How does one say the unsayable? How does one teach what cannot be taught?
The ancient taoist masters are perhaps the most grounded of all spiritual teachers. They rarely spoke in heady philosophical terms. Instead, they wrote poems about rivers and told stories about simple, everyday people and things.
The wheelwright and the woodworker in these two stories both do marvelous work by following the Tao. Or rather, their work is done through them. They simply get out of the way and allow the universe itself to make a wheel, or a bell stand.
The following stories are excerpts from The Second Book of the Tao by Stephen Mitchell. To read his enlightening commentary, see the book.
The Wheelwright
Duke Huan was reading a book at the upper end of the hall. Pien the wheelwright was making a wheel at the lower end. Putting down his mallet and chisel, he walked over and said, “May I be so bold as to ask what Your Grace is reading?”
“The words of the sages,” said the duke.
“Are these sages still alive?”
“No, they’re long dead.”
“Then what you’re reading is just the dregs they left behind.”
“How dare you make such a comment on what I am reading!” the duke shouted. “Explain yourself, or you die!”
“Certainly, Your Grace,” said the wheelwright. “Here’s how I see it. When I work on a wheel, if I hit the chisel too softly, it slides and won’t grip. But if I hit it too hard, it gets stuck in the wood. When the stroke is neither too soft nor too hard, I know it, my hands can feel it. There’s no way I can describe this place of perfect balance. No one taught it to me, and I can’t teach it to my son. I have been practicing my craft for seventy years now, and I will never be able to pass it on. When the old sages died, they took their understanding with them. That’s why I said that what you’re reading is just the dregs they left behind.”
-From The Second Book of the Tao, translated by Stephen Mitchell
The Woodworker
Ch’ing the master woodworker carved a bell stand so intricately graceful that all who saw it were astonished. They thought that a god must have made it.
The Marquis of Lu asked, “How did your art achieve something of such unearthly beauty?”
“My Lord,” Ch’ing said, “I’m just a simple woodworker—I don’t know anything about art. But here’s what I can tell you. Whenever I begin to carve a bell stand, I concentrate my mind. After three days of meditating, I no longer have any thoughts of praise or blame. After five days, I no longer have any thoughts of success or failure. After seven days, I’m not identified with a body. All my power is focused on my task; there are no distractions. At that point, I enter the mountain forest. I examine the trees until exactly the right one appears. If I can see a bell stand inside it, the real work is done, and all I have to do is get started. Thus I harmonize inner and outer. That’s why people think that my work must be superhuman.”
-From The Second Book of the Tao, translated by Stephen Mitchell
