折疑論 3.69

3.69

The Master said, 'Before you are able to serve men, how can you serve ghosts?' He said, 'I venture to ask about death.' The Master said, 'Before you know life, how can you know death?' (In the Analects. The commentary says: Day and night are the way of death and life. If one knows the way of life, one knows the way of death. If one exhausts the way of serving men, one exhausts the way of serving ghosts. Death and life, men and ghosts, are one yet two, two yet one. Some say: The Master did not tell him because Zilu did not understand, and this is how he profoundly instructed him.)