人间世英文版——林语堂

The Preservation of Life

Human life is limited, but knowledge is limitless. To drive the limited in

pursuit of the limitless is fatal; and to presume that one really knows is

fatal indeed!

In doing good, avoid fame. In doing bad, avoid disgrace. Pursue a middle

course as your principle. Thus you will guard your body from harm,

preserve your life, fulfill your duties by your parents, and live your

allotted span of life.

Prince Huei's cook was cutting up a bullock. Every blow of his hand,

every heave of his shoulders, every tread of his foot, every thrust of his

knee, every whshh of rent flesh, every chhk of the chopper, was in

perfect rhythm, --like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, like the

harmonious chords of ChingShou.

myself to Tao, which is higher than mere skill. When I first began to cut

up bullocks, I saw before me whole bullocks. After three years' practice,

I saw no more whole animals. And now I work with my mind and not

with my eye. My mind works along without the control of the senses.

Falling back upon eternal principles, I glide through such great joints or

cavities as there may be, according to the natural constitution of the

animal. I do not even touch the convolutions of muscle and tendon, still

less attempt to cut through large bones.

ordinary cook, one a month, -- because he hacks. But I have had this

chopper nineteen years, and although I have cut up many thousand

bullocks, its edge is as if fresh from the whetstone. For at the joints there

are always interstices, and the edge of a chopper being without thickness,

it remains only to insert that which is without thickness into such an

interstice. Indeed there is plenty of room for the blade to move about. It

is thus that I have kept my chopper for nineteen years as though fresh

from the whetstone.

tackle, I am all caution. Fixing my eye on it, I stay my hand, and gently

apply my blade, until with a hwah the part yields like earth crumbling to

the ground. Then I take out my chopper and stand up, and look around,

and pause with an air of triumph. Then wiping my chopper, I put it

carefully away.

how to take care of my life.

When Hsien, of the Kungwen family, beheld a certain official, he was

horrified, and said,

the work of God, or of man?

balanced. From this it is clear that God and not man made him what he

is.

A pheasant of the marshes may have to go ten steps to get a peck, a

hundred to get a drink. Yet pheasants do not want to be fed in a cage.

For although they might have less worries, they would not like it. When

Laotse died, Ch'in Yi went to the funeral. He uttered three yells and

departed. A disciple asked him saying,

friend?