Chinese Tales

• Spear and shield
• Buying shoes
• The old gardener
• Useful uselessness
• The large tree by the side of the road

Spear and shield

Then he put down his shields and raised one of his spears and shouted, "This is the sharpest spear there is. It is a spear of death! Any shield, no matter how hard it might be, can be penetrated by the spear at a single blow!"

This sounded nice. But one onlooker stepped forward and asked, "Excuse me, but if I use your spear to strike your shield, what will then happen?"

The advertiser rolled his eyeballs, opened his mouth wide, but couldn't find any good answer. He withdrew instead.

Buying shoes

Finally he made a solution and said to the shop assistant, "I am afraid you'll have to wait until I fetch my straw."

He rushed home in a great hurry, snatched the straw and sped up to town. But when he reached the shop, night had already fallen and the shop was closed.

Others heard about this, and went to ask him, "Haven't you got your feet with you when you are in the shop?"

"Yes, of course," the man answered with perfect assurance, "But the straw is very carefully measured, and I am afraid my feet are not that trustworthy."

The old gardener

Tzu-Kung had been rambling in the south in Ku, and was returning to Zin. As he passed a place on the north of the Han, he saw an old man who was going to work on his vegetable garden. He had dug his channels, gone to the well, and was bringing from it in his arms a jar of water to pour into them. Toiling away, he expended a great deal of strength, but accomplished very little.

Tzu-kung said to him, "There is a contrivance here; if you learn to use it, you may irrigate a hundred plots of ground in one day. Using very little strength, the result is still formidable. Master, wouldn't you like to try it?"

The gardener looked up at him and asked, "How does it work?"

Tzu-kung said, "It is a lever made of wood, heavy behind, and light in front. It raises the water as quickly as you could do with your hand, or as it bubbles over from a boiler. It is called a shadoof."

The gardener put on an angry look, laughed derisively and said, "I have heard from my teacher that where there are ingenious contrivances, there are sure to be subtle doings; and there is sure to be a scheming mind. But when there is a scheming mind in the breast, its pure simplicity is impaired. When this pure simplicity is impaired, the spirit becomes unsettled, and the unsettled spirit is not the proper residence of the Way (Tao)."

Now Tzu-kung looked blank and ashamed.

The other continued, "Aren't you the scholar whose great learning makes you comparable to a sage? But what leisure do you have to be regulating the world?"

Tze-kung shrunk back abashed. His disciples then said, "Who was that man?"

He only said, "I perceive that they who hold fast and cleave to the Way are complete in the qualities belonging to it. Complete in those qualities, they are complete in their bodies. Complete in their bodies, they are complete in their spirits. These men will not go where their mind does not carry them, and will do nothing of which their mind does not approve. Such men may be described as possessing all the attributes of the Way."

When he returned to Lu, Confucius said, "The man makes a pretence of cultivating the arts of the "Embryonic Age"."

[Excerpts from James Legge, tr.: The Complete Chuang Tzu, Ch. 12; section 11.]

Useful uselessness

First get useful to yourself inside the world of men. Then learn to thrive.

Carpenter Shih went to the Ch'i State. On reaching Crooked Shaft, he saw a serrate oak standing by the village shrine. It was so large that its shade could cover a herd of several thousand cattle. It was a hundred spans around, towering up eighty feet over the hilltop, before it branched out.

A dozen boats could be cut out of it. Crowds stood gazing at it, but the carpenter took no notice, and went on his way without even casting a look behind. But his apprentice took a good look at it, and when he caught up with his master, said,

"Since I first took up my axe and followed you, Master, I have never seen timber as pretty as this. Why not care to stop and look at it?"

"Forget about it. It's not worth talking about," said his master. "It is good for nothing. Made into a boat, it would sink; into a coffin, it would rot; into furniture, it would break easily; into a door, it would sweat; into a pillar, it would be worm-eaten.

It's wood of no quality, of no use. That is why it has grown so old."

After Carpenter Shih had returned home, he dreamt that the spirit of the tree appeared to him in his sleep and said:

"What are you comparing me with? Is it with fine-grained wood? Look at the cherry-apple, the pear, the orange, the citron, and other fruit bearers: As soon as their fruit ripens they are torn apart and abused. Their huge limbs are broken off, the small ones scattered abroad. Their utility makes life miserable for them, and so they do not get to finish out the years Heaven gave them, but are cut off in mid-journey. They bring in on themselves - the pulling and tearing of the common mob. And it is the same way with all other things.

As for me, I have been trying for a long time to be of no use. Many times I was in danger of being cut down, but I have finally got it. This is of great use to me. If I had been of some use, I should not be able to grow this large. Moreover, you and I are both created things. Have done then with this criticism of each other. Is a good-for-nothing fellow in imminent danger of death a fit person to talk of a good-for-nothing tree?"

When Carpenter Shih woke up he reported his dream. His apprentice said, "If the tree is intent on being of no use, what is it doing there at the village shrine?"

"Shhh! Say no more! It is only resting there. If we carp and criticise, it will merely conclude that we do not understand it. Even if it were not at the shrine, do you suppose it would be cut down? It protects itself in a different way from ordinary people. If you try to judge it by conventional standards, you will be way off!"

[Wic: "This Human World"; Cf. Co 63-5.]

The large tree by the side of the road

"Have you never seen a wild cat," rejoined Master Chuang, "crouching down in wait for its prey? . . . It's big enough in all conscience . . .

Now if you have a big tree and are at a loss what to do with it, why not plant it in the Village of Nowhere . . . There it would be safe from the axe and from all other injury. ... Being of no use to others, what could worry its mind?"

[Wic: "A Happy Excursion"; Cf. Co 35.]

Literature  

Co: Watson, Burton, tr. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.

Wic: Yutang, Lin. The Wisdom of China. London: New English Library, 1963.



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