Kung-nì replied, "It is fasting, as I will tell you. But when you have the method, will you find it easy to practice it? He who thinks it easy will be disapproved of by the bright Heaven."
Hui said, "My family is poor. For months together we have no spirituous drink, nor do we taste the proscribed food or any strong-smelling vegetables—can this be regarded as fasting?"
The reply was, "It is the fasting appropriate to sacrificing, but it is not the fasting of the mind."
"I venture to ask what that fasting of the mind is," said Hui.
Kung-nì answered, "Maintain a perfect unity in every movement of your will, You will not wait for the hearing of your ears about it, but for the hearing of your mind. You will not wait even for the hearing of your mind, but for the hearing of the spirit.
"Let the hearing of the ears rest with the ears. Let the mind rest in the verification of the rightness of what is in the will. But the spirit is free from all preoccupation and so waits for the appearance of things. Where the proper course is, there is freedom from all preoccupation—such freedom is the fasting of the mind."
Hui said, "Before it was possible for me to employ this method, there I was, the Hui that I am; now, that I can employ it, the Hui that I was has passed away. Can I be said to have obtained this freedom from preoccupation?"
The Master replied, "Entirely. I tell you that you can enter and be at ease in the enclosure where he is, and not come into collision with the reputation which belongs to him. If he listen to your counsels, let him hear your notes; if he will not listen, be silent. Open no other door; employ no other medicine; dwell with him as with a friend in the same apartment, and as if you had no other option, and you will not be far from success in your object.
"Not to move a step is easy; to walk without treading on the ground is difficult. In acting after the manner of men, it is easy to fall into hypocrisy; in acting after the manner of Heaven, it is difficult to play the hypocrite.
"I have heard of flying with wings; I have not heard of flying without them. I have heard of the knowledge of the wise; I have not heard of the knowledge of the unwise.
"Look at that aperture left in the wall—the empty apartment is filled with light through it. Felicitous influences rest in the mind thus emblemed, as in their proper resting place. Even when they do not so rest, we have what is called the body seated and the mind galloping abroad.
"The information that comes through the ears and eyes is comprehended internally, and the knowledge of the mind becomes something external—when this is the case, the spiritual intelligences will come, and take up their dwelling with us, and how much more will other men do so!
"All things thus undergo a transforming influence. This was the hinge on which Yü and Shun moved; it was this which Fû-hsì and Kì-khü practised all their lives: how much more should other men follow the same rule!"
IMAGE: Ivan Kramskoi, Christ in the Wilderness (1872)
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