Andy, you'll love this :D:
When the Patriarch heard this, he uttered a cry and jumped down from the high platform. He pointed the ruler he held in his hands at Wu-k'ung and said to him: "What a mischievous monkey you are! You wont learn this and you wont learn that! Just what it is that you are waiting for?" Moving forward, he hit Wu-k'ung three times on the head. Then he folded his arms behind his back and walked inside, closing the main doors behind him and leaving the congregation stranded outside. Those who were listening to the lecture were so terrified that everyone began to berate Wu-k'ung. "You reckless ape!" they cried, "you're utterly without manners! The master was prepared to teach you magic secrets. Why weren't you willing to learn? Why did you have to argue with him instead? Now you have offended him, and who knows when he'll come out again?" At that moment they all resented him and despised and ridiculed him. But Wu-k'ung was not angered in the least and only replied with a broad grin. For the Monkey King, in fact, had already solved secretly, as it were, the riddle in the pot; he therefore did not quarrel with the other people but patiently held his tongue. He reasoned that the master, by hitting him three times, was telling him to prepare himself for the third watch; and by folding his arms behind his back, walking inside, and closing the main doors, was telling him to enter by the back door so that he might receive instruction in secret.
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6 comments:
I wonder how many times i've failed to solve a riddle or to recognize that there was a riddle at all... uhmmm.........
oh....i get it.....the patriarch who's always throwing riddles at us and walking away smiling mischievously :-).....that's neat...
Hi Aiz, who are you? I've been trying to figure it out but can't! :)
lol, aiz, that's a v mischievous interpretation of what i posted... {broad grin}
I like the mantra on the next page:
"Hard! Hard! Hard!
The Way is most obscure!
Deem not the gold elixir a common thing.
He who imparts dark mysteries not to a perfect man
Is bound to make words empty, the mouth tired, and the tongue dry!"
I also wonder how often I've failed to recognize that there was a riddle. Maybe if we spend a few minutes reciting this at the beginning of every class, we will be more aware of the riddles that come our way.
But then, maybe our simple desire to seek out the riddles, even in the presence of an unknowable universe full of dark mysteries, is solution enough:
"'Tis this world's pity that none is firmly resolved
To learn the mystery, plain to all who seek."
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