“Oh but we have done our best!” cried the Taoists indignantly, and a little rudely.
“But there is nothing there,” said the emperor. “Is this truly how you view me? Is this your precious secret?”
“Wait one moment please,” said the oldest and tipsiest of the Taoists, his long beard still damp with wine. “Please draw aside the curtain between our walls and you will then truly see our work.”
So shaking his head in wonder, the emperor had the curtain drawn, revealing the dazzling painting of the Confucians. The emperor stood before it once again, marvelling at its wonder (and how they seemed to get his noble brow just so). Then, his mind already made up as to who was the winner this day, he turned once again to the Taoists’ blank wall, only to find there, not a blank wall after all but the reflection of the painting on the opposite wall. Only this time, instead of a flat and static picture, he saw reflected in the unbelievably smooth and shiny wall, a moving picture.
Somehow, because of the play of light on the shiny surface there, it seemed as though the painting had come alive. There was the palace and the town again, only he thought he could detect movement behind its windows. The river itself moved, the waves lapping against each other and the birds pirouetting overhead. And lastly, he could see himself there, astride his great stallion, whose very nostrils seemed to quiver in the air while his own beard fluttered in the breeze and his lips seemed to move with his own shouted orders to his troops.
He was amazed. He was astounded. He turned to the tipsy Taoists and asked them with humility and wonder in his voice just how they had managed this miracle. The Taoists seemed to hang their heads just a little and answered simply. “It is actually in not doing that we have achieved this wondrous thing, Sire. All we did was create the space for the painting to happen and let it paint itself.”
“Is this then your precious secret?” asked the great lord.
“Yes,” answered the Taoists, “it is indeed. We call it wu wei or ‘not doing’, and it is in creative and natural ‘not doing’ that we are able to achieve the highest level possible.” Then they turned and bowed in unison to the dumbfounded Confucians. “We congratulate you noble sirs in your great work of art. We watched you every day work so diligently while we drank wine and rubbed a blank wall. What you have created is truly marvellous. But with your industry you have only created a flat and lifeless thing, while we, in our formlessness, have created a living world.”
It was said that afterwards, for the length of his reign, the emperor gave the Taoists in his kingdom his royal ear and they taught him many things until the day came for him to ascend to the heavens on the back of a dragon to take his place in the realm of the immortals.
SOLALA TOWLER
TALE 30
Direct Experience
The student came up to the master. “This thing you call Tao,” he said, throwing wide his arms. “Where does it exist?” The master stood for a moment then pointed to a steaming pile of ox manure at his feet. “It is there,” he said.
The student asked the master, “Master, what is the true meaning of Tao?” The master raised his staff and the student gave a shout. The master then struck his student with the staff.
A student asked the master, “I do not ask you anything about pointing, what is the moon?” The master asked back, “Who is not asking about pointing?” Another student asked, “I do not ask you about the moon, what is pointing?” The master answered, “The moon.” The student then said, “I asked about pointing, why did you speak of the moon?” The master answered, “Because you asked about pointing.”
A student once asked Hsiang Yen, “What is Tao?” Hsiang Yen replied, “A dragon hums inside a withered log.”
The student came to the master and said, “Please help me to quiet my mind.” The master answered, “Bring me your mind and I promise I will help you.” The student stood there for a moment and then said, “But Master, I cannot seem to find it.” “Ah,” replied the master, “then I already quieted it.”
TRADITIONAL
The Tao is hidden by partial understanding.
The true meaning of words is hidden
by flowery rhetoric.
CHUANG TZU
TALE 31
A Wandering Taoist
The cold wind blowing off the western desert ruffled the beard of the old man riding slowly atop the water buffalo. It whipped around his travelling cloak and made him shiver deep within his robes. He tried wrapping the cloak a little tighter around his shoulders but it did him little good. It was a bad time of the year for travelling, but that could not be helped. The stolid beast plodded on slowly toward the frontier.
A horse would have been faster, but this beast was steadier, more surefooted in the mountains and ate very little. He supposed it was a bit of reverse vanity that prompted him to travel on so humble a mount, the last vestige of the once proud royal archivist.
This man, called Lao Tan, was leaving his post and his life in court behind him and heading toward the western frontier. Life in the capital had been going from bad to worse. In fact, as far as he was concerned, society as a whole was falling apart. The court intrigue nauseated him, the constant political maneuvering gave him a headache, and it seemed as though cynicism was trickling down even into the lower classes. The tradesmen and shopkeepers were far more interested in making money than in being of good service. Even the farmers, the bedrock of civilization, were showing signs of dissatisfaction and doubt about their own lives.
Everywhere he looked Lao Tan saw signs that society was askew. It seemed to him that the Way had truly been lost and that things were only going to get worse. Even his students had become cynical, more interested in acquiring mystical powers than simply learning how to live in accord with the eternal Way. As if there were anything more powerful than that.
Armies were massing all along the borders of the various fiefs, ready to go at each other’s throats at a moment’s notice. And no longer were there chivalrous knights errant as in days past, seeking to redress the wrongs suffered by the weak at the hands of the rapacious strong. The ancient rules of combat in which battles were fought by favourites, thus avoiding needless bloodshed, were being ignored. Now, armies went at each other in wholesale slaughter, while the poor peasants whose lands they ravaged in battle suffered the loss of their crops, their sons and even their daughters to the bloodthirsty soldiers.
All in all, it had seemed like a good time to leave the festering swamp that society had become and head into the wilderness to pass his days in contemplation of the Way. So he had said goodbye to his students and his position, and since his wife had left this world of dust years before, he mounted his sturdy buffalo, and along with one of his most trusted and promising students carrying his qin, slowly plodded toward the setting sun.
As he travelled further and further from the capital it seemed to Lao Tan that he was able to breathe easier and his mind, so long cluttered with the endless minutiae of imperial service, became clear. He had wielded great power and greater responsibility as Keeper of the Archives in the capital. The people of the Middle Kingdom had long venerated the sacred power of the written word and, as Lao Tan was in charge of the imperial library, his was a most glorious post. Or so it had seemed in the beginning.
But after years of watching the supposedly learned men of the kingdom calcify their minds with mindless repetition of the writings of those who had come before them, never venturing an original idea or thought lest it get them in trouble with the intelligentsia of the court, he had begun to sicken of the life at the imperial court. He longed to breathe the air of mountains, to feel himself imbued with the de or sublime energy of those lofty places. He longed to sit with men and women who were not afraid to speak their minds, not afraid to dig deep into themselves for truth, knowledge and experience of the ineffable and absolute Way.
And so he had mounted his buffalo, with its greenish tinge, and saying a few last goodbyes to his students and few friends, had set out
on this slow and ponderous way, feeling freer than he had for many years.
Of course, as he travelled he came to towns where he was known, and men there – ostentatious, wealthy and shallow men – tripped each other up to be able to feast and fete him, believing that he still had power and connections in the capital. Often he let them have their fantasies, especially when his student was half-starved and freezing from their journey, and let his officious hosts wine and dine them.
He was careful to promise them nothing but he could see the greed in their eyes as they sat with him, asking for his teaching while ignoring his very words of truth. “Empty your minds and fill your bellies,” he had told them. And they, misunderstanding his words said, “Yes, yes, take more of our humble and miserable food. Fill your belly with our unworthy dishes,” while serving him on gold platters.
But now, at last, he was past all the towns and cities of the kingdom, out on the edge of the wilderness, where he planned to live out his last days in peace, stillness and quiet communion with the Tao. He had one last barrier to pass, one last test of his resolve.
At the end of the day he reached the outermost gate of the kingdom. He slowly and stiffly dismounted and turned to the gatekeeper who had come out of his tiny hut to greet him. Yinhi was a longtime friend and student and was about as old as Lao Tan himself.
“Master Lao,” he said, coming forward, his wrinkled face breaking into a broad smile. “It’s so good of you to visit. Are you on a vacation from the capital?”
“No,” answered Lao Tan, “I’m afraid I’m done with all that. I am on my way out there.” He pointed to the vast desert on the other side of the pass.
Yinhi frowned. “But that way is very hard, and may even mean your death.”
“No matter,” said Lao Tan. “It is time for me to leave my old life behind and see what the Tao has in store for me.”
Later, after a simple but delicious meal, Lao Tan and his friend sat by the fire and listened to the night sounds around them.
“Master Lao,” began Yinhi, “if you are really going, never to return, I beg you to please write something for your students so they may have some of your wisdom to refer to in the troubled times ahead.”
“I am afraid that if they did not hear me when I was speaking to them, they surely will not listen to mere words on paper,” answered Lao Tan.
Lao Tan’s student sat in the shadows and did not say anything. He had already exhausted all his words in begging his master for written instructions. That is why he had elected to accompany him out to the wilderness, away from his easy life in the court and out to who knows where, as long as he could stay by his teacher’s side.
“But,” entreated Yinhi, “if things are really getting as bad as you say, then we will surely be in need of whatever wisdom you can leave us.”
“I dislike writing things down,” answered Lao Tan, getting up and stretching. “I feel there is really no way to convey the immensity of the Way in simple words, no matter how clever or polished. Now I must go to bed, old friend. I will be leaving at first light.”
Before going to bed, Lao Tan sat awhile, thinking over what Yinhi had said. He did feel a little guilty about leaving his students and friends back at the capital. Perhaps writing a few lines would not be such a bad thing after all. It might even help him formulate his thoughts a little better in his own mind. He got out his writing implements and began mixing his ink. Then, with his brush poised over a long strip of bamboo, he stopped.
How could he possibly put into words the immensity and depth of the Way? How could he, in a few lines, bring forth all that he had experienced and learned in a lifetime of seeking the great and sublime Tao? For a moment the thought overwhelmed him. But even though he was quitting this sad and misguided world, he felt responsible to the people who were struggling under the weight of fear and ignorance. If it was possible to leave behind a small token of his concern for them, he felt he had a duty to do what he could.
And so, after taking one deep breath “from the bottom of his heels” he put his brush to the bamboo and began to write.
“The Tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal name.”
SOLALA TOWLER
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Tales from the Tao
Solala Towler
Photographs by John Cleare
First published in the UK in 2005 by Watkins
Publishing.
This edition published in the UK and USA in 2017 by Watkins, an imprint of Watkins Media Limited
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London WC2N 4EZ
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Copyright © Watkins Media Limited 2017
Text copyright © Solala Towler 2005, 2007, 2017
Photographs copyright © John Cleare 2005, 2007, 2017
The right of Solala Towler to be identified as the Author of this text has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Managing Editor: Sarah Epton
Editor: Kirty Topiwala
A CIP record for this book is available from the
British Library
ISBN: 978-1-78678-041-6
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset in Avenir
Colour reproduction by Colourscan, Singapore
Printed in China
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Tales From the Tao Page 7
