The More, the Confusion; the Less, the Gain
To reduce by one part in life is to transcend by one part: reduce associations and you avoid troubles; reduce words and you lessen blame; reduce anxieties and your spirit is not drained; reduce cleverness and your original simplicity can be preserved. Those who seek daily increase rather than daily decrease truly shackle this life!
—Cai Gen Tan (Vegetable Roots Discourse)
Laozi says: the more, the confusion; the less, the gain. In a lifetime, seeking much instead yields little; seeking little instead yields much. Once a person is greedy, everything is easily lost; therefore seeking much instead easily leads to confusion and bewilderment as to what to do. If the heart is not greedy and one seeks little, on the contrary, concentration brings gain.
Previously, reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I was deeply impressed by Liu Bei: when detained in Cao Cao's camp, he grew vegetables to conceal his ambition and admonished his two sworn brothers: "Dwell at peace in your lot, do not contend with fate." I was overcome by Liu Bei's calm and composure. In my twenties I always liked to contend with fate, lacking Liu Bei's transcendence and composure of dwelling at peace in one's lot; in my career I avidly pursued fame and gain, wishing at once to be wealthy and financially free, so that I could rest easy and do what I liked. As a result I ran into wall after wall, and the money I earned was lost again and again. After paying enough tuition, I understood the truth of "dwell at peace in your lot, do not contend with fate."
By now, I have grown accustomed, while living, to reducing my life's purposes and burdens: reducing my desires, reducing social intercourse, reducing anxieties, reducing cunning, reducing everything to the point where it cannot be reduced further, and then guarding this last little bit, dwelling at peace in my lot, silently striving. I care little about the result; I only do my best on the cause and leave the fruit to conditions. Whether the result is good or bad is not important; what is important is to make the effort. For if I do not make the effort now, soon I will have neither the time nor the energy to stir things up again.
When the things one carries on one's body are many, one is truly tired. Bodily fatigue is secondary; what is more fatal is the fatigue of the heart. Once the heart is tired it becomes disordered; once disordered it scatters; once scattered, nothing can be done. Having reached middle age, the theme of life becomes one's career, and what is most needed is to concentrate the mind on doing one or two things well. If, like a callow youth, one's brain remains in utter confusion, one will inevitably accomplish nothing in a lifetime.
Therefore, when a person reaches middle age, he should make fewer friends, blow less hot air, use his brain and his wits less, return to simplicity, and do well the things he likes, so as not to betray this life. On this point there is a generation gap between middle-aged people and the young: the young still have much time to squander, while middle-aged people have less and less time left to strive, so middle-aged people cherish time and grow weary of mere polite pretense. Thus in recent years, in my dealings with others, formalities have grown fewer: those with whom communication is easy I communicate with directly; those with whom it is hard I put out of mind, saving time for myself so as to avoid wasting it to the greatest extent.
After Jobs fell ill with cancer, he put down all unimportant matters and devoted himself single-mindedly only to what he thought could "change the world." Though his remaining years were brief, he ultimately did not waste much of his time. These years, as I treat cancer, as I go along treating, I am often struck with horror at the brevity of life, deeply feeling that life passes in a flash. If one does not firmly grasp the little time still available to do what one wants, then one has truly come to this world in vain.
When too many things are bound to body and mind, they become shackles. When a person has many shackles, it is like walking through a thicket of thorns—hard to move an inch. One should be good at casting off the excessive shackles on oneself and setting out as lightly as possible. Only thus can focus become possible. Life is like the pile of chicken feathers in Liu Zhenyun's writing; if a person has not the courage in a lifetime to sweep this pile of chicken feathers clean, he can only muddle through the worldly life, accomplishing nothing. Though accomplishing nothing is not a great matter, when one truly reaches the end of life and looks back, discovering that one has wasted this life, it is also quite a regret.
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