北山錄 10.2.9

10.2.9

it is called misfortune.) The partisan fail to recognize the worthy and the wicked, (hence the gentleman is not partisan,) protecting treachery and harming goodness, being rebellious, chaotic, and lawless. They cause the cart-horse to be envied and horned by an unruly calf, (the horse beside the carriage,) while recluses lament that the mountain forests are not deep enough. These two indeed follow their beliefs without grasping the hinge of genuine faith! A rustic of North Mountain peeked at my modest writing (referring to the one residing in [...] said:) and said: "When practicing the Way and virtue, [...] scripture; externally there are the Six Regimes and the Hundred Schools, quite enough to wander the spirit, delight the eyes, adjust thoughts, and listen in silence. Why now bore into bamboo slips (meaning [...] and [...]), lightly expending your essential spirit, anxiously and restlessly? How perilous it is!" (Since there are already inner and outer scriptures and texts, why bother with compiling this?) Flustered and unsettled, I slowly pondered and replied: "A hollow pool is not so narrow compared to rivers and lakes that it cannot give birth to reeds; (just because it is small and narrow does not mean it cannot produce reeds;) a small mound is not so low compared to Mount Heng and Mount Huo that it cannot support thorns and brambles. (Mounts Heng and Huo are the Southern Peak; a mound is an earthen hillock; zhi and ji are thorns.) All things have their allotted share in past and present. Formerly, Yang Xiong was recognized by Junshan; (Yang Xiong, style Ziyun, loved antiquity and once composed an imitation of the Zhouyi, drafting the Taixuan jing in ten fascicles. Zhang Pingzi saw it and said it could only be used to cover sauce jars; but when Huan Tan saw it, he said it could stand alongside the sages. Later, Lu Ji, Administrator of Yulin, annotated it.) Zuo Chong won praise from Huangfu. (Zuo Si, style Taichong, shut his doors for ten years to compose the Rhapsody on the Three Capitals. At his doors, wells, and privies, paper and brush were always placed; whenever he got [...], he immediately wrote it down. When the rhapsody was completed, Huangfu Mi saw it and praised it, causing paper to become expensive in the capital.) As for foolishness and wisdom, approval and condemnation, how could there be a fixed standard? Meeting with recognition or not, [...] commiserating with me, (xi means what; min means commiseration,) I trace the cultivations of the past and yearn from afar for the foresight of former thinkers, (admiring Ziyun and Taichong,) relying on that [...] hoping for the good Way. If one carves a phoenix and it turns out like a chicken, it is still half advantageous. If they are not of our company, eating their fill all day, then before the high heavens and the thick earth, what shamelessness could compare? (If a person does not study, but eats their fill all day without using their mind, how could they comprehend the high heavens and thick earth? Tian means thick-skinned, not being ashamed of one's ignorance.) How apprehensive and uneasy!" (A description of body and mind trembling with fear.)