Excerpted from The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff:
Is “good” necessarily good? Is “bad” necessarily bad? It’s considered good to be beautiful, but many people through being beautiful have ruined their lives and the lives of others. It’s considered bad to be unattractive, but because of being unattractive, many have come to concern themselves with matters more important than surface appearance and have gone on to make something Special of themselves – in quite a few cases becoming Beautiful in the process. It’s considered good to be healthy and strong, but many energetic people lose their health and strength by taking what they have for granted, not knowing what it’s like to be old and depleted – and therefore not taking care of themselves – until it’s Too Late. It’s considered bad to be ill and weak, but many have responded to such conditions by examining their lives and changing their ways of doing things, thereby building up their health and strength to remarkable degrees. Unattractiveness, illness, and weakness have many valuable lessons to teach to those willing to learn from them.
Taoist writing by Liu An :
There is a story of a farmer who used an old horse to till his fields. One day, the horse escaped into the hills and when the farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?” A week later, the horse returned with a herd of horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”
Then, when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”
Some weeks later, the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg, they let him off. Now was that good luck or bad luck?
Who knows?
3 Comments
Leslee, I first read the Chinese farmer parable back in college (and there seems to be a zillion different versions of it!) but I come back to it again and again. In fact, I posted it on here over a year ago but figured it was worth a repost!
I love both of those excerpts and had heard the second one before. I think this is a really timely post too with the bin Laden thing. My reaction to that was neither good or bad, I just thought it is what it is and only later will we know the true significance of it.
One of my all-time favorite quotes is from Thomas Jefferson: “I’m a great believer in luck. I find the harder I work, the more of it I have.”
Ok, so it doesn’t enlighten this great story, but it has to do with luck.