When Lin-leu was about a hundred years, once in the spring, he put on his robe and went to pick up grains, obronёnnye reapers. Going on the field, he sang.
Confucius, who went then Wei, saw him from afar. Turning to the disciples, he said:
- With this old man, apparently, is to talk. Someone should go see what he might say.
Volunteered to go Zi-gong. At the edge boundaries he waited Lin Lei. Looking at his face, sighed:
- Are you about anything you do not regret? And yet you sing, picking beans.
Lin Lei did not stop and did not interrupt the song. Zi Gong's not behind. Finally, Lin Lei looked at him and said:
- What should I be sorry?
- Teacher, what happiness allows you to sing, picking beans?
- Reasons for this happiness is at all, - said Lin Lei, smiling - but instead of him grieve. Because I had not tasted the pain in his youth, learning to behave well, having grown up, never tried to leave a mark in life, I was able to live so long. Because in old age I have no wife, no sons and nearing the time of my death, I could be so happy.
- But it is human nature to wish to live long and be afraid of death, why did you die happy?
- Death - a return to where we went when they were born. So how do I know that dying here, I'm not born somewhere else? How do I know not whether the cost of the life and death of each other? How do I know if not confusing - so frightened to worry about life? How do I know whether it would be near death better than my past life?