ava on Nostr: **A short anecdote...** **Duke Hwan and the Wheelwright** Taken from a text called ...

**A short anecdote...**

**Duke Hwan and the Wheelwright**
Taken from a text called "**The Way
of Chuang Tzu**" as translated by the
philosopher-monk **Thomas Merton**:

Duke Hwan of Khi, first in his dynasty,
sat under his canopy reading his
philosophy. And Phien the wheelwright
was out in the yard making a wheel.

Phien laid aside hammer and chisel,
climbed the steps, and said to Duke
Hwan: "May I ask you, Lord, what is
this you are reading?"

The Duke said: "The experts. The
authorities."

And Phien asked: "Alive or dead?"

"Dead a long time," said the Duke.

"Then," said the wheelwright, "you are
reading only the dirt they left
behind."

"What do you know about it?" said the
Duke. "You are only a wheelwright. You
had better give me a good explanation
or else you must die."

The wheelwright said: "Let us look at
the affair from my point of view. When
I make wheels, if I go easy, they fall
apart, and if I am too rough, they do
not fit. But if I am neither too easy
nor too violent, they come out right.
The work is what I want it to be.

"You cannot put this into words; you
just have to know how it is. I cannot
even tell my own son exactly how it is
done, and my own son cannot learn it
from me. So here I am, seventy years
old, still making wheels!

"The men of old took all they really
knew with them to the grave. And so,
Lord, what you are reading there is
only the dirt they left behind them."


#ikitao #tao