䍺

The Classic of Southern Mountains: four hundred li east is Mount Xun, copper on its sunny side, jade on its shady side. A beast lives there shaped like a sheep, with no mouth. It cannot be killed. Its name is Huanyang. Mount Xun gives metal on the south face and jade on the north. One mountain, two minerals, one on each side. On it lives a beast shaped like a sheep. No mouth. Cannot be killed. "No mouth" is the most radical subtraction in the whole Shanhaijing. The book is full of incomplete bodies. Hundun has no face at all. The paired-wing bird has one eye and one wing. The one-armed country has one arm. The chest-pierced country has a hole through its chest. Those are bodies missing a part. Huanyang is different. What it lacks is not a hand or an eye. It is the mouth. What is a mouth? The mouth is the interface between a body and the world. Food goes in through it, speech comes out, breath goes both ways. No mouth means a body that does not exchange. And in early Chinese thought, not exchanging equals not dying. This is not a word game. It is a very old chain of reasoning: whatever has a mouth must eat; whatever eats depends on something; whatever depends on something runs out; whatever runs out dies. No mouth, no dependence; no dependence, no exhaustion; no exhaustion — it cannot be killed. In other words, Huanyang is not unkillable. It has no interface at which killing could occur. A blade goes in and strikes a closed body that trades nothing with the outside. That chain of reasoning later grew into two practices. One is grain avoidance. Daoists held that eating grain leaves rot in the intestines, which breeds the three corpse-worms; the worms report to heaven, and your allotted span ends. So you stop eating grain and feed on breath instead. That is the mouthless imagination applied to oneself. The other is corpse-release. When a practitioner dies, the body stays and the spirit leaves. What remains is a body that does not eat, does not move, does not rot — a mouthless body. So Huanyang is a prototype: the first step toward not dying is not eating. But biology wants a word here. No mouth does mean no exchange. The price is that an animal which does not feed lives very briefly. The silkmoth. After the silkworm pupates and emerges, its mouthparts are vestigial. It cannot feed. Its adult life is two or three days, spent entirely on mating and laying eggs, and then it dies. Mayflies go further: the adult mouthparts are wholly degenerate, and some species live only hours. They achieved no mouth. They did not achieve not dying. So "cannot be killed," read literally, is a lie. Read another way, it is exact: this animal does not need killing. It dies on its own, and quickly. What the ancients saw may have been exactly those few days. A moth, not eating, not moving, on the wall. Still there the next day. Gone the day after. No blood, no corpse, no process of decay. It cannot be killed. It was not killed. It simply disappeared. That is the plainest form of immortality: not living forever, but dying out of sight. Where Mount Xun is today is disputed — western Zhejiang, some say; Jiangxi, say others. Copper on the south face and jade on the north is plausible: copper and tremolite jade do occur together in the volcanic belt along the Zhejiang-Jiangxi border. A mountain with copper and jade. A sheep with no mouth. The minerals are real. The sheep is a thought. But the thought has outlived the mines.

เขาซุน มีทองแดงด้านใต้ มีหยกด้านเหนือ มีสัตว์ "รูปร่างเหมือนแกะ แต่ไม่มีปาก ฆ่าไม่ได้ ชื่อหวนหยาง" "ไม่มีปาก" คือการตัดทอนที่รุนแรงที่สุดในซานไห่จิง ปากคือจุดเชื่อมระหว่างร่างกายกับโลก กินเข้า พูดออก หายใจเข้าออก ถ้าไม่มีปาก ร่างกายก็ไม่แลกเปลี่ยนกับโลก และในความคิดจีนโบราณ "ไม่แลกเปลี่ยน" = "ไม่ตาย" สายเหตุผลคือ: มีปากต้องกิน กินต้องพึ่งสิ่งอื่น พึ่งสิ่งอื่นต้องมีวันหมด หมดแล้วก็ตาย ไม่มีปาก = ไม่ต้องพึ่ง = ไม่มีวันหมด = ฆ่าไม่ได้ ความคิดนี้ต่อมากลายเป็นสองสิ่ง: การอดอาหารเพื่อบำเพ็ญ (ไม่กินข้าว กินลม) และความเชื่อเรื่อง "ปล่อยศพ" ที่ร่างกายไม่เน่า แต่ทางชีววิทยา: สัตว์ที่ไม่มีปากกินไม่ได้จริง และอายุสั้นมาก ผีเสื้อไหมโตเต็มวัยมีปากฝ่อ กินไม่ได้ อยู่ได้สองสามวัน ใช้เวลาทั้งหมดไปกับการสืบพันธุ์แล้วตาย มันทำได้ "ไม่มีปาก" แต่ทำไม่ได้ "ไม่ตาย" "ฆ่าไม่ได้" จึงอาจหมายถึง: ไม่ต้องฆ่า มันตายเอง และตายเร็ว สิ่งที่คนโบราณเห็นอาจเป็นเพียงไม่กี่วันนั้น — ไม่กิน ไม่ขยับ เกาะอยู่บนผนัง วันรุ่งขึ้นยังอยู่ วันถัดไปหายไป ไม่มีเลือด ไม่มีศพ ไม่เน่า นั่นคือรูปธรรมที่ง่ายที่สุดของ "ไม่ตาย": ไม่ใช่มีชีวิตตลอดไป แต่ตายโดยมองไม่เห็น

Gunung Xun: tembaga di selatan, jed di utara. Ada binatang "seperti kambing biri-biri tetapi tiada mulut, tidak boleh dibunuh, namanya Huanyang." "Tiada mulut" ialah pengurangan paling radikal dalam kitab Shanhaijing. Mulut ialah antara muka antara tubuh dan dunia: makanan masuk, kata keluar, nafas dua hala. Tanpa mulut, tubuh tidak bertukar dengan dunia. Dalam pemikiran Cina kuno, "tidak bertukar" bermakna "tidak mati". Rantaiannya: ada mulut mesti makan; makan bergantung pada sesuatu; bergantung bermakna ada had; had bermakna mati. Tiada mulut, tiada pergantungan, tiada had — maka tidak boleh dibunuh. Idea ini kemudian menjadi dua amalan: menahan diri daripada makan bijirin (makan angin) dan kepercayaan "lepas jasad" yang tubuhnya tidak reput. Tetapi biologi berkata: haiwan tanpa mulut memang tidak makan, dan hidupnya sangat singkat. Rama-rama sutera dewasa tidak boleh makan; hidupnya dua tiga hari sahaja, semuanya untuk membiak. Ia berjaya "tiada mulut", tetapi tidak berjaya "tidak mati". Mungkin "tidak boleh dibunuh" bermaksud: tidak perlu dibunuh. Ia mati sendiri, dan cepat. Yang dilihat orang dahulu mungkin hanya beberapa hari itu: tidak makan, tidak bergerak, lekat pada dinding, esok masih ada, lusa hilang — tanpa darah, tanpa mayat, tanpa reput. Itulah bentuk paling sederhana "tidak mati": bukan hidup selamanya, tetapi mati tanpa kelihatan.

Núi Tuân: phía nam có đồng, phía bắc có ngọc. Có thú "như cừu nhưng không có miệng, không thể giết, tên Hoàn Dương." "Không miệng" là phép trừ triệt để nhất trong Sơn Hải Kinh. Miệng là chỗ nối giữa thân thể và thế giới: ăn vào, nói ra, thở ra vào. Không miệng nghĩa là thân thể không trao đổi với bên ngoài. Trong tư tưởng Hán cổ, "không trao đổi" bằng "không chết". Chuỗi lý lẽ: có miệng ắt phải ăn; ăn ắt phải nhờ; nhờ ắt có hạn; có hạn ắt chết. Không miệng, không nhờ, không hạn — nên không thể giết. Ý niệm này về sau thành hai thứ: tuyệt cốc (không ăn ngũ cốc, ăn khí) và "giải thi" — xác không phân hủy. Nhưng sinh học nói: không miệng thì đúng là không ăn, và tuổi thọ rất ngắn. Bướm tằm trưởng thành có miệng thoái hóa, không ăn được, sống hai ba ngày, dành hết cho sinh sản rồi chết. Nó đạt "không miệng", không đạt "không chết". "Không thể giết" có lẽ nghĩa là: không cần giết. Nó tự chết, và chết rất nhanh. Người xưa có lẽ chỉ thấy mấy ngày đó: không ăn, không động, bám trên tường, hôm sau vẫn còn, hôm nữa biến mất — không máu, không xác, không thối rữa. Đó là dạng đơn giản nhất của "bất tử": không phải sống mãi, mà chết mà không ai thấy.

Gunung Xun: tembaga di selatan, batu giok di utara. Ada binatang "seperti domba tetapi tanpa mulut, tidak bisa dibunuh, namanya Huanyang." "Tanpa mulut" adalah pengurangan paling radikal dalam kitab Shanhaijing. Mulut adalah antarmuka antara tubuh dan dunia: makanan masuk, kata keluar, napas dua arah. Tanpa mulut, tubuh tidak bertukar dengan dunia. Dalam pemikiran Cina kuno, "tidak bertukar" berarti "tidak mati". Rantainya: punya mulut mesti makan; makan bergantung pada sesuatu; bergantung berarti ada batas; batas berarti mati. Tanpa mulut, tanpa ketergantungan, tanpa batas — maka tidak bisa dibunuh. Gagasan ini kemudian menjadi dua praktik: menahan makan biji-bijian (makan angin) dan kepercayaan "lepas jasad" yang tubuhnya tidak membusuk. Tetapi biologi berkata: hewan tanpa mulut memang tidak makan, dan hidupnya sangat singkat. Ngengat sutra dewasa tidak bisa makan; hidupnya dua tiga hari saja, semuanya untuk berkembang biak. Ia berhasil "tanpa mulut", tetapi tidak berhasil "tidak mati". Mungkin "tidak bisa dibunuh" berarti: tidak perlu dibunuh. Ia mati sendiri, dan cepat. Yang dilihat orang dahulu mungkin hanya beberapa hari itu: tidak makan, tidak bergerak, menempel di dinding, besok masih ada, lusa hilang — tanpa darah, tanpa mayat, tanpa pembusukan. Itulah bentuk paling sederhana "tidak mati": bukan hidup selamanya, tetapi mati tanpa terlihat.