By Josef Maria Mayer
1
China is the paradise
Of the wise and the poet.
Two million years ago
And three hundred thousand years ago
Forged Pan Ku, the first man of the universe.
Eighteen thousand years he has worked.
His breath became the wind,
His voice thunder,
His veins rivers,
His flesh earth,
His hair grass and trees,
His bones metal,
His sweat rain,
The insects that clung to his body,
Were the human race.
Each of the first emperors
Reigned eightteen thousand years
And tried from Pan Ku’s insects
To make cultured people.
Before the arrival of the heavenly ruler
Were the people like animals,
Dressed in skins,
Fed with raw meat,
Did love their mothers but not their fathers
(And that 's still so today).
In the year two thousand
Eight hundred and fifty-two appeared
The Emperor Fu -Hsi.
With the help of his exalted Empress
He taught his people the marriage,
Music, writing, painting,
Fishing with nets and mending of nets,
The domestication of animals,
The sericulture.
Dying proclaimed Emperor Fu -Hsi
Shen-Nung as his successor on the throne.
Shen-Nung introduced the agriculture,
Invented the wooden plow,
Justified market and trade
And the science of medicine,
Based on the healing power of plants.
The mighty Emperor Huang-di gifted
During his hundred-years reign
China with the magnet
And the spinning wheel,
Named the historian,
Built first brick buildings,
Built an observatory to study the stars,
Improved the calendar
And new distributed the land.
Yao reigned good,
This is the reason why the Chinese people
Was already fascinated by Yao's virtue.
Yao presented outside of his palace a drum,
So that people can call him
In order to vote their complaints,
And mounted on a blackboard,
That people write down their advices
For the perfecting of his government.
Yao was kind and benevolent as heaven,
Just like the gods.
From a distance he shone like a luminous cloud,
Did you stay close to him, so he shone like the sun.
He was rich, yet not overbearing,
An emperor, but not wasteful.
He wore a yellow cap on his head
And was wearing a dark dress,
Vehicles in a red car,
Which was drawn by white mares.
His house was simple and unadorned.
His diet consisted of a simple soup,
He drank the lentil soup from a wooden bowl.
He himself was not adorned with jewels,
His clothes were without embroidery.
He listened to no love songs
And no sensual music of the south.
In summer he wore a simple linen dress,
In winter he wore a deer’s skin.
And yet he was the richest and the wisest,
The most durable and the most beloved
Of all the emperors who ever ruled
The blooming kingdom under the whole heaven.
He was followed by Shun,
The model of a pious son,
The hero who fought patiently
Against the floods of the Huang He,
He improved the calendar,
Brought weights and measures in a standard,
Made himself popular with the school children,
As he shortened the length of the whip.
In his old age sat Shun
His ablest servant beside him on the throne ,
Yu, the engineer.
He regulated the waters of the nine rivers,
Broke through the nine mountains,
Formed nine lakes.
If it were up to Yu,
All Chinese people had become fishes.
At Yu’s times rice wine was discovered
But Emperor Yü threw the rice wine to the ground and said:
The day will come,
When the Middle Kingdom perishes on rice wine!
Yü banished the inventor of rice wine
And forbade rice wine drinking.
Later the Chinese poets
Add the rice wine to the national cult icon.
Yu but founded a dynasty,
The dynasty of Xia.
In the Xia dynasty was still considered the mother law.
2
Lao Tse knew the wisdom of silence.
Ssu-Ma Qian told
How Lao Tse,
Tired of the intrigues of politicians
And his work in the Imperial Library of Chou,
Decided to leave China,
A secluded area to visit.
When he reached the border,
Said the guard Yin-Hsi to him:
So you go into solitude!
I am asking, do you write a book for me?
Lao Tse wrote a book in two parts,
The Tao and the Te,
From the wisdom and the power,
In five thousand words.
Then he went away
And no one knows where he died.
Tao is the Way, the Wisdom,
The Wisdom of nature and of holy life.
It is a way of thinking
Or better: Do not think!
For thinking is an art,
Good to disputes,
In life but rather harmful.
One finds the Mother Tao,
The Eternal Wisdom,
Not by the intellect,
But by a holy life in silence,
Due to the simplicity
And the contemplation of the Wisdom of nature.
Because knowledge is not Wisdom.
The good practice is not in speech arts,
The rhetoricians practice is not in the quality.
Cease from learning
And the worries disappear by themselves.
Also, the letter is an unnatural art
And an influence of the devil.
The spontaneous impulse of the people,
The people’s urge to live
And desire for love,
Keeps unhindered by the laws of the rule
Life in transition.
The old masters differ
Between natural culture
And learned civilization.
Nature is life,
The silent expiry of traditional festivals,
The order of the seasons.
Nature itself is the Mother of Tao,
The path and the wisdom and the life.
The Eternal Wisdom
Is in every brook, in every stone, in every star
As a trace mysteriously revealed.
The Mother Tao
Is an impersonal cosmic law,
Which the virtue of the holy life clings.
In truth, the universal law the Eternal Wisdom is
And virtue the law of holy living ones.
Human life in its rhythm
Is a part of the great rhythm,
That pulses through all of creation.
The universal Mother Tao
Uniting all the laws of nature
And of human life
And is the primary substance of being.
The Mother Tao is the original form of all forms
And what unites - one before all duality,
She is the absolute,
In which all the parts find their all-unity.
In blissful antiquity
Was human life simply
And peaceful
And everyone was happy.
But then man gained knowledge,
Then was complicated his life
Through arts and inventions,
Man lost the spiritual and moral innocence,
Went from the countryside to the cities
And even began to write books!…
Ah, the misery of the people began
And the tears flowed of the philosophers!
The secret Wisdom
And the silent sufficiency,
This alone brought a lasting happiness,
When the devotion
Is the way of Eternal Wisdom,
Free from all artificial
And from the mind of man.
The sign of the perfect man
Towards Eternal Wisdom
Is deep silence,
It's the kind of philosophical non-doing,
What allows the event of the higher will.
Who does not argue with the people,
The people are not able to dispute!
Repays the hostility of the people
With the virtue of Eternal Wisdom,
The origin of force of Mother Tao!
The good treat well,
The evil also treat good!
The true man meet in the truth,
The untruthful people meet in the truth also!
So the insincere is also the truth!
The soft will overcome the hard things!
Nothing is softer and weaker than water,
But the soft water breaks the hardest rock!
As you say about the saint,
The hero of faith and goodness,
Thus saith Lao Tse about the sage,
About the mature and mellow spirit,
Who returns to simplicity
And mystical silence.
The silence and resting in the silence
Is the beginning of Wisdom.
The perfect man
Does not speak of Eternal Wisdom,
Because she can not be communicated through words,
The perfect man lives the Wisdom
And shows her by the example of his life.
Who knows Mother Tao,
He talks not,
But he who speaks much,
He does not know Mother Tao.
Who knows Mother Tao,
Closes his mouth
And the doors of perception senses.
The perfect man
Is modest.
With fifty years
He knows the limits of his knowledge.
He knows that all knowledge
Only a piece of work remains.
Does he know more than others,
So he tries to hide it.
He moderates his radiant shine
And seeks to equalize himself
Lao Tse knew the wisdom of silence.
Ssu-Ma Qian told
How Lao Tse,
Tired of the intrigues of politicians
And his work in the Imperial Library of Chou,
Decided to leave China,
A secluded area to visit.
When he reached the border,
Said the guard Yin-Hsi to him:
So you go into solitude!
I am asking, do you write a book for me?
Lao Tse wrote a book in two parts,
The Tao and the Te,
From the wisdom and the power,
In five thousand words.
Then he went away
And no one knows where he died.
Tao is the Way, the Wisdom,
The Wisdom of nature and of holy life.
It is a way of thinking
Or better: Do not think!
For thinking is an art,
Good to disputes,
In life but rather harmful.
One finds the Mother Tao,
The Eternal Wisdom,
Not by the intellect,
But by a holy life in silence,
Due to the simplicity
And the contemplation of the Wisdom of nature.
Because knowledge is not Wisdom.
The good practice is not in speech arts,
The rhetoricians practice is not in the quality.
Cease from learning
And the worries disappear by themselves.
Also, the letter is an unnatural art
And an influence of the devil.
The spontaneous impulse of the people,
The people’s urge to live
And desire for love,
Keeps unhindered by the laws of the rule
Life in transition.
The old masters differ
Between natural culture
And learned civilization.
Nature is life,
The silent expiry of traditional festivals,
The order of the seasons.
Nature itself is the Mother of Tao,
The path and the wisdom and the life.
The Eternal Wisdom
Is in every brook, in every stone, in every star
As a trace mysteriously revealed.
The Mother Tao
Is an impersonal cosmic law,
Which the virtue of the holy life clings.
In truth, the universal law the Eternal Wisdom is
And virtue the law of holy living ones.
Human life in its rhythm
Is a part of the great rhythm,
That pulses through all of creation.
The universal Mother Tao
Uniting all the laws of nature
And of human life
And is the primary substance of being.
The Mother Tao is the original form of all forms
And what unites - one before all duality,
She is the absolute,
In which all the parts find their all-unity.
In blissful antiquity
Was human life simply
And peaceful
And everyone was happy.
But then man gained knowledge,
Then was complicated his life
Through arts and inventions,
Man lost the spiritual and moral innocence,
Went from the countryside to the cities
And even began to write books!…
Ah, the misery of the people began
And the tears flowed of the philosophers!
The secret Wisdom
And the silent sufficiency,
This alone brought a lasting happiness,
When the devotion
Is the way of Eternal Wisdom,
Free from all artificial
And from the mind of man.
The sign of the perfect man
Towards Eternal Wisdom
Is deep silence,
It's the kind of philosophical non-doing,
What allows the event of the higher will.
Who does not argue with the people,
The people are not able to dispute!
Repays the hostility of the people
With the virtue of Eternal Wisdom,
The origin of force of Mother Tao!
The good treat well,
The evil also treat good!
The true man meet in the truth,
The untruthful people meet in the truth also!
So the insincere is also the truth!
The soft will overcome the hard things!
Nothing is softer and weaker than water,
But the soft water breaks the hardest rock!
As you say about the saint,
The hero of faith and goodness,
Thus saith Lao Tse about the sage,
About the mature and mellow spirit,
Who returns to simplicity
And mystical silence.
The silence and resting in the silence
Is the beginning of Wisdom.
The perfect man
Does not speak of Eternal Wisdom,
Because she can not be communicated through words,
The perfect man lives the Wisdom
And shows her by the example of his life.
Who knows Mother Tao,
He talks not,
But he who speaks much,
He does not know Mother Tao.
Who knows Mother Tao,
Closes his mouth
And the doors of perception senses.
The perfect man
Is modest.
With fifty years
He knows the limits of his knowledge.
He knows that all knowledge
Only a piece of work remains.
Does he know more than others,
So he tries to hide it.
He moderates his radiant shine
And seeks to equalize himself
With the dust of
worldliness.
The simplicity of a child is closer to him
Than the knowledge of the well-read.
But he also has not the spirit of contradiction
Like the freshman of the school of knowledge.
All that filled us in youth,
Everything we fought for,
Everything loses its meaning once.
We went back from combat
And will hand over the children.
What ideals remained for us?
Then we will
With Lao Tse
Go back out into the forest solitude
Only with a book,
In which we find all Wisdom,
With the book of the Wisdom and Power of God!
3
Confucius loved the clarity
And honesty of mind
And in the expression the thought.
When going through his words
One can learn of course virtue,
Thus the goal is reached.
What you know, that is true as your knowledge,
What you do not know, is true as your ignorance.
If you can apply both,
You’ll be wise.
You have to clarify the terms,
An un-fatherly father
Do not call anymore father!
A not childish devoted son
Do not call anymore son!
The metaphysics he went out of the way,
For his ruling passion was
The good life
And the wise rule.
He spoke occasionally from heaven and from prayer
And praised the worship of the dead
And the victim of heaven.
But when Tse-kung asked him :
Do the dead have knowledge?
Confucius did not answer.
When Tse-Loo asked him how to serve the ghosts,
Confucius said:
If I do not serve the people,
What ask I then to serve the ghosts?
When Tse-Loo asked him about the nature of death,
Quoth the Master: If you do not know life,
What do you ask about the nature of death?
Fan Che asked: What is wisdom?
Confucius said, Wisdom is
The gods to honor,
The demons to stay away
And his love to turn to the people.
The Master never spoke of magic
And demons of nature.
But it was the metaphysics of Confucius,
The unit in all appearances,
The lasting harmony
Between the law of nature
And the virtuous life.
His greatest passion was
The morality.
The chaos of his time appeared to him
As a moral chaos,
Led by inducing weakening of the old faith
And spreading a doubt
On the distinction between good and evil.
Confucius wished
A revolution of morals,
Based on the restoration
Of the holy family ties.
Who wants to sanctify the nature of humanity,
He may rule the state.
Who wants to justify the state,
He may sanctidfy the holy family.
Who wants to start a family,
He may make holy his self.
Who wants to sanctify his self,
He may actualize the ideas
Which come from the knowledge of destination.
The target of the cognition is
The recording of reality.
The beginning of wisdom
Located in the heart of man.
The foundation of society is
The disciplined man
In the order of the holy family.
Tse-Loo inquired of the master
The nature of the noble.
The master said: He makes himself
With holy seriousness.
The superior man is
Firstly a philosopher,
Secondly a holy man.
The noble has
A clear mind,
A consolated courage
And a good will.
The superior man mourns for the sake of truth,
He mourns not because of his poverty.
The superior man is perfect
As heaven is perfect
And his heart is not tight.
The superior man does not tolerate chaos
In his words.
Not only is he the embodiment of intelligence
And not just a scribe
And not just one who seeks wisdom,
But he has reason
And a good character.
The basis of his character
Is truth.
Perfect truth
Records from the nobles.
The vulgar demands from the community,
The superior man makes demands on himself.
The vulgar demands justice for themselves,
The superior man is fair to all.
The superior man is suffering,
If he does not have enough skills,
But he does not suffer,
That he is not famous in the world
And that people not understand him.
However, he hates the idea
To leave the world
Without a lasting name behind.
The noble behaves in such a way
That his way
Can be at any time taken as a model.
The noble talks so
That his words
Can be taken at any time as a law.
What is the essence of virtue,
Chung-kung asked the master, who said:
What you do not want them to do to you,
That you do not do the other.
Tse-kung asked the master:
What word can make life?
The Master said: After the Word
The general charity.
The basic character of the noble
Is the overflowing affection to all people.
If the superior man sees a worthy one,
So he tries to become like him.
If the superior man sees an unworthy one,
So he checks his own affairs,
Whether he still is wearing the same mistake in himself.
When people slander him,
He does not care,
But is polite
And affable to all people.
But the superior man is not great
In unlimited praise of man.
When he has to create a work,
He is diligent in his work,
His reason knows the dignity of his work.
Even against the members of his family
He aims for courtesy.
But he maintains a certain distance
Even before his favorite son.
4
Mo Tu was philanthropist.
From head to foot
The whole body bare to scrub,
In order to help humanity,
To this end, he was ready!
Mo Tu condemned Confucius
And his doctrine of the family ties
And wanted to replace the love in the family
By general philanthropy.
What is the foundation?
One finds the foundation
In the study of the old ways.
How to get a comprehensive view?
We review the experience of the people.
How to apply his findings?
Introduce his thinking
In a law and a rule.
Mo Tu turned against Confucius
And his impersonal heaven,
Mo Tu emphasized the personality
Of the Father in Heaven.
Mo Tu said: The general philanthropy
Is the only solution
For every social problem.
If people love each other,
The would the strong not suppress the weak,
The arms were not offended by the rich,
The congregation does not despise the noble
And the shrewd would
Not press the simple!
Selfishness is the root of all evil.
This begins with the possessiveness
Of the little boy
And leading up to the conquest
Of a small empire by a great empire.
Mo Tu taught by example.
Before the rulers saw the wise,
He wanted to attack a neighboring kingdom,
But when he saw the wise,
Did’nt he want the neighboring kingdom even paid,
If injustice would be associated with it.
Mo Tu said to the ruler:
In these thy spirit
Can I trust you with the neighboring state
And a quiet heart remains.
If you continue
In practicing righteousness,
I can trust you with all the earth.
The First Emperor of China,
Shi Huang-Di, the tyrant,
Burned the writings of Mo Tu.
The simplicity of a child is closer to him
Than the knowledge of the well-read.
But he also has not the spirit of contradiction
Like the freshman of the school of knowledge.
All that filled us in youth,
Everything we fought for,
Everything loses its meaning once.
We went back from combat
And will hand over the children.
What ideals remained for us?
Then we will
With Lao Tse
Go back out into the forest solitude
Only with a book,
In which we find all Wisdom,
With the book of the Wisdom and Power of God!
3
Confucius loved the clarity
And honesty of mind
And in the expression the thought.
When going through his words
One can learn of course virtue,
Thus the goal is reached.
What you know, that is true as your knowledge,
What you do not know, is true as your ignorance.
If you can apply both,
You’ll be wise.
You have to clarify the terms,
An un-fatherly father
Do not call anymore father!
A not childish devoted son
Do not call anymore son!
The metaphysics he went out of the way,
For his ruling passion was
The good life
And the wise rule.
He spoke occasionally from heaven and from prayer
And praised the worship of the dead
And the victim of heaven.
But when Tse-kung asked him :
Do the dead have knowledge?
Confucius did not answer.
When Tse-Loo asked him how to serve the ghosts,
Confucius said:
If I do not serve the people,
What ask I then to serve the ghosts?
When Tse-Loo asked him about the nature of death,
Quoth the Master: If you do not know life,
What do you ask about the nature of death?
Fan Che asked: What is wisdom?
Confucius said, Wisdom is
The gods to honor,
The demons to stay away
And his love to turn to the people.
The Master never spoke of magic
And demons of nature.
But it was the metaphysics of Confucius,
The unit in all appearances,
The lasting harmony
Between the law of nature
And the virtuous life.
His greatest passion was
The morality.
The chaos of his time appeared to him
As a moral chaos,
Led by inducing weakening of the old faith
And spreading a doubt
On the distinction between good and evil.
Confucius wished
A revolution of morals,
Based on the restoration
Of the holy family ties.
Who wants to sanctify the nature of humanity,
He may rule the state.
Who wants to justify the state,
He may sanctidfy the holy family.
Who wants to start a family,
He may make holy his self.
Who wants to sanctify his self,
He may actualize the ideas
Which come from the knowledge of destination.
The target of the cognition is
The recording of reality.
The beginning of wisdom
Located in the heart of man.
The foundation of society is
The disciplined man
In the order of the holy family.
Tse-Loo inquired of the master
The nature of the noble.
The master said: He makes himself
With holy seriousness.
The superior man is
Firstly a philosopher,
Secondly a holy man.
The noble has
A clear mind,
A consolated courage
And a good will.
The superior man mourns for the sake of truth,
He mourns not because of his poverty.
The superior man is perfect
As heaven is perfect
And his heart is not tight.
The superior man does not tolerate chaos
In his words.
Not only is he the embodiment of intelligence
And not just a scribe
And not just one who seeks wisdom,
But he has reason
And a good character.
The basis of his character
Is truth.
Perfect truth
Records from the nobles.
The vulgar demands from the community,
The superior man makes demands on himself.
The vulgar demands justice for themselves,
The superior man is fair to all.
The superior man is suffering,
If he does not have enough skills,
But he does not suffer,
That he is not famous in the world
And that people not understand him.
However, he hates the idea
To leave the world
Without a lasting name behind.
The noble behaves in such a way
That his way
Can be at any time taken as a model.
The noble talks so
That his words
Can be taken at any time as a law.
What is the essence of virtue,
Chung-kung asked the master, who said:
What you do not want them to do to you,
That you do not do the other.
Tse-kung asked the master:
What word can make life?
The Master said: After the Word
The general charity.
The basic character of the noble
Is the overflowing affection to all people.
If the superior man sees a worthy one,
So he tries to become like him.
If the superior man sees an unworthy one,
So he checks his own affairs,
Whether he still is wearing the same mistake in himself.
When people slander him,
He does not care,
But is polite
And affable to all people.
But the superior man is not great
In unlimited praise of man.
When he has to create a work,
He is diligent in his work,
His reason knows the dignity of his work.
Even against the members of his family
He aims for courtesy.
But he maintains a certain distance
Even before his favorite son.
4
Mo Tu was philanthropist.
From head to foot
The whole body bare to scrub,
In order to help humanity,
To this end, he was ready!
Mo Tu condemned Confucius
And his doctrine of the family ties
And wanted to replace the love in the family
By general philanthropy.
What is the foundation?
One finds the foundation
In the study of the old ways.
How to get a comprehensive view?
We review the experience of the people.
How to apply his findings?
Introduce his thinking
In a law and a rule.
Mo Tu turned against Confucius
And his impersonal heaven,
Mo Tu emphasized the personality
Of the Father in Heaven.
Mo Tu said: The general philanthropy
Is the only solution
For every social problem.
If people love each other,
The would the strong not suppress the weak,
The arms were not offended by the rich,
The congregation does not despise the noble
And the shrewd would
Not press the simple!
Selfishness is the root of all evil.
This begins with the possessiveness
Of the little boy
And leading up to the conquest
Of a small empire by a great empire.
Mo Tu taught by example.
Before the rulers saw the wise,
He wanted to attack a neighboring kingdom,
But when he saw the wise,
Did’nt he want the neighboring kingdom even paid,
If injustice would be associated with it.
Mo Tu said to the ruler:
In these thy spirit
Can I trust you with the neighboring state
And a quiet heart remains.
If you continue
In practicing righteousness,
I can trust you with all the earth.
The First Emperor of China,
Shi Huang-Di, the tyrant,
Burned the writings of Mo Tu.
5
Yang Chu, the egoist, came.
He said that life is full of suffering
And his mind was his pleasure!
There is no God, said the fool,
There is no life after death, said the fool.
What is man?
Man is a doll,
Guided by natural forces,
By the heritage of the ancestors
And the invariable own being.
The wise man, said the fool,
Withstands the fate meted out to him,
But will not be swayed
Through the madness of the philosophers,
Their talk of the sacred love
And the permanent name of the sage.
Morality is just a scam,
This commit the ways of fools.
Universal love
Is a children’s dream.
Children just do not know yet
That hat moves the world.
A permanent name is a vain trinkets
For fools, paying the trumpery
With the loss of pleasure!
In life, the good suffer
As the wicked suffers,
But the evil ones can enjoy better!
The wisest men
Of the golden age
Were not moral rulers,
But sensualists,
Who lust in each pulse enjoyed!
The wise men did not have a day of joy,
In death they have eternal fame.
What did they do about that?
They are called by history villains,
Who enjoyed all the pleasures of life,
In death, they have a shameful name.
What do they care?
Thus spoke the fool, the egoist, the sensualist!
But by this wisdom of the senses
Perished China!
6
Mencius I will sing,
But Wisdom teaches me
To sing the mother of Mencius.
She was the best mother!
Three times, it is said,
She changed the place of residence
Out of love for her son.
First, because they lived at the cemetery
And the son began
To go like a dead man,
Then, because they lived in a slaughterhouse
And the son began to roar
As a beef cattle,
Then, because they lived near a bank
And the son began
To love money.
Finally, she lived
Near a humanistic school,
Then the mother was satisfied.
But when the son neglected the studies,
The mother tore her dress,
She said, I imitate your negligence
In studying the old ways.
Now the son was
A diligent student
And took a woman
And resisted the temptation
To dismiss the women.
He opened a school of philosophy
And gathered a crowd of students around
And discussed with them his theories
Of the hierarchy of domination.
When the mother grew old,
The son did not leave her,
But the mother said, Take heart, my son!
The mother said:
It is not fitting for a woman to rule,
For women shall be subordinate.
As a girl, she should be submit to her father,
As a wife she should be submit to her husband
And as a widow arrange her under the son.
You're a man in full maturity,
I 'm an old widow.
Handle, as commands your faith,
And I will conduct myself as prescribed by the faith.
You need not to be worried about me.
Mencius gave the monarchy the preference
Before the democracy,
Because it is easier
To see a philosopher on the throne
As a probably decent people.
When the mother returned home
To the meeting of her ancestors,
Buried the son her with great pomp,
Whether the students also blamed him,
But he said:
It is the need of piety, faith,
That the son honors the mother!
Then Mencius withdrew
From public life
And devoted his remaining years
To the studies
And the teaching of students
And the completion of a work,
Wherein he described the princes of his time
In an interview with Miss Wisdom.
7
Mencius said, Man is good,
Is inherently good.
Hsun-Tse said, but that man is evil,
Inherently evil.
Even Yao and Shun and Yu,
They were at their birth
Only wild men!
The nature of man is evil,
His good comes only from education.
From birth, man has the nature
Of desire.
If you follow the desire,
The result is quarrel, the quarrel
Makes kindness and generosity perish.
From birth, man has
Desires,
Desires for lust of the eyes and ears.
If you follow desire,
The result is fornication,
The custom perishes.
Compliance against the nature of man
And to live out his passions
Brings only contention forth,
The order expires
And man is a wild animal.
That is why there is a need of charitable influence
Of education through the ways of the wise,
An education in the virtues,
Thus, the friendliness arises,
The rules are observed
And all people the rule of wisdom correspond.
Seen in the nature of man is evil,
And all of human kindness
Comes from the art of wisdom.
8
Chuang Tzu looked at Mother Nature
As the only true lover,
Who him in spite of his sins and his age
Always welcomed!
He escaped twice an office at court:
Quickly go away,
Not spot me
With your sinful present!
Rather than I am with the laws and barriers
Of the court's throw,
I prefer it more,
To wallow in the mud!
The reign enjoyed him with the same respect
As his ancestor, Lao Tse.
It gave him pleasure to see,
It should be noted,
How much the high majesties
With thieves had together!
We should let the world live,
Let them only grant!
In the golden age
Lived perfect virtue;
People lived in harmony
With birds
And all living things formed a family.
They did not know the differences
Between noble and vulgar people.
Seeking peace,
I chase after peace,
Yes , crazy I desire peace!
We want to be in the quiet of the woods,
Lucky to be like children!
To be free of all artificiality
And all intellect restriction
I ask of the Divine Mother Tao!
Words confuse as often,
How do they serve as a guide?
The Divine Mother Tao
Is not dressed not in words
And is not grasped by thoughts.
This is my conclusion:
Everything belongs to a treasure!
Death and eternal life belong to the One Treasure!
I had the vision
Of One super-personal unity.
It's true, I'm a pessimist,
But that does not prevent me
From the Divine Mother Tao’s hot wine to be drunken!
Heaven and earth are my coffin,
Sun and moon are my dead lamps,
The stars are my strings of pearls
And the whole creation gives me the funeral procession.
So I have a splendid funeral,
As my friends have the interference of anything.
Mother Nature is an ardent furnace
And God is the creator of the Great Bear,
Where He sends me,
I want to go!
EPILOGUE
The harmonic Leibnitz said:
Thus our conditions seem to be today,
Since the corruption of morals
Immeasurably swells,
That I think it is necessary,
That Chinese missionaries come to us!
They must show us the exercises
And teach the goal of theology.
Namely, if a wise man
To the referee would be ordered,
So he would the golden apple
Surely the jade-virgin China give as a gift!
In the time, when the French revolutionaries
Yang Chu, the egoist, came.
He said that life is full of suffering
And his mind was his pleasure!
There is no God, said the fool,
There is no life after death, said the fool.
What is man?
Man is a doll,
Guided by natural forces,
By the heritage of the ancestors
And the invariable own being.
The wise man, said the fool,
Withstands the fate meted out to him,
But will not be swayed
Through the madness of the philosophers,
Their talk of the sacred love
And the permanent name of the sage.
Morality is just a scam,
This commit the ways of fools.
Universal love
Is a children’s dream.
Children just do not know yet
That hat moves the world.
A permanent name is a vain trinkets
For fools, paying the trumpery
With the loss of pleasure!
In life, the good suffer
As the wicked suffers,
But the evil ones can enjoy better!
The wisest men
Of the golden age
Were not moral rulers,
But sensualists,
Who lust in each pulse enjoyed!
The wise men did not have a day of joy,
In death they have eternal fame.
What did they do about that?
They are called by history villains,
Who enjoyed all the pleasures of life,
In death, they have a shameful name.
What do they care?
Thus spoke the fool, the egoist, the sensualist!
But by this wisdom of the senses
Perished China!
6
Mencius I will sing,
But Wisdom teaches me
To sing the mother of Mencius.
She was the best mother!
Three times, it is said,
She changed the place of residence
Out of love for her son.
First, because they lived at the cemetery
And the son began
To go like a dead man,
Then, because they lived in a slaughterhouse
And the son began to roar
As a beef cattle,
Then, because they lived near a bank
And the son began
To love money.
Finally, she lived
Near a humanistic school,
Then the mother was satisfied.
But when the son neglected the studies,
The mother tore her dress,
She said, I imitate your negligence
In studying the old ways.
Now the son was
A diligent student
And took a woman
And resisted the temptation
To dismiss the women.
He opened a school of philosophy
And gathered a crowd of students around
And discussed with them his theories
Of the hierarchy of domination.
When the mother grew old,
The son did not leave her,
But the mother said, Take heart, my son!
The mother said:
It is not fitting for a woman to rule,
For women shall be subordinate.
As a girl, she should be submit to her father,
As a wife she should be submit to her husband
And as a widow arrange her under the son.
You're a man in full maturity,
I 'm an old widow.
Handle, as commands your faith,
And I will conduct myself as prescribed by the faith.
You need not to be worried about me.
Mencius gave the monarchy the preference
Before the democracy,
Because it is easier
To see a philosopher on the throne
As a probably decent people.
When the mother returned home
To the meeting of her ancestors,
Buried the son her with great pomp,
Whether the students also blamed him,
But he said:
It is the need of piety, faith,
That the son honors the mother!
Then Mencius withdrew
From public life
And devoted his remaining years
To the studies
And the teaching of students
And the completion of a work,
Wherein he described the princes of his time
In an interview with Miss Wisdom.
7
Mencius said, Man is good,
Is inherently good.
Hsun-Tse said, but that man is evil,
Inherently evil.
Even Yao and Shun and Yu,
They were at their birth
Only wild men!
The nature of man is evil,
His good comes only from education.
From birth, man has the nature
Of desire.
If you follow the desire,
The result is quarrel, the quarrel
Makes kindness and generosity perish.
From birth, man has
Desires,
Desires for lust of the eyes and ears.
If you follow desire,
The result is fornication,
The custom perishes.
Compliance against the nature of man
And to live out his passions
Brings only contention forth,
The order expires
And man is a wild animal.
That is why there is a need of charitable influence
Of education through the ways of the wise,
An education in the virtues,
Thus, the friendliness arises,
The rules are observed
And all people the rule of wisdom correspond.
Seen in the nature of man is evil,
And all of human kindness
Comes from the art of wisdom.
8
Chuang Tzu looked at Mother Nature
As the only true lover,
Who him in spite of his sins and his age
Always welcomed!
He escaped twice an office at court:
Quickly go away,
Not spot me
With your sinful present!
Rather than I am with the laws and barriers
Of the court's throw,
I prefer it more,
To wallow in the mud!
The reign enjoyed him with the same respect
As his ancestor, Lao Tse.
It gave him pleasure to see,
It should be noted,
How much the high majesties
With thieves had together!
We should let the world live,
Let them only grant!
In the golden age
Lived perfect virtue;
People lived in harmony
With birds
And all living things formed a family.
They did not know the differences
Between noble and vulgar people.
Seeking peace,
I chase after peace,
Yes , crazy I desire peace!
We want to be in the quiet of the woods,
Lucky to be like children!
To be free of all artificiality
And all intellect restriction
I ask of the Divine Mother Tao!
Words confuse as often,
How do they serve as a guide?
The Divine Mother Tao
Is not dressed not in words
And is not grasped by thoughts.
This is my conclusion:
Everything belongs to a treasure!
Death and eternal life belong to the One Treasure!
I had the vision
Of One super-personal unity.
It's true, I'm a pessimist,
But that does not prevent me
From the Divine Mother Tao’s hot wine to be drunken!
Heaven and earth are my coffin,
Sun and moon are my dead lamps,
The stars are my strings of pearls
And the whole creation gives me the funeral procession.
So I have a splendid funeral,
As my friends have the interference of anything.
Mother Nature is an ardent furnace
And God is the creator of the Great Bear,
Where He sends me,
I want to go!
EPILOGUE
The harmonic Leibnitz said:
Thus our conditions seem to be today,
Since the corruption of morals
Immeasurably swells,
That I think it is necessary,
That Chinese missionaries come to us!
They must show us the exercises
And teach the goal of theology.
Namely, if a wise man
To the referee would be ordered,
So he would the golden apple
Surely the jade-virgin China give as a gift!
In the time, when the French revolutionaries
Were raging in
Germany
With their bombs,
Forgot the father Goethe the noise of the Gentiles
And did not notice the desolate sinners,
For he was lost
In the consideration
Of Chinese philosophy.
With their bombs,
Forgot the father Goethe the noise of the Gentiles
And did not notice the desolate sinners,
For he was lost
In the consideration
Of Chinese philosophy.
