Chinese Tales
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The Goose That Couldn't Cackle
MASTER Chuang was walking in the mountains when he saw a huge tree, its branches
and leaves thick and lush. A woodcutter paused by its side but made no move to cut it
down. When Master Chuang asked the reason, he answered, " There's nothing it could be used
for!"Master Chuang said, "Because it's quite worthless to men like us, this tree is able to live out the years Heaven gave it."
Down from the mountain, the Master stopped for a night at the house of an old friend. Delighted at that, the friend ordered his son to kill a goose and prepare it. "One of the geese can cackle and the other can't," said the son. "So which should I kill, dad?"
"The one that can't cackle," said his dad, the host.
Next day Master Chuang's disciples questioned him. "The tree you know, got to live to a full, reap age because it seems worthless. The goose gets killed for a similar thing. What position should you take in that case, Master?"
Master Chuang laughed, saying, "I'd say about halfway between those poles apart - between worth and worthlessness, in all likelihood. But even if "halfway" might seem a good position, you don't get away from trouble there.
Another thing would be to climb up on the Way (Tao) - that's different! There go drifting and wandering, neither praised nor damned, shifting a bit with the times, taking grand harmony (Tao) for your measure. Then, could you get into any trouble?" [Cf. Co 209-10] (A bit shortened, paraphrase.]
Some Comment
The ancient Chinese fable master Chuang [roughly 300 BC] mentions there may lie benefits in making oneself utterly useless, not useful.Master Chuang also furnishes ample suggestions to think upon. One is a goose. If we think the only solution is not to be useful in the world of men, or to be neutral, we have to think twice on top of that rather helpful tale.
There's of course more to life than lessons had from twisted, useless trees [Co].
A wormwood weed can come fairly close to his ideals. The weed has a chance to live on its own accord, be useful to itself first of all, and has its own way undistorted and unpolluted by the greed of others rather often. We humans can't always reach up to that -
Norwegian and Danish folk tales want you to believe this, metaphorically: To sit like a lazybone in folk tales and eventually become a sour king, can slowly be had by poking the cinders and maybe puffing at the ashes in your own home, but more goes into it as well as time unfolds the plots involved in the often gruff and desperate stories that were meant for adults and children alike in the old days.
It pays to go about your business at hand meticulously, carefully, much like an excellent poker player. He excels in keeping himself much useless to mom - to say the least. Well, it's the fairy tale hero, the Ashlad we're looking to here. Winning a lot on top of his assets, he can perhaps reapen into a good old age.
Not all hidden ones learn that, and not all seem perfectly able to glide along with the seasons either - naturally and amiably - with that dignity that is free from jarring face lifting and similar folly.
We could go against this by getting useless in a way that pays well. Here is the lesson of chasing the wind in useless manners: First, sit calmly on your buttocks, with erect spine. Next, breathe so artfully that you cannot mean to catch the storm, and still you go on.
Wind, air, life-breath and certain life-forces can all be called prana in old, Aryan literature. By ridiculing the chasers of the wind in the clever gasping man's ways, you develop faculties. I did. Next add, "Ah, what I may is well, try and catch the wind (Donovan)".
The gruesome reason seems so simple: To be a hulk, learn to breathe like a huge one - very slowly and composedly in well measured ways. The one appears to go with the other, but then there is the issue of heart-beats too. We won't go into that here and now.
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Literature
Co: Watson, Burton, tr. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
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