孔子和他的弟子们这样教导说。

　　But that was exactly his intention.

　　因为诸侯的首要职责是当他的全国居民的榜样。但这恰恰是他希望的。

　　He wanted to teach something that everyone would find easy to grasp, because it was so just and fair.

　　他想教一些大家都觉得容易掌握的事情，因为它非常公正和公平。

　　Then living together would become much easier.

　　那样的话，共同生活就会容易得多。

　　I have already told you that he succeeded.

　　我已经说过他成功了。

　　And, thanks to his teaching, that enormous empire, with all its provinces, was saved from falling apart.

　　由于有了他的学说，这个有着众多省份的大国最终也没有瓦解。

　　But you mustn't think that in China there weren't other people more like the Buddha,但是你却不可以认为，中国不曾有过其他更像释迦牟尼那样的人，for whom what mattered was not living together and bowing to one another, but the great mysteries of the world.

　　这些人不注重共同生活，不注重向其他人鞠躬行礼，而是注重世界的各重大秘密。

　　A wise man of this sort lived in China at about the same time as Confucius.

　　差不同和孔子同一时期，中国也出了这样一位智者。

　　His name was Lao-tzu. He is said to have been an official who became tired of the way people lived at court.

　　他叫老子。据说他曾当过官，但是他厌倦了官场上人们的生活方式。

　　So he gave up his job and wandered off into the lonely mountains at the frontier of China to be a hermit.

　　于是他就辞去了官职，走进中国边境地区的孤寂的群山过着隐居的生活。

　　A simple border guard at a frontier pass asked him to set down his thoughts in writing, before leaving the world of men. And this Lao-tzu did.

　　据说一个普通的边境上的关卡官吏曾请求他在离群索居之前把他的思想给他记录下来。老子这样做了。

　　But whether the border guard could make head or tail of them I do not know, for they are very mysterious and hard to grasp.

　　但是那个关卡官吏是否理解了他的思想，我不知道，因为它们非常神秘和深奥。