Post by Kivawolfspeaker on May 17, 2006 10:05:30 GMT -5
Tao Living
The Rock
by Derek Lin
Once upon a time, a young disciple posed the following question to a wise sage: "Master, what is the value of the Tao?"
The sage gave an explanation, but the disciple didn’t understand.
The sage knew that explanations conveyed by words weren't always adequate. The best way to cultivate the Tao was learning by direct experience.
He took a rock from his desk and wrote down an address on a piece of paper: "Take this rock and go to this address. When you get there, I want you to ask people how much they would pay for the rock. Don't sell it. Just find out how much people are willing to pay."
The disciple went to the address and found himself in an outdoor market. There were many merchants hawking their wares and many shoppers browsing and haggling.
Beginning with the person nearest to him, the disciple held up the rock and asked: "Excuse me, how much would you pay for this rock?"
Most people ignored him and kept walking. Some glared at him. Some looked at him and sneered. Some laughed out loud. The few who did speak said things like "nothing" or "no thanks" or "go away".
After about an hour of this, a lady took pity in him: "Maybe I can use it as a paperweight. Here, I'll give you a dollar." She held out the money, but he shook his head and thanked her.
He returned and reported his experience to the sage: "Master, most people were not interested in the rock at all. The most I could get for it was a dollar."
"Good," the sage handed over another piece of paper. "Now go to this address with the rock and do the same thing. Ask the people there how much they would pay."
The address was in another part of town. When the disciple got there he saw that it was a jewelry shop. He entered and saw display cases full of glittering gems. Serious-looking clerks stood behind the counter. Everyone was dressed formally.
"What do you want, kid?" One of the clerks closed in on him.
"Uh... I want to find out how much you would pay for this." The disciple took out the rock. The clerk looked surprised, and then irritated.
"Where are your parents? This shop is no place for children. Out you go. Scat. Shoo."
Okay, I guess we're done, thought the disciple. The result here was no different than what he got at the market. He turned to leave.
The store manager took notice of the situation. He glanced at the rock just as the disciple reached the door. "Wait," he said. "Let me take a look, son."
The manager examined the rock. He looked puzzled, and then his eyes widened. He ordered one of the clerks to fetch the senior jeweler from the workshop in the back.
The old jeweler came out, grumbling about the interruption, but when he saw the rock, his eyes widened too. He examined it under magnifying glass for a long while, turning it this way and that. Then he handed it back to the disciple and whispered in the manager's ear.
Suddenly the manager was all smiles: "Son, I like you, so I'll exchange this candy here for your rock. Okay?"
The disciple shook his head: "I need to know how much you're willing to pay for it, sir."
"I see," the manager considered this. "How about if I give you ten bucks? Is it a deal?"
"No sir. I can't sell it. And now I have to go." He got the answer he wanted, so it was time to report back.
"Wait. I'll give you a hundred dollars. That's a lot of money. Come on, what do you say?"
Again the disciple refused to sell and tried to leave. Again the manager increased his offer. They went back and forth like this until the sum of ten thousand dollars was offered and turned down.
"I'll tell you what, son," the store manager maintained the smile, but he was starting to sweat. "You tell me how much you want for it. Name your price."
"I can't sell it for any amount, sir. That's what I've been trying to tell you."
The manager had no choice but to let him go.
The disciple made his way back to the sage. He was puzzled: "Master, the highest offer I got from the market was a dollar. Now it went to ten thousand and beyond. Why such a big difference?"
"In general, people focus on external appearance," the sage explained. "The rock looks quite plain and ordinary, so everyone at the market assume it is worthless.
"However, there's more to the rock than meets the eyes. It is in actuality a diamond of extraordinary size and quality. Only a few people have the ability to recognize it for what it truly is. The people at the market do not possess that ability."
"But Master, the clerk who wanted me to leave, he didn't recognize it either, and yet he works at a jewelry store."
"Being at the store is no guarantee of real knowledge. He probably knows the value of all the gems on display quite well, because they are all carefully packaged and clearly labeled. But when it comes to recognizing a real diamond in its most natural, unrefined state... well, he is obviously no better at it than the average person."
"How about the manager and the jeweler, Master? What makes them different from the clerk and everyone at the market?"
"The manager suspected the rock might be valuable, because he had years of experience with all kinds of precious stones. The jeweler had even more experience. He had devoted decades of his life to become an expert practitioner of gemology. That’s why he didn’t just suspect – he knew the real value of the rock."
This story isn't about the rock or the disciple or the sage. It's a story about the Tao.
The rock appears to be nothing out of the ordinary at first, but if properly cut and polished by an expert, the diamond within would stand revealed in all its sparkling glory. Similarly, the Tao often appears to be something plain and simple, but when a true master expresses or explains a spiritual truth, the Tao reveals its brilliant beauty.
The world in which we live is similar to the market, which is all about monetary transactions – haggling, buying, selling. The world is also an overwhelmingly materialistic place, filled with material acquisitions and price tags.
True masters of the Tao are few and far in between, so the majority of the people in the world have little understanding or appreciation for the Tao. In the story, we see this reflected in the reactions of the people toward the young disciple. Even though the rock was in fact extremely valuable, people regarded it with indifference and even aversion.
Chapter 41 of Tao Te Ching describes how different types of people approach the Tao:
High-level people hear of the Tao
They diligently practice it
Mid-level people hear of the Tao
They sometimes keep it and sometimes lose it
Low-level people hear of the Tao
They laugh loudly at it
If they do not laugh, it would not be the Tao
The three levels here deal with stages of spiritual refinement. They are completely independent of worldly distinctions like education levels, IQ scores, social classes, seniority, titles and positions.
People who possess a high level of spiritual refinement recognize a spiritual truth when they hear it because it resonates deeply with them. In the setting of our story, such individuals were rare, and none of them appeared in the market.
Most people at the market were still a long way away from this level. They were used to dealing with things they could see and touch, like the tangible goods at the market. The intangible Tao that arrived without colorful packaging, promotional posters, or a price that can be negotiated, was not something they could readily grasp.
There were also people who laughed at the Tao. These were usually the people at the lowest level of spiritual refinement. As we read Lao Tzu's description of them, it is almost as if Lao Tzu is talking to us directly about the people we have encountered who regard Tao spirituality as "weird." Some of them even express disdain and mockery: "Tao? You mean that New Age stuff?"
They look at the Tao that way because the material world is full of merchandise for sale, so people often mistake price for value. The easy assumption is that anything with a high price must automatically be high in value, and something with no price attached must therefore have no value.
This is exactly as the sage noted in the story, that most people relied on external appearance to pass value judgement. The rock looked unimpressive, so they dismissed it as worthless. Only the most discerning eyes could look past the facade and detect the diamond within.
If the market is the world at large, then the jewelry shop would be a religious institution, like a temple or a church.
In a jewelry shop, craftsmen cut and polish gemstones, and then present them in settings to be displayed for the buying public. In a similar way, a religious institution takes spiritual teachings, organizes and formalizes them, and presents them to the spirituality-seeking public.
The rings and gems on display at the jewelry shop represent the distilled and packaged religious doctrines we come across in daily life. The Ten Commandments, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path… They are commonly recognized and regarded as valuable, because they are clearly marked as such, just like the rings and gems with informational labels touting their value.
Oftentimes we have a tendency to assume that people in a temple must be knowledgeable about the Tao, but as we can see in the example of the clerks, this is not always so. The knowledge level of a clerk may be limited to only what he or she can read from the labels – name of the product and the selling price. Similarly, someone at a temple may know just the basic doctrines, and little else.
When confronted with a spiritual truth, people at this level will have trouble recognizing it. They may even reject it outright without due consideration, as we see in the story when the store clerk tried to get rid of the disciple.
The manager of the jewelry shop represents someone at a higher level of understanding. Such a person has devoted time and effort into studying the Tao, and the extra learning elevates him or her above the lower levels, where people can recite phrases and rules but have no real understanding of the spiritual teachings behind them.
Although the manager seems to be the authority figure from the perspective of the store clerks, he pales in comparison with the jeweler. The manager knows a lot about gemstones, but his knowledge is primarily derived from gemology books and working with finished products. His foundation of book knowledge may seem impressive at first, but when he is confronted by something beyond the scope of his books, he must still turn to the jeweler for help and clarification.
The jeweler represents a higher level of understanding. He is the true master, because his primary source of knowledge is not books. Instead, he learned from diligent practice, working directly with gemstones from their most unrefined state all the way to polished rings, necklaces and other jewelry.
From this, we can see that action is the critical element that separate a true Tao master from those who merely possess book knowledge. True sages are not content to read about the Tao; they cultivate it through direct, hands-on experience. They must feel the Tao for themselves.
Just as the jeweler cuts and polishes gems so they can be made available for the public, the true Tao master studies, contemplates, dissects and showcases spiritual truths so people at lower levels can easily understand the Tao.
And if we keep in mind that the Tao is simply a generic term for spirituality, then we see that great teachers from the past – Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and many others – are in effect master jewelers. They note the beauty inside an uncarved block of gemstone called Spirituality. They can see this beauty but most people cannot, so they work to bring it out in a way that everyone can appreciate.
The role of the master isn't limited to these great figures from history. For instance, there are many writers who can take great spiritual truths and explain them to us in a simple and fascinating way. They, too, are jewelers. When you read a particularly good book and it opens your eyes about life, you have come face-to-face with the work of a master jeweler.
What does all this tell us about the value of the Tao? The answer varies depending on the level of the individual.
At the lower levels, the people at the market could not tell you because they really didn't know. The clerks and the manager could quote you a price for any piece of jewelry you wanted to purchase, but they didn't really know the value of the rock either.
The jeweler realized that the rock was not less valuable because of its unrefined state. In fact, it was more valuable than any single piece of jewelry because he could create many diamonds of different sizes from that one rock.
This was the real value of the rock, but was this the real value of the Tao?
In the story the rock was never sold. Why not?
Because, as the disciple told everyone, it was not for sale. The sage alone understood that there was more to the value of the rock than any amount of money. The rock was not one of the goods that one could trade on the market.
From the perspective of the jewelry shop, it was associated with a certain figure that they would be willing to pay; from the perspective of the sage, no haggling, buying, or selling was possible because the rock simply had no price. It could not be acquired for any amount of money. Unlike all the rings in the jewelry store, there was no price tag affixed to it.
The Tao is beyond price. The Tao is priceless.
And that, is the true value of the Tao!
from www.truetao.org
The Rock
by Derek Lin
Once upon a time, a young disciple posed the following question to a wise sage: "Master, what is the value of the Tao?"
The sage gave an explanation, but the disciple didn’t understand.
The sage knew that explanations conveyed by words weren't always adequate. The best way to cultivate the Tao was learning by direct experience.
He took a rock from his desk and wrote down an address on a piece of paper: "Take this rock and go to this address. When you get there, I want you to ask people how much they would pay for the rock. Don't sell it. Just find out how much people are willing to pay."
The disciple went to the address and found himself in an outdoor market. There were many merchants hawking their wares and many shoppers browsing and haggling.
Beginning with the person nearest to him, the disciple held up the rock and asked: "Excuse me, how much would you pay for this rock?"
Most people ignored him and kept walking. Some glared at him. Some looked at him and sneered. Some laughed out loud. The few who did speak said things like "nothing" or "no thanks" or "go away".
After about an hour of this, a lady took pity in him: "Maybe I can use it as a paperweight. Here, I'll give you a dollar." She held out the money, but he shook his head and thanked her.
He returned and reported his experience to the sage: "Master, most people were not interested in the rock at all. The most I could get for it was a dollar."
"Good," the sage handed over another piece of paper. "Now go to this address with the rock and do the same thing. Ask the people there how much they would pay."
The address was in another part of town. When the disciple got there he saw that it was a jewelry shop. He entered and saw display cases full of glittering gems. Serious-looking clerks stood behind the counter. Everyone was dressed formally.
"What do you want, kid?" One of the clerks closed in on him.
"Uh... I want to find out how much you would pay for this." The disciple took out the rock. The clerk looked surprised, and then irritated.
"Where are your parents? This shop is no place for children. Out you go. Scat. Shoo."
Okay, I guess we're done, thought the disciple. The result here was no different than what he got at the market. He turned to leave.
The store manager took notice of the situation. He glanced at the rock just as the disciple reached the door. "Wait," he said. "Let me take a look, son."
The manager examined the rock. He looked puzzled, and then his eyes widened. He ordered one of the clerks to fetch the senior jeweler from the workshop in the back.
The old jeweler came out, grumbling about the interruption, but when he saw the rock, his eyes widened too. He examined it under magnifying glass for a long while, turning it this way and that. Then he handed it back to the disciple and whispered in the manager's ear.
Suddenly the manager was all smiles: "Son, I like you, so I'll exchange this candy here for your rock. Okay?"
The disciple shook his head: "I need to know how much you're willing to pay for it, sir."
"I see," the manager considered this. "How about if I give you ten bucks? Is it a deal?"
"No sir. I can't sell it. And now I have to go." He got the answer he wanted, so it was time to report back.
"Wait. I'll give you a hundred dollars. That's a lot of money. Come on, what do you say?"
Again the disciple refused to sell and tried to leave. Again the manager increased his offer. They went back and forth like this until the sum of ten thousand dollars was offered and turned down.
"I'll tell you what, son," the store manager maintained the smile, but he was starting to sweat. "You tell me how much you want for it. Name your price."
"I can't sell it for any amount, sir. That's what I've been trying to tell you."
The manager had no choice but to let him go.
The disciple made his way back to the sage. He was puzzled: "Master, the highest offer I got from the market was a dollar. Now it went to ten thousand and beyond. Why such a big difference?"
"In general, people focus on external appearance," the sage explained. "The rock looks quite plain and ordinary, so everyone at the market assume it is worthless.
"However, there's more to the rock than meets the eyes. It is in actuality a diamond of extraordinary size and quality. Only a few people have the ability to recognize it for what it truly is. The people at the market do not possess that ability."
"But Master, the clerk who wanted me to leave, he didn't recognize it either, and yet he works at a jewelry store."
"Being at the store is no guarantee of real knowledge. He probably knows the value of all the gems on display quite well, because they are all carefully packaged and clearly labeled. But when it comes to recognizing a real diamond in its most natural, unrefined state... well, he is obviously no better at it than the average person."
"How about the manager and the jeweler, Master? What makes them different from the clerk and everyone at the market?"
"The manager suspected the rock might be valuable, because he had years of experience with all kinds of precious stones. The jeweler had even more experience. He had devoted decades of his life to become an expert practitioner of gemology. That’s why he didn’t just suspect – he knew the real value of the rock."
This story isn't about the rock or the disciple or the sage. It's a story about the Tao.
The rock appears to be nothing out of the ordinary at first, but if properly cut and polished by an expert, the diamond within would stand revealed in all its sparkling glory. Similarly, the Tao often appears to be something plain and simple, but when a true master expresses or explains a spiritual truth, the Tao reveals its brilliant beauty.
The world in which we live is similar to the market, which is all about monetary transactions – haggling, buying, selling. The world is also an overwhelmingly materialistic place, filled with material acquisitions and price tags.
True masters of the Tao are few and far in between, so the majority of the people in the world have little understanding or appreciation for the Tao. In the story, we see this reflected in the reactions of the people toward the young disciple. Even though the rock was in fact extremely valuable, people regarded it with indifference and even aversion.
Chapter 41 of Tao Te Ching describes how different types of people approach the Tao:
High-level people hear of the Tao
They diligently practice it
Mid-level people hear of the Tao
They sometimes keep it and sometimes lose it
Low-level people hear of the Tao
They laugh loudly at it
If they do not laugh, it would not be the Tao
The three levels here deal with stages of spiritual refinement. They are completely independent of worldly distinctions like education levels, IQ scores, social classes, seniority, titles and positions.
People who possess a high level of spiritual refinement recognize a spiritual truth when they hear it because it resonates deeply with them. In the setting of our story, such individuals were rare, and none of them appeared in the market.
Most people at the market were still a long way away from this level. They were used to dealing with things they could see and touch, like the tangible goods at the market. The intangible Tao that arrived without colorful packaging, promotional posters, or a price that can be negotiated, was not something they could readily grasp.
There were also people who laughed at the Tao. These were usually the people at the lowest level of spiritual refinement. As we read Lao Tzu's description of them, it is almost as if Lao Tzu is talking to us directly about the people we have encountered who regard Tao spirituality as "weird." Some of them even express disdain and mockery: "Tao? You mean that New Age stuff?"
They look at the Tao that way because the material world is full of merchandise for sale, so people often mistake price for value. The easy assumption is that anything with a high price must automatically be high in value, and something with no price attached must therefore have no value.
This is exactly as the sage noted in the story, that most people relied on external appearance to pass value judgement. The rock looked unimpressive, so they dismissed it as worthless. Only the most discerning eyes could look past the facade and detect the diamond within.
If the market is the world at large, then the jewelry shop would be a religious institution, like a temple or a church.
In a jewelry shop, craftsmen cut and polish gemstones, and then present them in settings to be displayed for the buying public. In a similar way, a religious institution takes spiritual teachings, organizes and formalizes them, and presents them to the spirituality-seeking public.
The rings and gems on display at the jewelry shop represent the distilled and packaged religious doctrines we come across in daily life. The Ten Commandments, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path… They are commonly recognized and regarded as valuable, because they are clearly marked as such, just like the rings and gems with informational labels touting their value.
Oftentimes we have a tendency to assume that people in a temple must be knowledgeable about the Tao, but as we can see in the example of the clerks, this is not always so. The knowledge level of a clerk may be limited to only what he or she can read from the labels – name of the product and the selling price. Similarly, someone at a temple may know just the basic doctrines, and little else.
When confronted with a spiritual truth, people at this level will have trouble recognizing it. They may even reject it outright without due consideration, as we see in the story when the store clerk tried to get rid of the disciple.
The manager of the jewelry shop represents someone at a higher level of understanding. Such a person has devoted time and effort into studying the Tao, and the extra learning elevates him or her above the lower levels, where people can recite phrases and rules but have no real understanding of the spiritual teachings behind them.
Although the manager seems to be the authority figure from the perspective of the store clerks, he pales in comparison with the jeweler. The manager knows a lot about gemstones, but his knowledge is primarily derived from gemology books and working with finished products. His foundation of book knowledge may seem impressive at first, but when he is confronted by something beyond the scope of his books, he must still turn to the jeweler for help and clarification.
The jeweler represents a higher level of understanding. He is the true master, because his primary source of knowledge is not books. Instead, he learned from diligent practice, working directly with gemstones from their most unrefined state all the way to polished rings, necklaces and other jewelry.
From this, we can see that action is the critical element that separate a true Tao master from those who merely possess book knowledge. True sages are not content to read about the Tao; they cultivate it through direct, hands-on experience. They must feel the Tao for themselves.
Just as the jeweler cuts and polishes gems so they can be made available for the public, the true Tao master studies, contemplates, dissects and showcases spiritual truths so people at lower levels can easily understand the Tao.
And if we keep in mind that the Tao is simply a generic term for spirituality, then we see that great teachers from the past – Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and many others – are in effect master jewelers. They note the beauty inside an uncarved block of gemstone called Spirituality. They can see this beauty but most people cannot, so they work to bring it out in a way that everyone can appreciate.
The role of the master isn't limited to these great figures from history. For instance, there are many writers who can take great spiritual truths and explain them to us in a simple and fascinating way. They, too, are jewelers. When you read a particularly good book and it opens your eyes about life, you have come face-to-face with the work of a master jeweler.
What does all this tell us about the value of the Tao? The answer varies depending on the level of the individual.
At the lower levels, the people at the market could not tell you because they really didn't know. The clerks and the manager could quote you a price for any piece of jewelry you wanted to purchase, but they didn't really know the value of the rock either.
The jeweler realized that the rock was not less valuable because of its unrefined state. In fact, it was more valuable than any single piece of jewelry because he could create many diamonds of different sizes from that one rock.
This was the real value of the rock, but was this the real value of the Tao?
In the story the rock was never sold. Why not?
Because, as the disciple told everyone, it was not for sale. The sage alone understood that there was more to the value of the rock than any amount of money. The rock was not one of the goods that one could trade on the market.
From the perspective of the jewelry shop, it was associated with a certain figure that they would be willing to pay; from the perspective of the sage, no haggling, buying, or selling was possible because the rock simply had no price. It could not be acquired for any amount of money. Unlike all the rings in the jewelry store, there was no price tag affixed to it.
The Tao is beyond price. The Tao is priceless.
And that, is the true value of the Tao!
from www.truetao.org