{"collection":"Taoism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/tao/mcm/mcm07.htm","path":"tao/mcm/mcm07.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/tao/mcm/mcm07.htm","text":"Musings of a Chinese Mystic, by Lionel Giles, [1906]\nHow do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know but that he who dreads to die is as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his home?\nThe lady Li Chi was the daughter of Ai F\u00eang. When the Duke of Chin first got her, she wept until the bosom of her dress was drenched with tears. But when she came to the royal residence, and lived with the Duke, and ate rich food, she repented of having wept. How then do I know but that the dead repent of having previously clung to life?\nThose who dream of the banquet wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt. While they dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then we find out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves\nthey know if they are really princes or peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams,\u2014I am but a dream myself. This is a paradox. To-morrow a sage may arise to explain it; but that tomorrow will not be until ten thousand generations have gone by.\nGranting that you and I argue. If you beat me, and not I you, are you necessarily right and I wrong? Or if I beat you and not you me, am I necessarily right and you wrong? Or are we both partly right and partly wrong? Or are we both wholly right or wholly wrong? You and I cannot know this, and consequently the world will be in ignorance of the truth.\nWho shall I employ as arbiter between us? If I employ some one who takes your view, he will side with you. How can such a one arbitrate between us? If I employ some one who takes my view, he will side with me. How can such a one arbitrate between us? And if I employ some one who either differs from or agrees with both of us, he will be equally unable to decide between us. Since then you, and I, and man, cannot decide, must we not depend upon Another? Such dependence is as though it were not dependence. We are embraced in the obliterating unity of God.\n. . . . .\nOnce upon a time, I, Chuang dreamt\n[paragraph continues] I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier. The transition is called metempsychosis.","title":"Musings of a Chinese Mystic: Illusions","type":"page"}