisdom. In receiving his destiny from Heaven and his breath from the primal source, he is no different from other things. Birds have nests to roost in, beasts have holes and burrows, and insects and fish and shelled and scaled things each have their own quarter, as men have houses and towers. Among the things that can move about, there is death and wounding, sickness and hardship, and small and great do one another harm. Sometimes men catch them to fill mouth and belly. It is not that they struck against something in making a nest or digging a hole, or transgressed something in going east and west and moving on. Men have death and life, and things too have an end and a beginning. Men have rising up and dwelling, and things too have their stirring and doing. Their blood and veins, head and feet, ears and eyes, nose and mouth are not marked off from man's. Only their likes and dislikes are not the same as man's, and so a man cannot make out their sounds and does not see what they point to. But when they go about among their own kind and meet with their own sort, their knowing of what to leave and what to go to is no different from man's. They share the same Heaven and the same earth and look up together at sun and moon. Yet the calamity of ghosts and spirits is laid on man alone and not on other things, and the reason for that is not to be made out. In the nature of Heaven and earth man is the honored one. Would the calamity of Heaven then be made for the honored and not set out for the mean! How can their nature and kind be the same and their calamity and trouble be different?

Punishment does not reach up to the great officers, because the sage kings were lenient with the honored. But that the sage kings punished the mean and did not chastise the honored, while ghosts and spirits bring calamity on the honored and no harm on the mean, is not what the Yi calls the great man joining his luck and ill luck with the ghosts and spirits. When a man has transgressed something, has struck against the county office and been caught by the penal law, it is not said that his own fault brought it about, but that his household carries a burden. When he is not heedful in his dwelling and goes past measure in drink and food, it is not said that he lost the right balance, but that his moving house struck against an hour. When the dead follow one after another and the coffins buried come to ten, it is not said that the breath of one defiled the next, but that the burial day was ill-omened. When something happens, they put it down to a transgression; when nothing is done, they put it down to where the man lives. When his dwelling declines and his house is worn away, and flying ill luck and drifting corpses gather in a man's room and home, then again they pray to the ancestors and say that calamity lies low there and harm has been left behind. They fall ill and do not call a physician, they meet with trouble and do not mend their conduct, and they put every stirring down to calamity and name it transgressing and striking against. Their use of knowledge is shallow and rough and their tracing of a matter is not true to the facts. That is the talent of common men. It is like a man bound for a crime who is made a convict under the Sikong. The day he came before the clerk was not surely a bad day, and the hour he was bound to his labor was not surely ill-omened. Suppose a man who has killed someone should seek out a lucky day to go before the clerk, and a guilty man should push his way to a good hour to enter prison and be bound. Could that make the case dissolve and a pardon arrive? A man who does not strike against calamity is not found guilty, and one who is not found guilty does not enter prison. When one morning the order comes and his fetters are loosed and he walks straight out, it is not surely that his ill luck has been dissolved and taken away. In the thousand prisons of the empire and the ten thousand prisoners in them, not all raised their affairs by striking against what is forbidden. Those who hold a post and eat a salary, who have a city to themselves and govern a district, are counted in the thousands and ten thousands, and the days they moved to their posts did not all meet with a lucky hour. The capital of Liyang sank in a single evening and became a lake, and its people had not all transgressed against the year and the month. When Gaozu first rose, Feng and Pei were both restored, and its people had not all been heedful of hours and days. Xiang Yu attacked Xiang'an, and in Xiang'an not a living soul was left, and it is not that they had not prayed and made their offerings. The army of Zhao was buried alive by Qin below Changping, and four hundred thousand men died together at one time, and when they left their homes it is not that they had not picked the hour. On a chen day there is no wailing, for wailing brings a second death in the house. Those who die on a wu or a ji day have another corpse follow them. Yet when a household is wiped out, the day the first of them died is not surely a chen day or a wu or ji day. On a xueji day beasts are killed for sacrifice, and the butchers' stalls have no great store of calamity. On a shangshuo day the many gather, and the wine houses do not strike against harm. A corpse lying bare on the road did not surely set out on a wangwang day, and a coffin laid out in a room did not surely come home on a guiji day.

Said from this, all those who divine and guess at calamities and curses cannot be trusted and used. And those who do trust and use them cannot be held right.

Now suppose ten mouths to feed live within one house, never moving a spade, never changing where they dwell, picking a lucky day for every sacrifice and every marriage, and from spring to winter transgressing nothing that is forbidden. Can those ten men reach a hundred years and not die? The man who divines and guesses at affairs will surely say again: "A house has its flourishing and its decline, and they did not know how to avoid such things as suipo and zhifu." Very well, let them ask often at the house of the craftsmen and technicians, stay when the dwelling flourishes and leave it when it declines, and move the whole household at once when suipo and zhifu come round. Can they reach a hundred years and not die? The man who divines and guesses at affairs will surely say again: "Their moving struck against an hour, and their going and coming was not lucky." Very well, let them again ask each time at the house of the craftsmen and technicians, go when it is fit to move and come when it is fit to return. Can they reach a hundred years and not die? The man who divines and guesses at affairs will surely say again: "Their destiny was thin and their span was at its end." Very well, then the death and life of men rest in the end upon a destiny of their own. They are not brought about by striking against the year and the month, and they are not done by carrying the burden of an ill-omened thing that is forbidden.