**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."

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#ikitao #tao