When they entered Tzŭ Lu said, "We seem to have made a thorough failure."
"What do you mean?" cried Confucius. "The superior man who succeeds in Tao, has success. If he fails in Tao, he makes a failure. Now I, holding fast to the Tao of charity and duty towards one's neighbour, have fallen among the troubles of a disordered age. What failure is there in that?
"Therefore it is that by cultivation of the inner man there is no failure in Tao, and when danger comes there is no loss of virtue. It is the chill winter weather, it is frost, it is snow, which bring out the luxuriance of the pine and the fir.
See Lun Yü, ix, 27.
I regard it as a positive blessing to be thus situated as I am."
Thereupon he turned abruptly round and went on playing and singing.
At this Tzŭ Lu hastily seized a shield and began dancing to the music, while Tzŭ Kung said, "I had no idea of the height of heaven and of the depth of earth."
The ancients who attained Tao were equally happy under success and failure. Their happiness had nothing to do with their failure or their success. Tao once attained, failure and success became mere links in a chain, like cold, heat, wind, and rain. Thus Hsü Yu enjoyed himself at Ying-yang, and Kung Poh found happiness on the hill-top.
Whither he retired after a reign of 14 years.
Shun offered to resign the empire to his friend Pei Jen Wu Tsê.