External Things (6)

1 Yuan the king of Song dreamed that a man with hair disheveled stood outside the door to peek in embarrassment at night. He told the king, “I am from Ziluyuan. Ordered by Qingjian, I went on errand to the god of river. On the way, a fisher called Yuqie caught me. Now I ask for help from Your Majesty.”

2 After waking up, the queer dream still lingered clearly in his mind. He asked a future-teller to interpret it. After divining, the future-teller told him that it was a sacred turtle for being confronted with trouble; it came to you asking for help.

3 In the court, the king asked his officials, “Does anyone know a fisher called Yuqie?”

4 An official said, “I know there is a fisher called Yuqie.”

5 The king ordered the official to take Yueqie to question in the palace.

6 When Yuqie arrived, the king asked, “Is there any special fish you have fished recently?” Yueqie replied, “The day before yesterday I have caught a white turtle. It is five feet in length and beautiful. I like it very much and leave it in my house, not selling.”

7 The king was delighted for making clear the dream finally. He asked Yueqie to bring the white turtle to the palace. Seeing the lovely creature, the king said to himself that this is a sacred turtle, if I use its shell to divine, it must be exact and efficacious. But he dissuaded himself from using its shell; he thought that the turtle has made a great effort to ask for help in my dream; if I kill him, would it be good?

8 The king was in dilemma between killing and saving. Hence he asked the future-teller to do a divination for it.

9 By divining, the future-teller told him, “Kill the turtle and it is very auspicious to divine with its shell.”

10 The poor turtle was killed. It was curious that by using the turtle’s shell all the back to back seventy-two divinations were exact and efficacious.

這隻可憐的烏龜就這樣命喪元君之手. 不過說也奇怪，元君用這隻龜殼來卜卦，連續七十二次，次次精準，毫無失誤。

君曰：「獻若之龜。」龜至，君再欲殺之，再欲活之，心疑，卜之，曰：「殺龜以卜吉。」乃刳龜，七十二鑽而無遺筴。

11 Confucius heard the story, he sighed, “The turtle might as well have some theurgy or it was not able to ask for help in the king’s dream; however, its theurgy couldn’t make itself ward off Yuqie’s net. Its theurgy was able to do exact and efficacious divinations for seventy-two times but it couldn’t prophesy the king would open its belly and killed him.

12 What we learn from this case is that the knowledge and intelligence a man has are limited, and even his theurgy also has its shortcoming.

13 If the wisest man is too showy of his knowledge and intelligence, he is possible to be hurt by them.

14 Fishes usually don’t fear net while they scurry away as soon as see a pelican. However, the net actually is more lethal than the pelican, just like the bad influence of knowledge and intelligence to us is worse than illiteracy.

15 We should learn carefully from the lesson that we don’t flatter ourselves and fear nothing for our petty cleverness. In most cases, we are suffered for our cleverness. The poem by Su Dongpo goes: People all wish to have sons who are smart; however, I have been experiencing suffering by being brainy all my life. Only if petty trick is put away, the great wisdom of nature, such as self-nature and Buddha-nature, can pave a really smooth road for our life.

16 Babies learn to speak by themselves without being taught by adults. The way of their learning speaking is to stay with adults. They live naturally, making no special effort.”