I have a friend and mentor whom I met through the auspices of a conventional professor-student relationship brokered by an educational institution for the betterment of all and a certain amount of money. He introduced his class to the study of constitutional law by assigning them to read the U.S. Constitution and the following poem, adapted from a translation by Thomas Merton of a tale attributed to Chuang Tsu, who some say was a Taoist, and printed in a law school publication in 1995 by someone called Siliciano.
I often think about that poem, and sometimes try, ineffectually, to paraphrase it to some poor person who probably didn't come to me for parables in the first place. Now I will know where I can easily call it to hand.
Also, I have lately been thinking of that friend.
(The time I was a member of that class, the class was dumbfounded by that assignment.)
Without further ado:
The Prince's Cook, Chuang Tsu
The Prince’s cook
Was cutting up an ox.
Out went a hand,
Down went a shoulder.
He planted a foot.
He pressed with a knee.
The ox fell apart
With a whisper,
The bright cleaver murmured
Like a gentle wind.
All Rhythm! All Timing!
Like a sacred dance.
“Good work!” the Prince exclaimed.
“Your method is faultless!”
“Method?” said the cook,
Laying aside his cleaver.
“What I follow is THE WAY
Beyond all methods!
“When I first began
To cut up oxen,
I would see before me
The whole ox,
All in one mass.
After three years
I no longer saw this mass.
I saw the distinctions.
But now, I see nothing
With the eye.
My whole being apprehends.
My senses are idle.
The spirit,
Free to work without plan,
Follows its own instinct.
Guided by natural line,
By the secret opening, the hidden space,
My cleaver finds it own way.
I cut through no joint, chop no bone.
“A good cook needs a new cleaver
Once a year - he cuts.
A poor cook needs a new one
Every month - he hacks!
I have used this same cleaver
Nineteen years.
It has cut up
A thousand oxen.
Its edge is as keen
As if newly sharpened.
“There are spaces in the joints;
The blade is thin and keen:
When this thinness
Finds that space,
There is all the room you need!
It goes like a breeze!
Hence I have this cleaver nineteen years
As if newly sharpened!
“True, there are sometimes tough joints.
I feel them coming.
I slow down.
I watch closely.
I hold back, barely moving the blade,
And whump! the part falls away,
Landing like a clod of earth.
Then I withdraw the blade.
I stand still
And let the joy of the work
Sink in.
I clean the blade
And put it away.”
“This is it!”
The Prince exclaimed.
“My cook has shown me
How I ought to live
My own life!”