One day, Prince Wu sailed in a boat to Monkey Mountain. As soon as the monkeys saw him, they all ran away in panic and hid in the treetops. There was only one monkey left, which completely ignored him and swung from branch to branch, as if putting itself on display. The prince shot an arrow at her, but the monkey grabbed it in flight. In response to this, the prince gave the order to his entourage to all shoot at her together. Immediately a cloud of arrows flew at the monkey, and it fell down dead. Then the prince turned to his comrade Yen-Bui:
- Do you see what happened? This animal was advertising its intelligence. It believed in its skill. It thought that no one would touch it. Remember this! Don't try to show your best when dealing with people!
When they returned home, Yen-Bui became his student and worked day and night to get rid of everything that made him outstanding. He learned to hide any ability. Soon no one in the whole kingdom knew what to do with it or how to manage it.
This story contains one of the most secret keys of the Tao. Tao says that what is beautiful in a person must be protected, hidden and not revealed; what is true and valuable in you must be hidden, because when the truth is hidden in the heart, it sprouts like a grain thrown into the ground. Don't rush to take it out. If you take the grain out for everyone to see, it will simply die, and it will die without benefit. So the flowers will never bloom inside. Treat everything that is beautiful, good and true as grain. Carefully provide him with some soil, a secluded place in your heart and do not show it to everyone.
But everyone does just the opposite: what is wrong you hide, you don’t want others to know about it. What is ugly you hide, and what is beautiful, even if it is not, you try to advertise, demonstrate, glorify. Because of this, a person’s decline occurs, since the ugly grows, and the beautiful, the real is lost. The untrue grows, it becomes a grain, and the true is thrown away and dies...
Treat all that is beautiful, good and true in you as if it were grain.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru