This week I listened to Fu Peirong talk about Zhuangzi. It felt like I had heard a lot, but when I closed my eyes and thought about it later, it was as if nothing had gone in at all—my head was completely empty. I looked up at the sky and still saw no roc or giant fish, let alone any carefree wandering. Yesterday the weather finally cooperated, so I took the kid to Chengdu’s not-so-famous fake Great Wall: Jinlong Great Wall.
The last time I came here was 20 years ago, back when I was still a young man. Somehow it now costs money to enter: 30 yuan per person. Luckily, kids get half off, so mine was 15 yuan. Coco said this was paying to sweat, and that was exactly right. You can’t go back down the same way either; you have to take a shuttle bus. The 30-yuan ticket includes the shuttle, and the child ticket only needed another 10 yuan.
The wall isn’t long, and it isn’t wide either, but for exercise it is more than enough. Climbing up still took some effort. At one point I even had to hold onto a chain as I went along. This frail body really needs a full rebuild. So I just walked casually, looking as I went and thinking as I went. Human beings, tiny creatures between heaven and earth, really aren’t anything special compared with flowers, birds, fish, insects, trees, rocks, and soil. Most of the time, people need to admire the rest of the world and be admired by it in return. Look at this vast universe: every speck of dust is interesting in its own way, perhaps all part of the same equality.
Climbing higher, the view opened up even more. I suddenly wondered whether the mountains in front of me had buried countless people over the years. Human beings spend their lives rubbing against the outside world, chasing and running without stopping. They work hard all their lives and still see no real accomplishment, exhausted and lost, not even knowing where they will finally end up. That is how the world’s endless trouble begins and how sorrow is born. And the body—this shabby shell—won’t it eventually return to heaven and earth, to the grave, to ashes, to dust?
The sun was still shining on the land in the west, dutifully on the job, while the moon had already risen in the east with a grand display, a huge silver plate that simply did not care whether the sun was still working. The birds cared even less. Who cares about the sun and the moon? If it’s time to fly, then fly. One bird is not enough; they had to pass in a whole flock in front of the moon. Ha ha ha—free and unrestrained, each doing its own thing, and yet somehow all at ease. It reminded me of a line I saw on a car by the roadside a few days ago: “When I am different from the world, then let me be different.” How sharp that felt.
Then I lowered my head and saw—wasn’t that the little dog-print plum blossom from schoolbook illustrations? Only here it was left on a concrete road, and yet it somehow felt lasting. Anything that exists can be beautiful; seeing a plum blossom here brings a bit of childlike delight. Of course, that shape is something humans have given meaning to. In truth, the concrete slab is just an objective existence. It has no stance, no prejudice, no urge to take or to refuse. It does not send anyone off, and it does not welcome anyone either. It simply exists quietly, holding nothing back, calm and still in these mountains.
Looking up, there was a fence, a chain, and a dog. Life between heaven and earth is like a white colt flashing past a crack in the wall—sudden, gone in an instant. So is a dog. Was this dog tied up because it might bite someone? Or because its owner feared it would wander off? It sat firmly on the ground, watching people and vehicles pass by, not moving at all. Maybe the plum blossom on the concrete above had once belonged to this dog. Maybe it, too, had once run freely through the hills, until it grew up, and then came the chain...
Standing by the corner of the wall, I suddenly thought of Zhuangzi. Heaven and earth were born together with me, and all things and I are one. Heaven and earth give us form so that we may exist; life makes us labor; old age brings us ease; death gives us rest. Since heaven and earth arranged life, they will also arrange its ending. Everything follows its own way—simple, natural, and so beautiful that nothing under heaven can compete with it. To move in spirit with heaven and earth, not to look down on anything, not to press too hard on right and wrong, to live among ordinary people yet remain inwardly unchanged, to follow what cannot be helped, and keep life plain—that seems enough.