If I Die, Bury Me Where I Fall—What Freedom

Liu Ling, courtesy name Bolun, was a man of Peiguo. He was six chi tall and very ugly in appearance. He let his feelings and will run free, always regarding the cosmos as small and all things as equal. He was quiet and sparing of words, and did not make friends lightly. When he met Ruan Ji and Ji Kang, he was delighted and understood them at once, and the three walked hand in hand into the grove. At first he did not care whether his family had property or not. He often rode a deer cart, carrying a pot of wine, and had a servant follow him with a hoe on his shoulder, saying: "Where I drop dead, bury me." Such was his disregard for his body.

Once, being extremely thirsty, he asked his wife for wine. His wife poured away the wine and smashed the vessels, weeping as she remonstrated: "You drink too much; this is not the way to nourish life. You must stop." Liu Ling said: "Very well! I cannot stop myself; I must vow before the ghosts and spirits. Bring the wine and meat." His wife did so. Liu Ling knelt and prayed: "Heaven gave birth to Liu Ling, who takes wine as his name. One hu at a draught, five dou to cure his hangover. A wife's words must on no account be listened to." Then he drank the wine and ate the meat, and was again tipsy.

Once, drunk, he clashed with a vulgar man, who rolled up his sleeves and raised his fist. Liu Ling said slowly: "My chicken ribs are hardly worth your fist." The man laughed and stopped. He once served as a military advisor of Jianwei. At the beginning of the Taishi era, in his policy response, he strongly praised the transforming power of non-doing. His contemporaries all obtained appointments through high grades; Liu Ling alone was dismissed as useless. In the end he died of old age.

— From the Jin Shu, Biography of Liu Ling

Liu Ling, one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, is history's most famous drunkard, free beyond the bonds of the body. It is said he often rode his deer cart, drinking all day. When drinking, he would bring along a young servant carrying a hoe and tell him: if I drink myself to death, dig a pit on the spot and bury me. This freedom of "where I drop dead, bury me" is the ease of one who has been liberated from life and death. Once a person is liberated from life and death, how can the trivialities of this world move his heart?

Liu Ling wrote an "Ode to the Virtue of Wine," which reads:

"There is a great gentleman, who takes heaven and earth as one morning, ten thousand ages as an instant, sun and moon as door and window, the eight wastes as courtyard and path. He leaves no track, dwells in no house; heaven is his curtain, earth his mat, and he wanders as he wills. When stopping, he holds the goblet and flagon; when moving, he carries the bottle and pot; his only task is wine, and he knows nothing else. There are noble lords and gentry scholars who, hearing of my ways, debate the why and wherefore; they roll up their sleeves and part their lapels, glaring and grinding their teeth, expounding the rites and duties, right and wrong swarming up. The gentleman, meanwhile, is just then holding the vat and catching the trough, his mouth at the cup, rinsing in the mash, his beard bristling, sitting sprawled, pillowed on the lees and bedded on the draff, without thought or care, in sheer delight. Suddenly drunk, suddenly sober; quiet-listening, he hears no thunder; staring hard, he sees no shape of Mount Tai. He feels neither cold nor heat touching his skin, nor the cravings of profit moving his heart. Looking down at the ten thousand things, they drift as lightly as duckweed borne on river and sea. Two worthies stand at his side, like the eumenid wasp beside the fruit-fly caterpillar."

Liu Ling's writing is free and unworldly; between the lines, the image of a naturalist who scorns all rites and does as he pleases springs to life.

Of the drunkards of the world, those who have read a little mostly love to style themselves after Liu Ling; but once sober, they sink deep into fame and fortune, swarming about for petty gain—utterly different from the open-minded, carefree Liu Ling. Such drunkards are merely lovers of the cup. There are also those who drown their sorrows in wine; when sober, their sorrow only grows. These are entirely different sorts from Liu Ling.

Liu Ling was open-minded and romantic. Wine was merely a tool to while away his feelings. The years flow on, and I too am changing, becoming more and more like Liu Ling—simpler, plainer, less and less bound by any worldly rule.

I have not seen the night view of Beijing for a long time, though I live right in the city center. Generally, by day I am in my study or the library, and by five in the evening I am already home; by nine I am already asleep. The splendor and glitter of this city, though right before my eyes, have nothing at all to do with me.

No need to exchange toasts and empty courtesies with anyone; no need to make murky friends, eat dubious meals, say bland words, or blow far-fetched boasts. I have ample time to accompany my family and read the books I love. The TV is turned on only a few times a year; I have decluttered very thoroughly, and this is the greatest benefit of having imagination.

A person with rich imagination, in the simplest life, will possess the richest spiritual world and live boundlessly romantically. Conversely, even if one travels to the four seas and eight wastes, with rare treasures lining one's home, one will still be empty, bored, and at a loss.

God gives everyone a romantic heart, but some people spurn it, throw it away, and seek all manner of sensory thrills. After the climax produced by stimulation comes deep loneliness. In the end they are destroyed by their own various ill humors, unable to rest by day or sleep by night.

How much better to be this old man, with nothing on his mind, who falls asleep the moment his head touches the pillow. What need for royal wealth, what talk of entrepreneurship and innovation, what seeking of success and dignity, what chanting of sutras and mantras? Only let this one thought arise not in the heart, and the human world is paradise; let the heart be full of cares, and the human world at once becomes hell.

I do not seek the Pure Land, because I feel I live in the Pure Land every day. The human world's flavor is clear joy; this seemingly tasteless life holds boundless joy. Happiness has nothing to do with money, status, or even faith.

As for what others think, there is even less need to care. I would rather be pointed at and criticized than accept any "expert" guidance on how to live; I know what way of living suits me, and that is enough. As for how others love to live, what business is it of mine? Why should I go pointing fingers?

When Liu Ling said, "where I drop dead, bury me," it was because he no longer cared about life and death, knowing death to be unavoidable and no great matter—as natural as going home. If one takes the cosmos as one's home, for billions of years we have existed in this home in various forms, never truly having left.

Cast off every bodily sheath, return to the natural state, and fly freely! Why bother with right and wrong, gain and loss, long life or short! How tedious!

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