October 15, 1974
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. However, one monkey—she was completely oblivious to him and was swinging from branch to branch—exposed herself in an unusual way. 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 associates to attack her all together. Immediately a cloud of arrows flew at the monkey, and it fell down dead. Then the prince turned to his companion 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! Do not rely on originality and talent when dealing with people!”
When they returned home, Yen-Bui became the sage's disciple in order to get rid of everything that made him outstanding. He refused any pleasure. He learned to hide any ability. Soon no one in the kingdom knew what to do with him. Thus they awed him.
This story contains one of the most secret keys of the Tao. The Tao says that what is beautiful in you should be hidden, never 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. Do not remove it from the outside. If you take out the grain for everyone to see, it will die, and it will die without benefit. It will simply die and there will be no rebirth.
Treat everything that is beautiful, good and true as grain. Give it some ground, a hidden place in your heart, don't show it off. 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. Hence the misfortune - since the ugly grows, and the beautiful is lost. The untrue grows, it becomes grain, and the true is thrown away.
The valuable is thrown away, and the cheap is growing; you become like a weed. No flower comes into your life because you never did the right thing - hid the flower seed inside. This opposite is the path, and I tell you that this is one of the most secret keys of the Tao.
The man of Tao remains ordinary, completely ordinary. No one knows who he is, no one knows what he carries within himself, what treasures. He never advertises them, never tries to show them off. But why are you advertising them? Because of the ego. You are not satisfied with yourself, you are only satisfied when others appreciate you. "The opinions of others are of greater value than your being. You look into the eyes of others as if they were mirrors, and if they appreciate you, applaud you, you feel good.
The ego is a false phenomenon. It is an accumulation of many others, it is not knowledge of its essence. This "I", the so-called "I", which is really the ego, is nothing but an accumulation of reflections - and then fear is always present. Others can always change their minds, you always depend on them. If they say you are good, you must allow their rules to remain good, you must allow them to remain good in their eyes, because once they change their reading, you will no longer be good. You do not have direct access to your being, it is through others. You not only advertise, you falsify. You may have a little truth, a little beauty, but you exaggerate them and they become ridiculous.
I remember and will never forget how I met Mullah Nasreddin. We were introduced by a mutual friend. The friend said, among other things, that Mullah Nasrudin was a great writer. And he smiled knowingly, and I asked Mullah Nasreddin: “What did you write?” He said, "I've just finished Hamlet." I couldn't believe my ears, so I asked him again: "Have you ever heard of the guy known as William Shakespeare?" Mulla Nasrudin said: "It is very strange, because when I wrote Macbeth, someone already asked me about it. Who is this man William Shakespeare? It seems that he is still copying me. Whatever I write, he writes the same."
You think that everyone is copying you, but the reality is that you continue to copy everyone. You are a copy, you are not the true personality, because the true personality never needs to be shown.
I heard that the following happened one day at a mountain base: in the lobby of a large hotel, three elderly women were playing cards. A fourth came up and asked if she could join them. They said, "Of course you're welcome, but we have a few rules."
And they gave her a card with four rules printed on it. The first was: never talk about mink coats, since we all have them. Second; never talk about our grandchildren, since we are all grandmothers. Third: never talk about jewelry, as we all have jewelry received from famous companies. Fourth: never talk about sex. Like this!
But everyone wants to talk about themselves, about their mink coats, their jewelry, their children, their sex. And everyone tires everyone. And if you tolerate it, it is only because of mutual understanding: if he tires you, he will allow himself to be tired of you. You're just waiting for him to finish showing himself so you can start showing yourself. And all life becomes false, a continuing show. What are you achieving with this? Just a false feeling that you are important, that you are unusual.
How can someone become unusual because they have a mink coat? How can anyone become unusual for having jewelry? How can anyone become extraordinary by doing this or that? Extraordinaryness doesn't have to do with what you do - it has to do with the fact that you are, and you are already extraordinary, everyone is unique, and there is no need to prove it. If you try to show this, you will simply show the opposite. If something already exists, how can you prove it? If you try to prove it, you are simply showing that you are not aware of the uniqueness that has already happened to you.
So, if you want to prove something, it shows that you doubt it. You want to destroy your doubts with the help of others' views, with the help of their opinions. You are not really convinced of your own wonderful personality; you would like others to tell you that you are wonderful.
In a small village there was a custom: when the village priest married someone, he had to kiss the bride. It was an old tradition. One woman who was getting married was very concerned about this. She thought she was very beautiful, as any woman thinks. Indeed, every woman thinks so, even the ugliest one. She thought she was very beautiful and was very anxious and worried. She told her future husband, her fiancé, again and again: “Go and tell the priest that I don’t want him to kiss me after the wedding.”
Just before the wedding, she asked the groom again: “Did you go to the priest and talk to him?” The groom answered very sadly: “Yes.” The bride asked: “Why are you so sad?” The groom replied: “I told the priest, and he was very happy and said: in that case, I will only take half the usual wedding fee.
You may think of yourself as handsome, but no one thinks of you that way, because everyone is busy with their own beauty, not yours. And if someone nods and says “yes, you are beautiful,” he is simply waiting for you to confirm his beauty. This is a mutual deception: you satisfy my ego, and I satisfy yours. I know well that you are ugly; you know well that I am ugly, but I will satisfy your ego, and you will satisfy mine.
And it seems that everyone has a need to feel unique. Ego means that you have not yet come to your essence, which is unique without any need or evidence. Evidence is only needed for lies, remember this. That's why you cannot prove God: because he is the ultimate truth. Evidence is needed only for lies, but the truth does not need evidence - it exists, it simply exists.
And I tell you that you are unique, unusual. Don't try to be one, it's ridiculous - you just become an object of ridicule and everyone laughs at you behind your back. If you are not confident in your own uniqueness, who will be confident in it? Confidence lies beyond evidence. And how will she come? It will come through self-knowledge.
So there are two ways. Knowledge is the straight path: knowing yourself directly, directly, is the right path. And the wrong way is to know yourself through others, by what they say. If you don't know yourself, how can they know you? They are very far away, you are the closest thing that can know you. If you don't know your truth, how can others know? But because you don't have self-knowledge, you need a replacement. The ego is such a substitute, and the ego is a constant display. You are like a display window in a market: you have become a commodity, you have made yourself a commodity in a display window, always on display, always begging for someone to say: you are good, you are beautiful, you are great, you are holy, you are unusual.
The Tao is against this because the Tao says that in this way you are wasting your life. The same energy can be directed towards your being, and when that being is discovered, the ego is the extraordinary.
A person who seeks knowledge of himself will remain ordinary in the eyes of others. He will not worry, he will not expose himself - he will hide. He will not be at the exhibition, he will not be at the performance, he will remain silent, live in silence, enjoy life in silence. He will like it if no one worries about him, because if someone worries about him, thinks about him, it becomes more difficult and complex - knowing himself becomes more and more difficult.
You have to go there alone, and if you look for the crowd and think that the crowd should follow you, you will never reach your goal.
If you are an exhibitionist, you will remain a commodity, a thing, you will never become a person, because the “personality” is deeply hidden in a secret part of your being. This is the deepest possibility of a being. You are the greatest abyss, no one else can go with you, you will have to go alone. And if you are too concerned with others, what they say, what they think, you will remain on the periphery. That's one thing.
The other thing is that in order to be on display, you hide everything that is ugly. In clothes, in words, in gestures, in masks, in actions, you try to hide everything that is ugly and wrong. What do you do? This wrong will become a seed to sprout inside you, and the more you push it, the more you direct and move it towards the source of all energies - it strengthens. And you throw away the beautiful; it will never become grain.
It should be the other way around - if there is something ugly in you, show it to others, then it will dissipate. If you are angry, tell everyone, I am angry, don't love me, don't be my friend, I am a very bad person, I am ugly, I am immoral, I am greedy, I am sexy. Talk about everything that is ugly in you, and not only talk, but also act, and you will be very surprised that when something is shown, it dissipates. And hide the beautiful, let it move deeper so that it can reach the roots.
But you are doing just the opposite.
Now try to understand this story.
"Prince Wu sailed in a boat to Monkey Mountain."
Chuang Tzu always observed monkeys, he was deeply interested in them, since they are the ancestors of man. And there is a monkey inside you! The whole world is nothing but a monkey mountain, everything around is monkeys.
What is the characteristic of a monkey? What is her deepest character trait? Imitation. Gurdjieff said that you cannot be a man without ceasing to be a monkey, and he is right. Someone asked him, “What is the deepest character trait of a monkey?” He replied: “Imitation, imitation.” The monkey is a perfect imitator.
What have you been doing all your life? Were you a man or a monkey? You imitate, you simply look around and follow, and by following you become false. You see someone walking a certain way and you try to walk that way; someone wears certain clothes, and you also want to have such clothes: someone has a car, and you would like to have this car and everything!
You never look at what you need, and if you did look at your needs, life could be a blissful experience because there are not so many needs. Imitation will lead you down a path that leads to nowhere. There are few needs, just a few of them; if you are looking for your needs, you can be satisfied. Satisfaction is easy, so what does it take? Not much is needed. But if you imitate, then you are surrounded by a crowd of millions of unnecessary needs, and there is no end to them, because there are millions of people, and you would like to imitate everyone. It becomes impossible, you start living everyone's life, and then you forget that you are here to do your own thing - and you become an imitator.
You are here to fulfill your purpose, and this purpose is individual, it is no one else's. This being has given you birth to fulfill a certain purpose that cannot be fulfilled by anyone else. No Buddha can do it, no Jesus, only you can do it. And you are imitating.
That's why Hindus say that unless you stop imitation, you will be thrown into being again and again - this is the theory of rebirth. You will be plunged again and again until you fulfill your purpose: until you blossom, you will have to go back.
How can you flourish if you imitate? You see a musician and you want to be a musician; you see an actor and you want to be an actor: you see a doctor and you want to be a doctor. You want to be anyone but yourself, and that is the only thing you can be - and nothing else. Nothing else is possible, and there is no one like you, so no one can become your ideal.
Love Buddha, Buddha is beautiful, but don't imitate, otherwise you will lose. Jesus is wonderful, but nothing else is needed: existence has fulfilled that purpose, that work has already been completed. He has come to his prime. That's why once someone has blossomed, they never go back.
Love Jesus, but don't be an imitator, otherwise you will end up unfulfilled, in trouble and in pain. In reality you cannot follow anyone. You can choose a goal, but then you have to be very vigilant - the goal should not become a blind imitation.
If you see Buddha, choose how he blossomed as your goal. What were the methods? What was he doing? Try to understand this and let this understanding be internalized. Again and again you will begin to feel your way. It will never be like Bu.ada's path - it cannot be like that, it will be completely different, but mastering the Buddha's path will help. You will have to grow in your own way, but learning the Buddha's way will make you more understanding.
This is the difference between a real disciple and a follower who is false. A disciple is something completely different from a follower, and I would like to tell you that you should be my disciples, but not my followers. Who is a student?
The student is learning. The root word "student" comes from the word "study". There is nothing of self-control in him. A disciple is one who is ready to learn, who is ready to assimilate, who is open, who is receptive, one who is ready to become a master. He is not antagonistic, he does not fight or argue. He tries to understand, and when he tries to understand, his head stops functioning, because it can either be a blind follower or a blind enemy, but it can never be a disciple.
The disciple is completely different because he is not head oriented, the disciple is heart oriented. He loves the master, assimilates him, and then follows his own path.
This is a very indirect, very subtle thing, it is not immediate. You can't just look at a master and do what he does, then you will become a follower. You cannot learn words and start repeating them, then you will become a follower, then the effort will be in the head, and the head is the problem.
When you are not struggling or looking for someone to imitate, your consciousness falls from your head to your heart. Then you are open, then you simply love. This is what is meant by the term sraddha, faith: it is neither belief nor disbelief.
Don't think that faith is belief, it is not. Belief is in the head, disbelief is in the head, faith is in the heart. It has nothing to do with either belief or disbelief. To believe or not to believe does not matter at all - you just love.
You see a rose flower: do you believe in it or not? You don't do anything, you just see it. Nobody is a follower, nobody is against it. The sun rises in the morning. What are you doing? Are you a believer or a non-believer, or do you follow the path of the sun all day long because you are a follower? In that case, you are crazy. You simply enjoy, you absorb the morning, its freshness, its youth, its newness - with the sun everything becomes alive. You enjoy life itself, and with its help you become alive. You look at a rose and something about it reaches your heart. Outside the rose blooms, inside the heart begins to bloom.
You go to a master, Buddha or Jesus, or Chuang Tzu. What are you doing? Exactly what you do with a rose or a sunset. There is no need to follow, there is no need not to follow - just absorb.
Jesus' last words to his disciples were: "Eat me, let me be your drink and food, let me flow in your blood, absorb me." When he says "eat me", it means: "absorb me, squeeze me out, don't follow me outwardly, squeeze me out, and then you will have your own inner light."
A true master will never give you rules - he will give you eyes. He will never show you the path, he will never say “this is the path, follow it.” He simply gives you light and says: “Now take the light and go into the darkness, this light will show the way.”
The fake master always gives you a map: “this is a map, don’t get lost, follow the map.” He never gives you light. If you have light, then there is no need for a map - you will find your way. And everyone has their own path, different from others, since everyone is different from everyone else. Let this understanding enter deep into your heart: there are no two people alike and there cannot be. Being does not repeat itself, being is not yet exhausted, being continues to blossom in new uniqueness. Everyone is original, there is no need to prove it.
If you want to prove it, you will become a monkey, not a man. Stop the imitation. It's easy to imitate, difficult to understand. That's why they imitate: because it's so easy, you just have to follow the rules. No understanding is needed, you are given a strict rule and you follow it.
People come to me and say, “Give us strict rules so we can follow them.” They say, "We are not growing, we are not becoming mature. Just give us strict rules about what to eat and what not to eat, when to get up and when to go to bed. Just give us strict rules so that we can follow them." You want to become a monkey, not a man.
A person will never ask for strict rules, he will ask for understanding so that he can find his way, so that he can move in the world. He does not need to keep a map with him, there is no need for any compass - just your inner light itself will show you the way. And there is beauty, because there is freedom. When there is no freedom, there is no beauty. Bondage, slavery, is the ugliest thing in the world.
"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."
One monkey, however, remained and, completely not paying attention to him, swinging from branch to branch, put himself on display in an unusual way."
This monkey was supposed to be the chief of the monkeys, the president, the prime minister. When all the ordinary monkeys have fled, how can the leader do the same? How can a leader, a great leader, follow ordinary monkeys? He must show himself, his coolness, otherwise his prestige in the eyes of other monkeys falls. This was not a performance for the prince - it was a performance for the other monkeys. If you want to remain a leader, you must continue to show off. If you want to remain a leader, you have to be tough.
All political leaders are always for show, you never know their true faces. They have become so skilled that no one knows their true identities. If a politician says "yes" to someone, it means "maybe"; if he says "maybe" it means "no", and if he says "no" he is not a politician at all.
Whatever a politician says, he never means it; whatever he means, he never says it. With the help of a politician you can understand yourself because he is just a larger picture of you, a leader is just a larger picture of a follower, and in a larger picture it is always easier to see the details: with a magnifying glass you can see. It is good to try to understand leaders because they are great apes. Do you think you are following them? At the core, deep down, they follow you. A leader is always a follower of his followers, because he always watches where you are going, what you are doing: he must know in advance which way the wind is blowing so that he can become the leader.
One day Mullah Nasreddin was riding somewhere on his donkey, and the donkey ran very quickly. A friend asked him: “Where are you going, Nasrudin?”
Nasreddin replied: “To tell the truth, I don’t know. Don’t ask me, ask the donkey.”
The man was very puzzled and asked, “What do you mean?”
Mulla Nasrudin said: "You are my friend, so I must be truthful with you and speak freely. This donkey is adamant and stubborn, like all donkeys, he constantly creates difficulties. When I pass through a market or a city and if I insist that we should follow a certain path, he heads the other way, and then, in the market, it becomes ridiculous, I become a laughing stock. People say that even my donkey does not follow me! So I made myself the rule is that wherever I go, I follow him. Everyone thinks that the donkey follows me, but this is not true. But the donkey feels happy and my prestige is secure."
Every great leader simply continues to follow his followers. He just keeps watching which way the wind blows and he has to be in charge. This is the secret of being a great leader: you must be able to know what the people want, you must give them a slogan before they know what they want. Then they will follow you.
This monkey must be the leader. It was necessary to show that she was not afraid even of the Grand Duke. The other monkeys ran away, ordinary monkeys, but she was not an ordinary monkey, she herself was a king. She had to stay there, endure, so she would gain more prestige in the eyes of the monkeys.
“One monkey, however, remained, completely oblivious to him, swinging from branch to branch and showing off in an unusual way. The prince shot an arrow at it.”
And your princes are also not very different from monkeys. For the prince it was a blow - this monkey was striking him. Naturally, all the monkeys ran away, but here is the Grand Duke - and then an ordinary monkey tries to show, demonstrate how strong he is. No, this is not subconscious, since the prince has his own followers, the prince must look at other people - what will they think if even the monkey does not pay attention to him. The monkey had to die. The logic is the same: that of a monkey; that of the prince.
“The prince shot an arrow at the monkey, but she grabbed the arrow on the fly. In response to this, the prince gave the order to his entourage to attack her together.”
After all, this monkey seemed so arrogant, very selfish. Look... the prince could see this monkey, but he could not see his ego. And this happens all over the world: in any relationship with others you can always see the ego of the other, but you can never see your own ego.
This is a story written by a man. Just think that if a monkey had written this story, it would be completely different. Just think: Zhuang Tzu is among the monkeys, writing this story... then he would write that the prince was very self-confident, very stubborn and unnecessarily cruel - after all, the monkey did not do anything wrong, he just enjoyed himself. Why should Kiyaz be offended? Why did he seek to kill her? After all, the monkey was defending itself, and nothing more.
If you look at the story from the monkey's point of view, it looks completely different, but at the core it is the same, and it always happens. A wise person always looks at any problem from the point of view of the opposite side. You cannot be wise if you only have one point of view. Sometimes Try to put on someone else's shoes and see from there.
Many married couples come to me, wives and husbands, and they have great problems, great problems, because this is the basic unit of life. There is more tension, more ego, more falsehood - and it becomes hell. Spouses come to me, and I always inspire them to take each other’s place for one day: let your wife become a husband, and your husband become a wife. For 24 hours, try to play the role of the other and respond from the other's perspective, and you will experience significant relaxation. But you need to be flexible enough to see what the other is feeling at the moment.
The husband comes home and says something and feels completely innocent, but the wife feels hurt. He can't understand what's going on - he didn't say anything. Just meditate a little, take the wife's place, think that you are the wife and that the husband has come and said something. How are you feeling?
You will be able to immediately understand why your wife feels this way. And if you can understand another, you will be able to understand yourself better. The other always sees that you are an egoist. You never see this because you are blind to yourself.
The prince was also blind. He could see that this monkey was trying to show off, but he couldn't see why he felt offended. Let him show off - a monkey is a monkey - let him be happy, he doesn’t do anything bad to anyone, he just jumps from branch to branch, swings, plays. Let him play.
Why was the prince so affected? He felt that his being had suffered a blow. that this monkey was trying to say: “You are nothing, I don’t pay attention to you. You may be a prince among people, but monkeys don’t care about you, and I am also a prince, and you are nothing in front of me. Can you jump from branch to branch like I do?”
It is said that when Darwin discovered that man descended from apes, someone said, “Ask the apes first.” I am of the belief that if we ask monkeys, they will not say that man is an evolution, he is a decline, a decline from the state of monkeys. See... monkeys are stronger than you, they can do things you can't, they are happier, they enjoy life more than you. So what have you achieved with your evolution, your mechanical devices, your weapons, your atomic bombs? Why do you think this is evolution, growth, development? Ask the monkeys... they will laugh and say you are stupid. You can't even walk on all fours. You can't even climb a tree like a monkey.
The monkey and the prince were both in the same boat.
“The prince shot an arrow at the monkey, but she grabbed the arrow in flight.”
The prince is more cruel than the monkey, since the monkey’s show was only to ask: “Why do you need to kill me?” But man is more cruel than any animal.
There is a zoo in Tokyo. If you happen to visit Tokyo, don't miss the zoo. Go there! There are all kinds of wild animals, hundreds of cages, and on the last cage there is a sign: “The most dangerous animal,” but the cage is not occupied, it is empty. If you look - and you look at the most dangerous animal of all - you will find it, because there is a mirror there.
The monkey was innocent in his ego. Animals have egos, but they remain animals, they are not so cruel. But the man is cruel. It seems that man is the only cruel animal. Tigers kill, lions kill, but only for food, never for anything else. A person kills not only to eat - he enjoys killing. Hunting is a game for him. He kills just to kill. And not a single animal in the world kills its brothers and sisters, no!
A lion never kills another lion, a monkey never kills another monkey. Man is the only animal that kills its own kind. Every animal has a counter defense. Zoologists say that in any animal there is a counter-protection in order not to kill individuals of its own species. But it seems that something is wrong with the man - he is killing his own kind. There is nothing like war in the animal world, although individuals do fight. Animals have more understanding. If two dogs fight, sooner or later they come to an understanding. A person never comes to an understanding: until he kills, it seems there will be no other solution. Even dogs are more intelligent. If two dogs growl, show their fangs, jump on each other, this is just a show - they are trying to determine who is stronger. This is trying on. They haven't started yet, and when one feels that she is not stronger, then she knows that it is ridiculous to fight. She just shows her tail - and stop! And then it’s all over - they came to an understanding: the hierarchy has been revealed, the strong, of course, will win, so why engage in an unnecessary fight? Only man is stupid, he is the stupidest animal, since he never believes that the weaker will be defeated and the stronger will win. It's simple arithmetic that the stronger one will win, so why fight? No need.
Hitler can growl at Stalin, Stalin can growl at Hitler, and both of them can call their mathematicians and count who has more planes, more bombs. In a minute everything will be set, then you just show your tail. There is no need to fight, because war is simply proof of what has already been done at the desk, proof of who is stronger. Why this waste, such a waste of human lives?
But no, it's impossible. People are so selfish that even the weaker one thinks that somehow he can win. No animal is so deceived. Imaginary fights are needed only to decide who is stronger - and then they are over. About a dog that has its tail between its legs, you will say that it is cowardly. No, she's not like that, she's just smart. She is weak, so what is the need to get into a fight? This has been proven, and it has been proven innocently, without any bloodshed. The same thing is proven through a fight. So why engage in an unnecessary war? It's more economical this way.
“In response to this, the prince gave the order to his associates to attack her all together.”
Look at the stupidity! Just to kill a monkey, a joint attack is necessary; many people attack the monkey from all sides.
“A cloud of arrows immediately flew at the monkey, and it fell down dead.”
And the prince should have felt very good - he had accomplished something. But look at the stupidity of this joint attack by so many people together with the prince: there were probably at least a hundred close associates there. A hundred people kill a monkey and then feel good, like winners. The monkeys should laugh at what you do.
“A cloud of arrows flew at the monkey, and it fell down dead. Then the prince turned to his comrade Yen-Bui...”
Look how in our stupidity we prove that we are wise! This prince killed without any need, this in no way can be called a victory: in order to kill one monkey, an attack was launched by a hundred people with bows and arrows, and the monkey was unarmed, naked, without any protection. And is this a victory? This is not a victory at all, this is not even diplomacy.
Even in ordinary circumstances, if we fight with a warrior, we give another weapon: he must have a sword, he must have some kind of protection. They were all protected, but the defenseless innocent animal was killed.
The prince is stupid, but look at his behavior: even from our stupidity we conclude that we are wise. What did he say? He said to his friend Yen-Buy:
"You see what happened! This animal advertised its intelligence, it believed in its skill, it thought that no one would touch it. Remember this! Don't rely on originality and talent when dealing with people!"
This is one of the subtle things to understand. We are always wise if we need to advise others, but when we are in the same position, we have the same problems, the same crisis - we are not so wise. If someone comes to you with a problem, you will give him good advice, and that advice may be right, but if you have the same problem, you are not able to give yourself the same advice. Why? Because if it's someone else's problem, you're out of touch.
This prince said to his friend:
"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 rely on originality and talent when dealing with people!"
He can see the stupidity of the monkey, but he cannot see what he himself did, and he did, as I feel, greater stupidity than the monkey. He also advertised his skill, he also showed his talent, and not only in front of people, but also in front of monkeys. He showed who he was: he was an extraordinary man - he was an extraordinary prince. He was no ordinary mortal. And then he gave this advice to his friend: don't rely on originality and talent when dealing with people. But the advice is correct.
And it happened, as happened many times, that the friend accepted the advice and it transformed his entire being, but the prince remained the same. So if you learn, you learn also from fools, but if you cannot learn, then even Buddha is useless - you will not learn. If you can learn, you can transform. Sometimes teachers are left behind: students move quickly and reach the goal. After all, just because you can give good advice to others does not mean that you have achieved the truth.
This is good. The advice is great, and the Tao says the same. Tao has the same teaching, but not the same mind as the prince. Chuang Tzu put the teaching into the mouth of the prince, but the prince is only like a learned pandit who utters words but does not live in accordance with them. This is not lived experience, it is simply doctrine. The prince must have heard this once, from some Taoist source, since this is one of their keys.
"Do you see what happened? This animal advertised its intelligence, it believed in its skill, it thought that no one would touch it. Remember that!"
Don't show off, don't show off, otherwise you will cause unnecessary trouble, you will invite unnecessary problems. You can become so involved in them that it can lead to your death.
"Don't rely on originality and talent when dealing with people."
This advice came from the lips of the prince. His friend was truly a wise man, since he was not interested in whether the prince himself followed what he said. This is how it should happen in life, that you are not interested, but simply accept advice and change. But you are interested.
What's the use of thinking about bottles? Just take the contents. What's the use of asking questions about content? Just taste the contents and if they are good, forget about the container. This prince was in the same position as
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru