Tuesday, March 19, 2013

No More, Still More

Scott Bradley


Zhouzi was walking in the forest when he came upon the camp of the wandering sage Tzu-yu, formerly the disciple and companion of the sage Chen Jen. Each sensing the open-heartedness in the other, they immediately sat together about the campfire expecting that they would have much to say, yet both remained largely silent. Finally Zhouzi said, "Long I have wished to meet and talk with the companion of Chen Jen whose teaching even now flowers in my heart, yet having now done so, I find that nothing need be said."

"It is also so with me," replied Tzu-yu. "Where agreement reigns, words have little need to be. And since I left my friend and master dead beside the path, in agreement with the way of things, little have I said."

"Yet your master spoke where words might find a home," replied Zhouzi, "and they found it in the heart of you and me. Is there not something in this peace that wishes to be spread?"

"There is," answered Tzu-yu, "yet since I wrote of his Sayings and his Wanderings, little more has pressed my heart to speak. Still, returning now from a journey to find and inter his bones, I sense again the spirit of his sharing."

"Have you then found them and are they now honored beneath the soil?" asked Zhouzi.

"They are and they are not," replied Tzu-yu. "They were much gnawed and scattered by the beasts and seemed now to belong just where they lay; only did the skull seem more seemly beneath the ground and out of sight of men. For had they known his gentle heart, then his broken skull might teach them much, but unknown in death what lessons could it bring?"

"The lesson of mortality," suggested Zhouzi, "but there is no lack for that; your compromise seems well played to me. And is he not 'no more', even as you wrote? Except in that his sharing lives in the heart of you and me. Will you not come and share it now with hearts ready for the planting?"

"I will come," answered Tzu-yu, "only I ask for anonymity."

“Thus it shall be,” said Zhouzi.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are unmoderated, so you can write whatever you want.