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Updated: June 17, 2025
But you rather like the little tune, and stop to listen . . . and then . . . Oh God! the Wonder of wonders has happened, and the Universe will never be quite the dull, fool, ditchwater thing it was to you before . . . Liehtse gives one rather that kind of feeling. We know practically nothing about him.
But by Chwangtse's time the two schools had separated: Confucius was Chwangtse's butt; we shall see why. And in the scum of Liehtse he is made fun of in Chwangtse's spirit, but without Changtse's wit and style.
And there Liehtse leaves it in all its simplicity; but I shall venture to put my spoke in, and add that he has really given you a perfect philosophy for the conduct of life: for the government of that other and inner tiger, the lower nature, especially; it is always that, you will remember, for which the Tiger stands in Chinese symbology; and also for education, the government of nations everything.
Alas! they were at loggerheads: a wide breach between the two schools of thought had come to be by their time; or perhaps it was they who created it. We shall arrive at them next week; tonight, to introduce you to Liehtse, a Taoist teacher who came sometime between Laotse and Chwangtse; perhaps in the last quarter of the fifth century, when Socrates was active in Greece.
Where are you to say that Liehtse's Confucianism ends, and his Taoism begins? It is very difficult to draw a line. Confucius, remember, gave "As-the-heart" for the single character that should express his whole doctrine. Liehtse is leading you inward, to see how the conduct of life depends upon Balance, which also is a word that may translate Tao.
It took three years to complete, and was so well done, so realistic in its down and glossiness, that if placed in a heap of real mulberry-leaves, it could not be distinguished from them. The State pensioned him as a reward; but Liehtse, hearing of it, said: "If God Almighty took three years to complete a leaf, there would be very few trees with leaves on them.
Lionel Giles' translation, too many liberties are being taken, verbally, with the narative parts of these stories, to allow quotation marks and small type. Wen Chih examined his heart under X-rays; really and truly that is in effect what Liehtse says. "Ah," said he, "I see that a good square inch of your heart is hollow; you are within a little of being a true Sage.
But now you say you were decieving me, my soul returns to its perplexity, and my eyes and ears to their sight and hearing. What terrible dangers I have escaped! My limbs freeze with horror to think of them." Tsai Wo, continues Liehtse, told this story to Confucius. "Is this so strange to you?" said the latter.
The story is profoundly characteristic: like Ah Sin's smile in the poem, "childlike and bland"; but hiding wonderful depths of philosophy beneath. Laotse showed his deep Occult wisdom when he said that the Man of Tao "does difficult things while they are still easy." Liehtse tells you the story of the Assitant to the Keeper of the Wild Beasts at Loyang.
Thus it appeared that the attributes of straightness and crookedness were not inherent in the shadow, but corresponded to certain positions in the body . . . . "Holding this Theory of Consequents," says Liehtse, "is to be at home in the antecedent."
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