Chuang Tzu 6.8

Nan-po Tsze-khwei asked Nü Yü, saying, "You are old, Sir, while your complexion is like that of a child—how is it so?" 

The reply was, "I have become acquainted with the Tâo." 

The other said, "Can I learn the Tâo?" 

Nü Yü said, "No. How can you? You, Sir, are not the man to do so. 

"There was Pû-liang Î who had the abilities of a sagely man, but not the Tâo, while I had the Tâo, but not the abilities. I wished, however, to teach him, if, peradventure, he might become the sagely man indeed. If he should not do so, it was easy, I thought, for one possessing the Tâo of the sagely man to communicate it to another possessing his abilities. 

"Accordingly, I proceeded to do so, but with deliberation. After three days, he was able to banish from his mind all worldly matters. 

"This accomplished, I continued my intercourse with him in the same way; and in seven days he was able to banish from his mind all thought of men and things. 

"This accomplished, and my instructions continued, after nine days, he was able to count his life as foreign to himself. 

"This accomplished, his mind was afterwards clear as the morning; and after this he was able to see his own individuality. 

"That individuality perceived, he was able to banish all thought of Past or Present. 

"Freed from this, he was able to penetrate to the truth that there is no difference between life and death—how the destruction of life is not dying, and the communication of other life is not living. 

The Tâo is a thing which accompanies all other things and meets them, which is present when they are overthrown and when they obtain their completion. Its name is Tranquillity amid all Disturbances, meaning that such Disturbances lead to Its Perfection." 

"And how did you, being alone without any teacher, learn all this?" 

"I learned it," was the reply, "from the son of Fû-mo; he learned it from the grandson of Lo-sung; he learned it from Shan-ming; he learned it from Nieh-hsü; he, from Hsü-yì; he, from Wû-âo; he, from Hsüan-ming; he, from Tshan-liâo; and he learned it from Î-shih." 

IMAGE: Isaac Levitan, Over Eternal Peace (1894)