The Three Principle Texts of Daoism translated by ... - Bad Request

freshness. He asked where he had come from, and hisattendants told him that he had only been sitting quietlythere. This threw King Mu into a reverie, and it wasthree months before he was himself again. Then he madefurther inquiry, and asked the magician to explain whathad happened. “Your Majesty and I," replied themagician, “were only wandering about in the spirit, and,of course, our bodies never moved at all. What essentialdifference is there between that sky-palace we dwelt inand your Majesty's palace on earth, between the spaceswe travelled through and your Majesty's own park? [2]You are accustomed to being permanently in the body,and cannot understand being out of it for a while. Canany number of changes, or successive intervals of fast andslow, fully represent the true scheme of things?"The King was much pleased. He ceased to worry aboutaffairs of State, and took no further pleasure in thesociety of his ministers or concubines. [3]notes[1] This was the region of the Great Void, where all is dim and blurred, assuredly notmeant to be traversed by the ordinary man. The dizziness of brain and eye was theeffect produced by the Absolute.[2] From the standpoint of the Absolute, both palaces were really unreal . . .[3] The sky-palace was only some degrees finer than the King's . . . The story continueswith an account of the King's marvellous journey to the West. But . . . he never trulyattained to Tao. We may seek one moral in a saying of Lao Tzu: “Without going outof doors, one may know the whole world; without looking out of window, one maysee the Way of Heaven. The farther one travels, the less one may know." Or we maynot.