Tsechi of Nankuo sat leaning on a low table. Gazing up to heaven, he sighed and looked as though he had lost his mind.
Yeseyu, who was standing by him, exclaimed, "What are you thinking about that your body should bee thus like dead wood, your mind like burnt-out ders? Surely the man now leaning oable is not he who was here just now."
"My friend," replied Tsechi, "your question is apposite. Today I have lost my Self.... Do you uand? ... Perhaps you only know the musian, and not that of Earth. Or even if you have heard the music of Earth, perhaps you have not heard the music of Heaven."
"Pray explain," said Tseyu.
"The breath of the universe," tisechi, "is called wind. At times, it is inactive. But when active, all crevices resound to its blast. Have you never listeo its deafening roar?
"Caves and dells of hill and forest, hollows in huge trees of many a span in girth -- some are like nostrils, and some like mouths, and others like ears, beam-sockets, goblets, mortars, or like pools and puddles. And the wind goes rushing through them, like swirling torrents or singing arrows, bellowing, sousing, trilling, wailing, r, purling, whistling in front and eg behind, now soft with the cool blow, now shrill with the whirlwind, until the tempest is past and silence reigns supreme. Have you never witnessed how the trees and objects shake and quake, and twist and twirl?"
"Well, then," enquired Tseyu, "sihe music of Earth sists of hollows and apertures, and the musian of pipes and flutes, of what sists the music of Heaven?"
"The effect of the wind upon these various apertures," replied Tsechi, "is not uniform, but the sounds are produced acc to their individual capacities. Who is it that agitates their breasts?
"Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is tentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech tankerous.
"For whether the soul is locked in sleep or whether in waking hours the body moves, we are striving and struggling with the immediate circumstances. Some are easy-going and leisurely, some are deep and ing, and some are secretive. Now we are frightened over petty fears, now disheartened and dismayed over some great terror. Now the mind flies forth like an arrow from a cross-bow, to be the arbiter ht and wrong. Now it stays behind as if sworn to an oath, to hold on to what it has secured. Then, as under autumn and winters blight, es gradual decay, and submerged in its own occupations, it keeps on running its course, o return. Finally, worn out and imprisoned, it is choked up like an old drain, and the failing mind shall not see light again {8}.
"Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, worries as, indecision and fears, e upon us by turns, with everging moods, like musi the hollows, or like mushrooms from damp. Day and night they alterhin us, but we ot tell whehey spring. Alas! Alas! Could we for a moment lay our finger upon their very Cause?
"But for these emotions I should not be. Yet but for me, there would be no oo feel them. So far we go; but we do not know by whose order they e into play. It would seem there was a soul; {9} but the clue to its existence is wanting. That it funs is credible enough, though we ot see its form. Perhaps it has inner reality without outward form.
"Take the human body with all its hundred bones, ernal cavities and six internal ans, all plete. Which part of it should I love best? Do you not cherish all equally, or have you a preference? D