Mending the Inborn Nature XVI
Cultivating one’s innate nature amid worldly customs, using worldly learning to seek a return to the original state; being disturbed by desires, using thought to seek clarity—this is called a person of obscurity and ignorance.
The ancients who cultivated the Way nurtured wisdom with tranquility. After life arose, they did not employ wisdom in action; this is called using wisdom to nurture tranquility. Wisdom and tranquility mutually nurture each other, and from this harmony and order emerge in the innate nature. Virtue is harmony; the Way is order. When virtue embraces all without exception, it is humanity; when the Way orders all without exception, it is righteousness; when righteousness manifests and all things draw near, it is loyalty; when the heart is pure and substantial and returns to true nature, it is joy; when conduct is trustworthy and demeanor proper, conforming to pattern, it is ritual propriety. When ritual and music are universally implemented, the world falls into chaos. When the other is upright but one obscures one’s own virtue, virtue cannot cover all. Covering necessarily causes things to lose their innate nature.
The ancients dwelt in a state of chaotic simplicity, remaining tranquil and inactive together with the entire age. In that era, yin and yang were harmonious and still, ghosts and spirits did not intrude, the four seasons followed their proper order, the myriad things suffered no harm, living beings met no untimely death, and though people had wisdom, they had no place to use it—this was called the highest unity. In that era, no one acted deliberately, yet all things followed their natural course.
When virtue declined, Suiren Shi and Fuxi Shi began to govern the world, and thus they could only conform but could not achieve unity. When virtue declined further, Shennong Shi and Huangdi began to govern the world, and thus they could only bring stability but could not achieve conformity. When virtue declined further, Tang Yao and Yu Shun began to govern the world, initiating the prevailing currents of governance and, dissipating simplicity into plainness, deviating from the Way to practice goodness, impairing virtue to act, and then abandoning innate nature to follow the machinations of the mind. Minds recognizing and understanding each other were insufficient to pacify the world, so they added ornamentation and expanded erudition. Ornamentation destroyed simplicity, erudition drowned the heart-mind, and then people became confused and disordered, unable to return to their true nature and recover their original state.
From this perspective, the age lost the Way, and the Way lost the age; the age and the Way mutually lost each other. How could a person of the Way arise in the age, and how could the age arise in the Way? When the Way cannot arise in the age, and the age cannot arise in the Way, even if a sage does not hide in the mountains and forests, his virtue is concealed.
Concealment is thus not a matter of deliberate hiding. The so-called recluses of antiquity did not hide their persons without appearing, did not seal their speech without speaking, did not conceal their wisdom without manifesting it; rather, the times and fate were greatly opposed. When the times and fate prevailed throughout the world, they returned to pure unity without leaving traces; when the times and fate were greatly obstructed in the world, they deepened their roots, attained utmost tranquility, and waited—this was the method of preserving oneself.
The ancients who preserved themselves did not use argumentation to adorn wisdom, did not use wisdom to distress the world, did not use wisdom to distress virtue. They stood alone and returned to their innate nature—what else did they do? The Way inherently does not operate in trifles, and virtue inherently does not recognize petty cleverness. Petty cleverness harms virtue, and trifles harm the Way. Thus it is said: merely rectify oneself. When joy is complete in the Way, it is called attaining one’s aspiration.
What the ancients called attaining one’s aspiration did not refer to high office and emolument, but to having nothing that could add to their joy. What people today call attaining one’s aspiration refers to high office and emolument. High office and emolument are things that attach to the person; they are not inherent to one’s nature, but accidental external arrivals, things that are lodged. Lodged things cannot be stopped when they come, nor prevented when they go. Thus, one does not indulge the mind because of high office and emolument, nor conform to the vulgar because of poverty and lowliness. The joy of being wealthy and honored is the same as that of being poor and lowly, so there is no worry! Now, when the lodged thing is lost, people are not joyful. From this perspective, even if they are joyful, they are never without desolation. Thus it is said: Those who lose themselves in material things and lose their innate nature in worldly customs are called people who invert the root and the branch.