LIANG SHIQIU
(1901-1987)
Translated by King-fai Tam
The Greek philosopher Diogenes often slept in clay urn. One day, Alexander the Great went to see him, and, in his usual imperial tone, asked, “Is there anything you want me to do for you?” The irreverent philosopher rolled his eyes and said, “ I just want you to step aside a bit and stop blocking the sunlight.”
The significance of this well-known little anecdote is perhaps a matter of individual interpretation, and different people have come to different conclusions. It has usually been taken to suggest that Diogenes viewed honor and respect as no more valuable than some discarded shoe, and wealth as nothing but a passing cloud. He regarded even the emperor as no different from any other man: not only was there nothing that he hoped to gain, he also saw no need to treat the emperor in any special way. Dr. Johnson, however, had a different interpretation, asserting that one should focus on the sunlight in the story. Sunlight is not an emperor’s to bestow, and Diogenes’ request was that Alexander not take away something that was beyond his power to give. This request is hardly excessive, but its implications are profound. In his discussion of the story, Dr. Johnson thus proceeded from a consideration of “light” to one of “time.” Extremely precious as time is, we may not realize how often it is snatched away by others.
The saying that “human life does not exceed a hundred years” is not far from the truth. Of course, some people are so old that it almost seems as if they will never die, but the average mortal cannot expect to live beyond a century. Even then, sleep occupies a very large part of the many summers and winters that make up our lives. Though Su Shi (1037-1101) might have exaggerated somewhat when he said it takes up half lifetime, it certainly amounts to about one-third. As for childhood, however we might choose to describe it-as guilelessly innocent or bumbling and benighted-we spend it obliviously and unthinkingly. Then, once we reach advanced age, our wits grow dim and our senses dull, even to the point that “a man cannot avail himself of the company of a beautiful woman.” At that point, with only a breath of air separating us from death, there is not much joy in life to speak of. The beginning and ending having thus been snipped away, very little of life is left. And, even in the short span that remains, time is not necessarily ours to control. To be sure, the uninvited guests that Dr. Johnson complained about, who come to the door on the slightest pretext and make themselves at home regardless of how busy their host might be, leave one not knowing whether to laugh or cry. In my view, however, they don’t really amount to serious “time-thieves”; it’s just that they have collected a small tax on our limited capital. We still have ourselves to blame, I am afraid, for the largest drain on our time.
Some people assert that “time is life,” while others say that “time is money.” Both have a point, since there are people who equate money with life. On closer consideration, however, it becomes clear that we cannot have money without life. After all, when life is no more, what use is money? To be sure, many people choose money over life, but parting with money instead of life is still the wiser course. That is why it is said in the Han Taoist classic Huainanzi that, “the sage does not value a foot of jade but rather an inch of time, because time is hard to come by, but all too easy to lose.” Who among us as children did not write compositions with titles like “Valuing Time”? how many of us, though, were able early on to comprehend that time “is hard to come by but all too easy to lose”? When I was young, our family engaged a private tutor. My elder sister and I often took advantage of our tutor’s inattention to turn the clock on the study desk ahead half an hour in order to get out of class early. After a while, our teacher found us out. He then marked a spot on the paper window pane in red ink and would not dismiss class until the sunlight reached it. It took this to put an end to our schemes for playing hooky.
Time flows on unceasingly, and no one can detain it for even a moment. Just as Confucius said, “It passes swiftly by, mindless of day and night.” Every day, we tear a page from the calendar, which grows ever thinner. When we have almost reached the last page, we are inevitably started to find the end of the year again approaching. If we were to bind all of these calendars into a single volume, it could serve to symbolize our entire life. If we then went on to rip out page after page, I wonder how we would feel inside. Truly, as Shelley said, “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” But how many times can any person witness the passing of winter and coming of spring?
Just let go what you cannot detain. The problem remains however, how to spend the time that has not yet fled and is still within our grasp. What the noted scholar-statesman Liang Qichao (1873-1929) most detested was to hear the word diversion, asserting that only those who are tired of life have the heart to “kill time.” In his view there was never enough time to do all the things a person needed to do: how, then, could there still be room for diversions? Everyone has his own way of using time, however. When emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty was on a tour of the south, he saw boats busily coming and going on the Grand Canal and asked the people around him, “What are they so busy busting about for?” His favorite attendant He Shen happened to be standing next to him and intoned, “Either for fame or for profit.” This answer was very much on the mark, and shouldn’t be dismissed because the person who made this statement was of questionable character. What I fear, though, is that, since the Golden age of the three dynasties,[1] people have cared little about reputation. Of fame and profit, profit has probably counted more. “People die for money just as birds die for food,” and the notion that time is money still rings true. The poet worlds-worth had this to say:
The world is too much with us, late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
This is why some people would rather retire to the mountains to live an upright, reclusive life, enjoying the fresh breezes and the bright moon, and “keeping company with fish and shrimp and befriending does and bucks.” Keats delighted in spending long hours watching a flower to see its petals slowly unfold, deeming this one of the great joys in life. Ji Kang (223-262) enjoyed wielding a hammer to fashion metal artifacts under a big shady tree, now and then “taking a sip of wine and playing a tune on the zither.” His contemporary Liu Ling was likewise carefree uninhabited, “keeping a jug of wine by him when he was idle, and carrying a wine pot when up and about.” Each of these eccentrics embodies a unique way of whiling away one’s time. The most extreme example of transcendent living is found in the Buddhist collection of anecdotes and sayings, The Record of Passing the Lamp:
Monk Nanquan asked Lu Heng, “ How do you spend your days?”
Lu replied, “Not wearing a shred on my body.”
By this Lu meant that he was free of all attachments. As the Sixth Chan Master Hui Neng said, “Since there is nothing to begin with, whereon for the dust to settle?” This state of understanding is lofty indeed: one could say it is like “ treating the whole universe as one morning, and a million years as a single moment.” For all of these men, time was never a problem.
Indeed, as the Persian poet Omar Khayam said, we cannot know from whence we came or where we are going. We neither will our coming to this world, nor are we consulted when we leave it. As we stumble through our sojourn in life, should we surrender our hearts to the demands of our bodies in the time allotted to us? Should we try to attain immortality through virtue, actions, and words? Should we investigate the meaning of life and death, and then transcend the three realms?[2]
1973
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104第二學期 (1)
