Many Books I Have Not Read; Some Things I Cannot Tell Others

Ouyang Xiu had a couplet: "There are books I have not read; there is nothing I have done that I cannot tell others." The couplet means that although there were still some books he had not read, there was nothing he had done in his life that could not be spoken of to others.

I do not have the boldness of Ouyang Xiu, nor his clear conscience.

I have lived near the National Library of China for more than twenty years and often read there. The National Library's holdings are extraordinarily rich, beyond many people's imagination. Anyone who has been inside must realize that in a limited lifetime, the books a person can read are only a tiny fraction. So I changed one character in the upper line of Ouyang Xiu's couplet: Many books I have not read.

I also changed one character in the lower line, making it: Some things I cannot tell others. Have I done things in my life of which my conscience is not clear? Yes. Not to mention the various absurd things I did in youthful ignorance, after reaching adulthood I also did quite a few things of which my conscience is not clear. These things cannot be told to others.

There is a Western proverb: even God forgives a young man's mistakes. But that applies to immature young people; doing things that trouble the conscience repeatedly after reaching adulthood is not right. After thirty, I often repented my various faults, yet even as I repented I committed new ones. This shows that old habits are hard to break, and "knowing a fault and reforming it" is easier said than done.

In the past I often excused myself with the phrase "a person in the world of affairs cannot help himself," but after ten years of repentance and frequent daily self-examination, I was too embarrassed to use such words again. In the end, a person does things that trouble the conscience because he cannot control the desires deep in his heart.

The Buddhist sutra says: "What makes people foolish and blinded is love and desire." We ordinary mortals, living in the red dust, have love and desire; to obtain love and fulfill the desires of ourselves or those we love, we sometimes inevitably do things that trouble the conscience—of course, many people do not feel troubled even after doing them, and so consider themselves to have "a clear conscience." But if one day they can "suddenly still their mind" and recognize their errors in life, they will taste what it is like when "sin comes upon the person, as water flows into the sea, gradually becoming deep and broad."

Even now, I still do not feel that I have the ability to distinguish right from wrong, because I do not feel that truth rests in my own hands—there are too many people in this world who feel good about themselves, always looking as if they hold truth in their grasp and are full of pride; I keep such people at a respectful distance.

As a child I liked fishing, and could spend whole days by the river without enough of it, always resenting that there was such a thing as night; if there were no night, I could fish day and night. Nowadays, watching others fish, I always feel fishing is a cruel thing. Fish and the earthworms used as bait both have the will to live; we kill them and derive pleasure from it, and such pleasure no longer attracts me. So although I have several fishing rods at home, I do not use them even once a year. In my youth I quite identified with verses like "A graceful maiden is the fit mate for a gentleman"; looking back, I realize I have owed many romantic debts in my life. This shows that a person's understanding of worldly affairs changes with age.

A person's worldview before and after subduing his desires is different, so the ancients said "awake to today's right and yesterday's wrong"; I often feel this way. There is a small change every day, a moderate change every year, and a great change every decade; as one changes and changes, one will not say as confidently as Ouyang Xiu that "there is nothing I have done that I cannot tell others"—I strongly suspect that the great literary giant Ouyang Xiu was boasting when he said this. What we ourselves think is right may, in others' eyes, be utterly wrong.

There is a Chinese saying: "A person with no desires has noble character." But in life, how easy is it to desire nothing from others? At my present age, I can only say that I desire little from others; I have not yet reached absolute independence. The reason I can now desire little from others is not that my "character" has grown nobler, but that I have reached a certain age and accumulated twenty years; now that I am middle-aged, I have the conditions for a peaceful life—it is the material base that determines the superstructure. The so-called detachment from the mundane is, in the end, simply no longer being anxious after having enough food and clothing. At twenty, I could not have been completely detached. So young people cannot imitate us middle-aged folk, nor need they blame themselves for not being as calm as we are.

Of course, by the time one reaches forty, even without enough food and clothing, one no longer values material things so much. Take myself: now that I have returned to rural life, I have truly realized that the best life turns out to be the simplest, most natural, and most plain one—a happy life that does not require much money. My life is like a parabola: born to a farming family, I worked hard to escape the rural door, and now I have returned to the origin, becoming a farmer again, sweating every day, at peace in mind and healthy in body. I have seen too many people with fortunes of millions who are plagued by dreadful illnesses and not happy at all; so I am very satisfied with my present state and cherish it all the more.

Forty is the watershed of life. Confucius said that at forty one is free of perplexity; Tao Yuanming withdrew to the countryside at forty-one. The Huangdi Neijing holds that after women turn thirty-five and men forty, the body goes downhill, gradually declining from its peak. The transition from flourishing to declining greatly changes a person's understanding of the world.

I have indeed felt some essential changes in myself over the last two years. Increasingly I want to face work and life with an attitude of "desiring nothing," no longer pursuing quick success as in the past; my temper has slowed considerably, and I take things more as they come and let nature take its course. Having done this, my body and mind are much lighter; I need not say overblown words to anyone, nor force myself into contact with the outside world. If the first half of my life were erased, perhaps in the second half I could achieve "there is nothing I have done that I cannot tell others," because now I can control myself.

Buddhism says "every sip of food and every mouthful of pecking are predetermined"; for every cause there is an effect. But if one can face the fruits of the karma one has made with an attitude of calm acceptance, and when the conditions ripen and the fruit falls, face everything with an attitude of "dissolving karma," then nothing is a great matter. In recalling the past these years, I always hope to see again the beings I have harmed before, say sorry to them, accept their punishment, and also hope they will accept my repentance.