The Country of Yang had been devastated by a palace insurection and an invasion, and the older ruler had suffered an untimely and humiliating death. After visiting the sacked city and wounded soldiors, the new king Yang-Jau was disturbed and wondered how a similiar situation could be prevented.
"Your Majesty, if you want to be an Emperor" said an advisor, named Go Wai, you should treat your subordinates as teachers. To be a King, you should treat them as friends. To be a Lord, you should treat them as guests. If you wish to ruin your country, you should treat them as servants or even slaves. The choice is yours alone."
Impressed and a little surprised, the king politely returned, "Your statement is very interesting> Since I desire to be an Emperor, whom should I begin to respect?"
"Your Majesty might start with me," the advisor boldly suggested, "a little known person. As a result, other capable individuals , with greater reputations, will be envious and come to try their politicval fortunes here. These intellectuals, whose counsel you seek and esteem, having heard of your generosity and expecting to be treated likewise, will confidently approach your Majesty and freely present their ideas and suggestions. Your Majesty may then choose the best administrators from among them. Thus our country's prosperity and Your Majesty's potency will be secured."
The king was well pleased and acted swiftly. The news rapidly spread among neighboring countries. Hearing this, people were amazed. Many well-educated gentlemen resigned their current positions and relocated themselves to this country. In less than three years, afyter meticulous selections and severe competitions, a handful of distinguished and competent foreigners were properly appointed, with similiar generous treatment from the king. They helped him to efficiently manage his country and steadily expand its borders.
"Look at that one-the one staring at us through the bars.
Doesn't he look intelligent?"
"Yes, there is something uncanny about it."
"Walks on his hind legs, too, and swings his arms."
"There! He's got a peanut. Let's see what he does with it."
"Well, what do you thing about that! He knows enough to take the shell off before he eats it just like we do."
"Theres a female alongside of him. Listen to her chatter at him. He doesn't seem to be paying much attention to her, though."
"She must be his mate."
"They look kind of sad, don't they?"
"Yes. I guess they wish they were in here with us monkeys."
A lady ran up to the Mulla, "Mulla, Mulla, my son has written from the Abode of Learning (Cairo) to say that he has completely finished his studies!"
The Mullah replied, "Console yourself, Madam, with the thought that God will no doubt send him more."
The Philosophers, logicians, and doctors of the law were drawn up at court to examine Nasrudin. This was a serious case, because he had admitted going from village to village saying; "The so-called wisemen are ignorant, irresolute and confused." He was charged with undermining the security of the state.
"You may speak first," said the King.
" Have paper and pens brought," said the Mulla.
Paper and pens were brought.
" Give some to each of the first seven savants."
They were distributed.
" Have them spearately write an answer to this question; "What is bread?" "
This was done.
The papers were handed to the King, who read them out;
The first said; "Bread is a food."
The second; "It is flour and water."
The third; "It is a gift of god."
The fourth; "Baked dough."
The fifth; "Changeable, acording to how you mean "bread"."
The sixth; "A nutritious substance."
The seventh; "Nobody really knows."
"When they decide what bread is," Nasruding said, "it will be possible for them to decide other things. For example, whether I am right or wrong. Can you entrust matters of assessment and judgement to people like this? Is it or is it not strange that they cannot agree about something which they eat each day, yet they are unanimous that I am a heretic?"
In AD 627, the monk Paulinus visited King Edwin in northern England to persuade him to accept Christianity. He hesitated and decided to summon his advisers. At the meeing one of them stod up and said; "Your majesty, when you sit at the table with your lords and vassals, in the winter the fire burns warm and bright on the hearth and the storm is snowing outside, bringing the snow and the rain, it happens of a sudden that a little bird flies into the hall. It comes in at one door and flies out through the other. FOr the few moments that it is inside the hall, it does not feel the cold, but as soon as it leaves your sight, it returns to the dark of winter. It seems to me that the life of man is much the same. We do not know what went before and we do not know what follows. If the new doctrine can speak to us surely of these things, it is well for us to follow it."
A Welshman was shipwrecked upon a deserted island for twenty years before a rescue party finally discovered him. The Welshman was delighted at his rescue, but wished to show his rescuers all the work that he had done. He had missed civiliation greatly, so he had cut down several trees in order to build a village. There was a bank, a theatre, a pub, a hotel, a jail and two churches. When the rescuers saw the two churches they asked him why he had built two churches.
He smugly replied, "You see the one on the left? That's the one I don't go to!"
Chuang Tzu and Hui Tzu were strolling along the dam of the Hao river when Chuang Tzu said, "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"
Hui Tzu said,"You're not a fish, so how do you know what fish enjoy?"
Chuang Tzu said, "You're not I, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"
Hui Tzu said, "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know On the other hand, you're certainly not a fish, so that still proves that you don't know what fish enjoy!"
Chunag Tzu said, "Let's go back to your original question, please. You asked me how I know what fish enjoy, so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao River. "
What is acceptable we call acceptable; what is unacceptable we call unacceptable. A road is made by people walking on it, and thusly thing are so because they are called so. What made them so? Making them so makes them so. What makes them not so? Making them not so makes them not so. Things all must have that which is so and all things all must have that which is acceptable. There is nothing that is not so, nothing that is not acceptable.
Rain, hail,
Snow, Ice;
All different, but
they finally meld into
One valley stream.
Should the moon
Distinquish
Rich and poor,
it would never brighten
a poor man's hut.
Mistaken if you
think you see the moon
with your eyes;
You see it with
the light it sheds.
What shall I leave as
a keepsake after I die?
In spring, flowers;
Summer, cuckoos;
Fall, red maple leaves;
Winter, snow.
In the dark
I lost sight of
my shadow;
I found it again
By the fire I lit.
Love too
Is
Rooted in
Piss
And shit.
Feeling helpless, I go out
To meet the moon
Only to find every mountain
Veiled with cloud.
One day Heiko Sensei led his student, Ito, up to the top of a cliff. The waves crashed against the base of the cliff, several hundred feet below. Heiko took up a bow and set up a target 50 yards aways.
"Lets have a contest" he told the student.
Ito fired an arrow and hit the red bullseye on the target.
"Not bad." said the Master. Heiko Sensei took the bow and then fired an arrow into the sky as high as it could go and it landed hundreds of yards away in the ocean. He exclaimed loudly, "Bullseye!"
Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice. You lived first, and you are older than all needs, older than all prayers. All things belong to you. the tow legged, the four legged, the wings of the air, and al greeen things that live.
You have set the powers of the four quarter of the earth to cross each other. You have made me gross the good road, and the road of difficulties, and where they cross, the place is holy. Day in, day out, forevermore, you are the life of things.
A great conflict was about to come off between the Birds and the Beasts. When the two armies were collected together the bat hesitated which to join. The Birds that passed his prech said:" Come with us"; but he said:"I am a beast". Later on, some beasts who were passing underneath him looked up and said; "Come with us"; but he said:"I am a bird". Luckily at the last moment, peace was made, and no battle took place, so the Bat came to the birds and wished to join in the party, but they all turned against him and he had to fly away. He then went to the beasts, but had soon to beat a retreat, or else they would have torn him to pieces. "Ah", he said , "I see that he that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends."
Side note by poster
The older meaning is that it's "us or them", but the newer meaning is perhaps "Avoid choosing sides in a silly war." or "noone appreciates an open mind"
Once upon a time there was a Miser who used to hide his gold at the foot of a tree in his garden; but every week he used to go and dig it up and gloat over his gains. A robber, who had noticed this, went and dug up the gold and decamped with it. When the Miser next came to gloat over his treasures, he found nothing but the empty hole. He tore his hair, and raised such a cry that all the neighbours came around him and he told them how he use to come and visit his godl. "Did you ever take any of it out?" asked one of them.
"Nay" said he, "I only came to look at it."
"Then come again and look at the hole," said a neighbour, "It will do you just as much good."
One find day two Crabs came out from their home to take a stroll on the sand. "Child," said the mother, "you are walking very ungracefully. You should accustom yoursefl to walking straight forward without twisting from side to side."
"Pray, mother," said the young one, "do but set the example yourself and I will follow you."
Springtime, the loveliest season,
Noisy the birds, new the shoots,
Ploughs in furrow, oxen yoked,
Green the sea, fields dappled.
When cuckoos sing on comely tree-tops,
The greater is my sadness,
Smoke bitter, loss of sleep plain,
Because my kinsmen are gone.
In mount, in meadow, in ocean isles,
In each way one may take,
From Christ there is no seclusion.
Rain outside, drenches bracken;
Sea shingle white, frign of foam;
Fair candle, man's discretion.
Rain outside, need for refuge;
Furze yellowed, hogweed withered;
Lord God, why made you a coward?
Rain outside, drenches my hair;
The feeble plaintive, slope steep;
Ocean pallid, brine salty.
Rain outside, drenches the deep;
Whistle of wind over reed-tips;
Widowed each feat, talent wanting.
Be not too wise, not too foolish,
be not too conceited, nor too diffident,
be not too haughty, nor too humble,
be not too talkative, nor too silent,
be not too hard, nor too feeble.
for;
If you be too wise ,one will expect too much you;
If you be too foolish ,you will be deceived;
If you be too conceited ,you will be thought vexatious;
If you be too humble ,you will be without honour;
If you be too talkative ,you will not be heeded;
If you be too silent ,you will not be regarded;
If you be too hard ,you will be broken;
If you be too feeble ,you will be crushed.
"It is through these habits," added Cormac,
"That the young become old and kingly warriors."
Return to me, oh sun,
to my wild destiny,
rain of the ancient wood,
bring me back to the aroma and the swords
that fall from the sky,
the solitary peace of pasture and rock,
the damp at the river-margins,
the smell of the larch tree,
the wind alive like a heart
beating in the crowded restlessness
of the towering araucaria.
Earth, give me back your pure gifts,
the towers of silence which rose
from the solemnity of their roots.
I want to go back to being what I have not been,
and learn to go back from such deeps
that amongst all natural things
I could live or not live; it does not matter
to be one stone more, the dark stone,
the pure stone which the river bears away.
Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,
The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the world's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?
Nautre-love as Emerson knew it, and as Wordsworth knew it, and as nay of the choicer spirits of our time have known it, had distinctly a religious value. It does not come to a man or a woman who is wholly absorbed in selfish aor worldly or material ends. Except ye become in a measure as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of Nature- as Audubon entered it, as Thoreau entered it, as Bryant and Amiel entered it, and as all those enter it who make it a resource in their lives and an instrument of their culture.
The forms and creeds of religion change, but the sentiment of religion- the wonder and reverence and love we feel in the presence of the inscrutible universe- persist... If we do not go to church as much as did our fathers, we go to the woods much more, and are much more inclined to make a temple of them than they were.
The heavens declare God's glory
and teh magnificence of what made them.
Each new dawn is a miracle;
each new sky fills with beauty.
Their testimony speaks to the whole world
and reaches to the ends of the earth.
In them is a path for the sun,
who steps forth handsome as a bridgroom
and rejoices like an ahtlethe as he runs.
He starts at one end of the heavens
and circles to the other end,
and nothing can hide from his heat.
A night- there lay the Days between-
The Day that was Before-
And Day that was Behind- were one-
Abd biw -'twas Night- was here-
Slow- night- that must be watched away-
As Grains upon a shore-
Too imperceptible to note-
Till it be night- no more-
Wayfarer, the only way
is your footsteps, there is no other.
Wayfarer, there is no way,
you make the way as you go.
As you go, you make the way
and stopping to look behind,
you see the path that your feet
will travel again.
Wayfarer, there is no way-
only foam trails in the sea.
I live my life in growing orbits
Which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.
I am circling around God, the ancient tower,
And I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song
Some nights, stay up till dawn.
As the moon sometimes does for the sun.
Be a full bucket pulled up the dark way
of a well, then lifted out into light.
Something opens our wings. Somthing
makes boredom and hurt disappear.
Someone fills the cup in front of us.
We taste only sacredness.
Toward dawn he dreamed that he had concealed himself in one of the naves of the Clementine Library. A librarian wearing dark glasses asked him: "What are you looking for?" Hladik answered: "I am looking for God." The librarian said to him: "God is in one of the pages of the four hundred thousand volumes of the Clementine. My fathers and the fathers of my fathers have searched for this letter. I have grown blind seeking it." He removed his glasses, and Hladik saw his eyes, which were dead. A reader cam in to return an atlas. "This atlas is worthless," he said, and handed it to Hladik, who opened it at random. He saw a map of India as in a daze. A ubiquitous voice said to him: "The time of your labor has been granted." At this Hladik awoke.
At each moments she starts upon a long journey and at
each moment reaches her end.... All is eternally present
in her, for she knows neither pas nor future.
For here the present is eternity.
Yet not in torpor would I find,
Awe is the finest portion of mankind.
However scarce the world may make this sense-
In awe one feels profoundly the immense.
You can only go halfway into the darkest forest; then you are coming out the other side.