Higher Work

Zhou Zuoren, from Talks on Tigers.

Chancing to look into the Sutra of the Bodhisattva Precepts, I found it there said that anyone who has received the Bodhisattva precepts, if he sees what living creatures are doing and will not join them in it, or will not look in upon a sick man, or will not comfort the sorrowful and vexed, in every such case incurs a defiled transgression; there being but a few exceptional cases in which there is no offence, one being that he is himself cultivating a higher work and does not wish to leave it off even for a while. This touched me deeply, and I made up my mind to be off and cultivate my own higher work.

Perhaps someone will ask, “You? You too have a higher work?” Yes. Each man has a higher work of his own; though the works differ one from another, their being higher works is one and the same. The proverb has it, “A toad to prop a bed-leg.” Now, though a toad is ugly, at least its venom may be taken from it; put it beneath a bed-leg, and the strength of the toad falls short even of a piece of broken tile. I am neither a born satirist nor a prophetic moralist; I can neither produce ten volumes of The Analects for children to learn by heart, nor compile The Extensive Record of the Forest of Laughter for refined and vulgar alike to enjoy. What, then, is all my lofty talk and large discourse for? A hedge-monk mounting the high seat to discourse at random upon Prajñā would do better to remain in his cell and render a few chapters of Dharma-verses; it would be of more use. My higher work, therefore, lies in ceasing to manufacture (words of lofty talk and large discourse) and actually plying the pedlar’s trade. Other men’s thoughts are always loftier than mine; other men’s writing is always more exquisite than mine: if I desert the dark and go over to the light, would that not be the highest of higher works? Yet this is higher only in my case. As for other men, each naturally has his own excellence: an expedition against Mongolia, perhaps, or buying a concubine, or honouring Confucius, or taking snuff—none is inadmissible; for the man whom it suits, each is his higher work.

(Eighth month of the tenth year [August 1921], at the Western Hills.)

周作人，《談虎集》。

偶看《菩薩戒本經》，見他說凡受菩薩戒的人，如見眾生所作，不與同事，或不瞻視病人，或不慰憂惱，都犯染污起；只有幾條例外不犯，其一是自修勝業，不欲暫廢。我看了很有感觸，決心要去修自己的勝業去了。

或者有人問，“你？也有勝業麼？”是的。各人各有勝業，彼此雖然不同，其為勝業則一。俗語云，“蝦蟆墊床腳”。夫蝦蟆雖醜，尚有蟾酥可取，若墊在床腳下，蝦蟆之力更不及一片破瓦。我既非天生的諷刺家，又非預言的道德家；既不能做十卷《論語》，給小孩們背誦，又不能編一部《笑林廣記》，供雅俗共賞；那麼高談闊論，為的是什麼呢？野和尚登高座妄談般若，還不如在僧房裡譯述幾章法句，更為有益。所以我的勝業，是在於停止製造（高談闊論的話）而實做行販。別人的思想，總比我的高明；別人的文章，總比我的美妙：我如棄暗投明，豈不是最勝的勝業麼？但這不過在我是勝。至於別人，原是各有其勝，或是征蒙，或是買妾，或是尊孔，或是吸鼻煙，都無不可，在相配的人都是他的勝業。

（十年八月，在西山。）