Tales From the Tao Read online

  “Well,” he said, “what do you fellows think? I can see you are intelligent men. If the tortoise himself had been given the choice between being slaughtered for his shell to be venerated for hundreds of years or to be left alone to drag his tail in the mud, what do you think the tortoise would have wanted?”

  The two messengers looked at each other again. Was this some kind of test? They had been told that the old man was a bit odd, some even thought him crazy. They both decided to take their time in answering, just in case. Finally one of them took a deep breath and spoke. “I suppose,” he said slowly, “that if it were truly up to the tortoise, why of course he would rather have been left alone to, as you say, drag his tail through the mud.”

  “Then that is precisely what I intend to do with mine,” said the old man and abruptly turned his back on them, his muddy bottom winking obscenely. He gathered up his fishing line and trudged down the bank, singing an old folk song at the top of his lungs.

  The messengers watched him for some time as he walked slowly away. What would they say to the great lord? They were not even sure themselves what had just happened. To think they had walked all this way and gotten muddy and mosquito-bitten for this! It was true, they would tell their lord, the old man was crazy, not a sage, not a wise man. Just a crazy old man sitting on his bottom in the mud.

  CHUANG TZU

  Do not seek fame. Do not make plans.

  Do not be absorbed by activities.

  Do not think that you know.

  Be aware of all that is and dwell in the infinite. Wander where there is no path.

  Be all that heaven gave you, but act as though you have received nothing. Be empty, that is all.

  CHUANG TZU

  TALE 4

  A Calm Awakening

  Tzu Lai lay dying, surrounded by his wife and children, who were all weeping. His friend Tzu Li came to see him and finding them thus, said to the family, “Be quiet, do not disturb him in his time of great transformation!” Then he spoke to his friend saying, “Great is the creator of life. What will he make you in your next life do you think – the liver of a rat, or a bug’s leg?”

  Tzu Lai smiled and answered, “The relationship of a child to his parents is that he follows their directions, no matter where they lead. The relationship of yin and yang is even more important than that. If they urge me to die now, I must humbly submit, otherwise I am being obstinate and rebellious. The great earth gives me a form, I toil on it, in my old age I find my ease on it, and at death I am able to rest in it. That which makes my life good also makes my death good.”

  It is said that we are born from a quiet sleep and that at death we slip into a calm awakening.

  CHUANG TZU

  When your work is done, withdraw,

  This is the Way of Heaven.

  LAO TZU

  TALE 5

  The Value of Worthlessness

  A certain carpenter was travelling with his helper. They came to a town where a giant oak tree filled the square. It was huge, with many limbs spreading out; large enough to shade a hundred oxen and its shade covered the entire square. The helper was amazed at the potential lumber contained in this one tree but the carpenter passed it by with a mere glance. When his helper asked him why he had passed up such a magnificent specimen the carpenter replied that he could see at once that the great oak’s branches were useless to him.

  “They are so hard,” he said, “that were I to take my ax to them it would split. The wood is so heavy that a boat made of it would sink. The branches themselves are so gnarled and twisted they cannot be made into planks. If I tried to fashion house beams with it they would collapse. If I made a coffin from it you would not be able to fit someone inside. Altogether it is a completely useless tree. And that is the secret of its long life.”

  CHUANG TZU

  The trees on the mountain can be used

  to build and so are cut down.

  When fat is added to the fire

  it consumes itself.

  Cinnamon can be eaten

  and so is harvested.

  The lacquer tree can be used

  and so is slashed.

  Everyone knows the usefulness

  of the useful

  But no one knows the usefulness

  of the useless!

  CHUANG TZU

  TALE 6

  Dreaming of Gold

  There once lived a man in Chi who was obsessed with gold. But he was so poor that he was never able to amass more than one gold coin, old and shabby and clipped about the sides. This man arose from his bed each morning thinking about gold and then went to bed at night to dream about it. But no matter how hard he tried he could never earn any more gold. He went around to every rich man’s house and asked for work. But the only work that he was given was menial and extremely badly paid. He tried to gamble with the rough men outside the wine shop but lost almost every time, until he had lost even his one shabby piece of gold.

  One day he got up at dawn, got dressed and set out for the marketplace. He went over to the stall that dealt in gold, snatched up a great gold bar and ran off down the street. In his haste to get away he ran right into the constable and was dragged off to prison.

  At his arraignment the judge asked him, “What did you think you were doing stealing someone else’s gold right in front of so many people?”

  “When I took the gold,” he replied, “I did not see any other people. I only saw the gold.”

  Thus do we all often lose sight of what is really precious in our lives by only concentrating on what we wish were so instead of what is.

  LIEH TZU

  Not exalting the gifted prevents quarrelling.

  Not valuing treasures prevents stealing.

  Not seeing desirable things prevents

  confusion of the heart.

  LAO TZU

  TALE 7

  The Shaman and the Taoist

  Long ago, in the state of Cheng, there lived a powerful shaman. This shaman had many spirit helpers and could read any man or woman’s destiny just by looking at their face. He could tell them about their past and future, gain and loss, fortune and misfortune. He could also tell anyone the exact time of their death – including the year, month, day and even hour.

  Of course he was feared by many people, who usually passed him with their faces averted. After all, it is only the most brave or foolish who wish to know such dire news. When he would come into the village from his mountain home, with his long matted hair, clothed in rags and furs, with many amulets of bones, stones and animal parts all clanking about him, his eyes blazing with a fierce and animal-like fire, people would flee.

  Lieh Tzu, the young student of the Taoist master Hu Tzu, and a very inquisitive sort, decided that he needed to meet such a powerful and feared man and so went up the mountain to visit him. He entered the shaman’s hut and, after allowing a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the gloom of the smoke-filled room, sat himself down before the shaman.

  The shaman looked back at the young man with a fierce, almost savage look. He shook one of his ox-hide rattles at him and asked what he wanted. Did he want his fortune told? did he want to know the year, month, day and hour of his death?

  “No,” answered Lieh Tzu, a little shaken but trying hard not to show it. “I am studying to become an Immortal with Master Hu Tzu, I do not fear death.”

  “Ha!” exclaimed the shaman with a mighty shout and leapt up from his tiger-skin bed and began dancing all about Lieh Tzu. He danced and sang and threw various coloured powders into the fire, raising great multicoloured clouds of smoke all about them.

  At first Lieh Tzu sat there, unmoved. After all, he was the student of the great Hu Tzu. He was not afraid of a mere shaman. But as the day went by and the shadows lengthened in that little room, and the shaman danced on and began to speak with the voices of various birds and other wild animals, Lieh Tzu began to feel a bit uncomfortable. After a while this feeling of discomfort began to turn into outright fear
when the shaman suddenly stopped his wild chanting and dancing and stuck his great hairy face into Lieh Tzu’s and growled at him with the precise sound of a mountain lion.

  As it turns out, mountain lions were the one thing that Lieh Tzu was afraid of, having had a bad scare as a child while tending sheep for his family. He leapt up and ran out of the shaman’s hut as fast as he could while the shaman laughed a ragged and hoarse laugh, just like a mountain lion if a mountain lion could make such sounds.

  Lieh Tzu ran all the way back to his master Hu Tzu and told him that he had met a man even more powerful than he. “I used to think that your Tao was the most perfect,” he told his teacher, still shaking with fear, “but now I have met someone who is in touch with the very elements!”

  Hu Tzu looked at his young and shaken student and merely said, “I have shown you my outer appearance but not my essence. Do you really think that you have understood the Way? Can you get fertile eggs without a cock? You have only delved into Tao in a superficial way, that is why you are so transparent. Bring this shaman to me in the morning and we will see who he truly is.”

  So the next day Lieh Tzu managed to convince the reluctant shaman to come down from his mountain abode and visit with his teacher. When they arrived, Hu Tzu made Lieh Tzu wait outside while he spoke with the shaman. In a very short while, the shaman strode from Hu Tzu’s house saying over his shoulder, “Your teacher is a dead man. He will be gone within the week. I saw a strange thing when I looked into his face. I saw a vision of wet ashes.”

  Tearfully Lieh Tzu went in to see Hu Tzu, who was sitting calmly, waiting for him. “I am so sorry Master,” exclaimed Lieh Tzu, “the shaman told me that you are dying. I am sorry I ever brought him here.” He threw himself at Hu Tzu’s feet and began wailing and tearing at his robe.

  Hu Tzu put out a hand and grabbed Lieh Tzu’s shoulder in a grip like an iron band. “Stop your weeping and wailing,” he ordered. “I am not dying. That shaman is a fool. He may be able to scare ordinary folk but not me. To test him I merely showed myself to him as the still and silent earth, immovable like a mountain. With his pitiful ability to see into people, he could see that I had dammed up the springs of my vital chi and that caused him to think that I am dying. Bring him again tomorrow and we shall see.”

  So the next day Lieh Tzu trudged back up the mountain and brought the shaman back down. Again, he went into Hu Tzu’s house, his many necklaces clanking, leaving a smell of wood smoke and old hides behind him.

  Presently he came out again, a wide grin displaying yellowed teeth. “It is very fortunate for you that you have brought me here to see your master. I can tell that he is getting better already. I could see that his vital chi, which was dammed up yesterday, is already beginning to flow again. You may send me three hens for my trouble.” And again he strode off.

  Lieh Tzu went in to see his master, who was sitting the same way as the day before. Before Lieh Tzu could ask him what had happened Hu Tzu said, “Today I showed myself to him as the Heavenly void, the Wuji, without name or substance, the beginningless beginning. I showed him my yuan chi, my primordial energy, welling up from my heels. Doubtless that is what he saw as a good sign. Bring him before me again.”

  So the next day the shaman came again. This time when he left Hu Tzu’s house he was shaking his head. “I do not understand,” he said. “This master of yours is never the same for one day. The day before yesterday I saw death in his face, yesterday it seemed to me that I saw life. Today I am confused. I cannot read his face at all. Let his spirit settle down first, then I will be able to read him clearly.” And again, he strode off, still shaking his head.

  Lieh Tzu went in to see his teacher, who greeted him with a smile. “I just showed him the Tai Chi, the Great Ultimate,” he said, “where all primal qualities are in perfect balance and harmony. Of course all the ignorant oaf saw was the perfect balance of my internal chi.

  “When the ocean of internal chi is disturbed, it makes waves swirl to a great depth. There are nine levels to this depth. I have nine centres of chi in my body, three of which I showed to him, which confused his poor stupid head. Bring him back to me one more time.”

  This time Lieh Tzu stood very near the door so that he could hear what was going on inside. But no sooner had the shaman gone into Hu Tzu’s house than he came running back out again, necklaces clanking, with a wild and terrified look on this face, knocking Lieh Tzu to the ground.

  “Wait,” cried Lieh Tzu, “what happened?”

  But the shaman would not stop. Soon after that he disappeared from his mountain home and was never seen in those parts again.

  When Lieh Tzu asked his master what had happened Hu Tzu told him, “I merely showed him my true self, before I came into being – like grass bending before the wind on the steppes and as water flowing in waves across a vast sea. I opened myself completely to him and he was frightened by what he saw and ran away.”

  Lieh Tzu saw then that his master was indeed a true man of Tao. Tearfully, he bade Hu Tzu goodbye and went back to his home, where he lived for three years without going out into the world. He let his wife rest and did all the cooking and he fed the pigs as if they were people and old friends. He took no part in the goings on of the world but kept himself whole and plain, like a block of wood or clump of earth.

  And slowly, little by little, he began to understand what his teacher had been trying to tell him all those years. He gave up trying to learn everything. He gave up trying to be good. He gave up trying to become enlightened. He began to experience himself as one with the great unending Tao and he remained close to the Tao until the end of his days.

  LIEH TZU

  If one is true to one’s self

  and follows its teaching,

  who need be without a teacher?

  CHUANG TZU

  TALE 8

  To Dream the Impossible Dream

  There was once a rich man from the country of Ch’ou. He had a huge estate and many workers, whom he drove unmercifully. Day after day they toiled under the hot sun to fill the coffers of the rich man.

  One of these was an old man who had been working for the rich man’s family for many years. His body was nearly worn out with hard work and little rest; his muscles were stringy and his breath came in gasps, but still the foreman drove him on. At the end of the day, however, once he had laid his weary head down on his rice-bag pillow, he dreamed he was a rich man with a huge estate. All night long he was waited upon by servants, fed rare delicacies and entertained by beautiful women who played lovely and haunting melodies and danced ancient and graceful dances for him. He spent the entire dream in idle pursuit, dandling his fat young sons on his knees and laughing into the night.

  Of course, upon waking, the old man was once again the lowly labourer who spent his day in endless toil. When the noonday break came and he sat heavily down to eat his rice, his face showed his weariness. His friends would then try to console him. “No need,” he would say. “by day I am a slave to the rich man but at night I am the rich man. I spend half my life working his fields but the other half I spend in ease and comfort. Therefore do not pity me.”

  On the other hand, when the rich man, who spent his days in useless frivolity, laid his head upon his silken pillow, he tossed and turned and groaned all through the night. He dreamed he was a common labourer in his fields. All through the dream he worked, bent over, with muscles aching and sweat pouring down his face. For his noon meal he ate the coarsest rice with no flavour and, instead of sweet wine, he drank brackish water, not even tea. At the end of his labours he collapsed on his pallet, all alone in his little hut – his wife had died long ago and his children had left to find a better master far away. His life meant unending toil, with no rest and no respite, for his master was cruel and demanding. This life was truly miserable.

  When he awoke in the morning the rich man’s muscles ached as if he truly had worked in the fields all night, his bed was soaked with sweat and his mouth tasted dry and dus
ty. When he complained to his friends they told him, “don’t worry. by night you may suffer but by day you are a rich man, well respected in the business community, and you have far more than you will ever need. You are at the top of the ladder; that is why you dream at night that you are at the bottom. You cannot have it both ways. Things must balance. That is why you have those vexing dreams.”

  The rich man thought about this, as each day he awakened more weary than the day before. He took to walking over his estate to try to relax his agitated mind. He saw his workers there, toiling in the hot sun all day. He noticed in particular one old man who never stopped working, who was shrivelled and bent over by many years of hard labour. Yet he never complained, never shirked and always had a small smile on his face. “I envy that man,” he thought. “He has nothing, yet seems so much happier than me.”