The Original One...

"I preserve the original One, while resting in harmony with externals. It is because I have thus cared for my self now for twelve hundred years that my body has not decayed."

"The Yellow Emperor prostrated himself and said, 'Kuang Cheng Tzu is surely God.'

"Whereupon the latter continued, 'Come, I will tell you. That self is eternal ; yet all men think it mortal. That self is infinite ; yet all men think it finite. - Those who possess Tao are princes in this life and rulers in the hereafter. Those who do not possess Tao, behold the light of day in this life and become clods of earth in the hereafter.

"'Nowadays, all living things spring from the dust and to the dust return. But I will lead you through the portals of Eternity into the domain of Infinity. My light is the light of sun and moon. My life is the life of heaven and earth. I know not who comes nor who goes. Men may all die, but I endure for ever.'"



Chuang Tzu
Herbert Giles, translator
Chang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, Social Reformer
London: Bernard Quaritch, 1889, p. 128