A Dream Deer, or a Dear Dream?
Listen to the strange events which took place in the China of long ago:
A peasant was gatheing
fuel one day in the forest when he came upon a deer,
which was as startled as he was. Running after it and
wanting it for food, he somehow managed to kill it.
Looking around to see if anyone had seen him, he hastily
hid the carcass in a ditch, covering it well with leaves. Then
he went home to get help for carrying it back for a feast.
He brought his brother with him into the forest, but
could not find the place at all, where he had hidden
the deer. Quite confused, he told his brother the whole
story. "I wonder if I could have been dreaming!"
he exclaimed.
They did not see that
there was another woodsman nearby. Overhearing the
description of the hiding-place, this man went looking
for it and actually found the deer carcass. Being large
and strong, he was able to carry the deer home. He said to
his wife: "I heard a man in the woods say that he dreamt
he had got a deer, but did not know where it was. Now I
have got the deer; so his dream is no dream, but a
reality."
"It is you," said his
wife, "who have been dreaming. You dreamt of a
woodsman who caught a deer, but obviously it is you
who have caught the deer; so how can his dream be
real?"
"True," her
husband agreed. "As I have got the deer, it makes
little difference whether the woodsman dreamt the deer
or I have dreamt the woodsman. Let us hang up the carcass
for preparation."
Our first peasant reached
home, much annoyed at losing the deer. That night he
actually dreamt where the deer was located, in whose
house it lay. In the morning he went to that house
and, sure enough, there was the deer. He decided to
go to court at once and make a legal complaint to recover possession.
When the magistrate of the court came in and heard the
case, this is what he finally said: "The plaintiff
(the first woodsman) began with a real deer and a supposed
dream. He now comes forward with a real dream and a
supposed deer. The defendant (second woodsman) really
got the deer which the plaintiff said he dreamt, and
is now trying to keep it; while his wife says both the plaintiff
and the deer are nothing but a dream, so that no one got
a deer at all. However here is a deer: so you had better divide
it between the two of you."
When the Prince of Cheng
(who ruled over that district) heard this story, he
exclaimed, "The magistrate himself must have dreamt
the whole case!" He asked his prime minister for
his opinion.
"Only the wisest
of the wise, such as Confucius himself," replied
the prime minister, "can understand exactly the
difference between dream and reality. You had better
confirm the magistrate's decision."
[And if you can untangle this mystery, you are
one of the wisest of the wise!]
Keep Out of Politics!
Chuang-Tzu
was the great and famed disciple of Lao-tzu.
It is about him that this story is told. The Prince
of the state, hearing of his great wisdom, sent two
messengers to try to persuade him to help in the ruling
of the land. They found him fishing in the river. When Chuang-Tzu
had listened to their plea, he replied, holding on to
his pole, "I have heard of a sacred tortoise which, though
dead for the last two thousand years, was ordered by the
prince to be carefully deposited in a box in his Hall
of Ancestors. Now, which would that tortoise have preferred:
to die with his bones left behind and treasured; or
to live and drag his tail in the mud?"
"Certainly," said
the official messengers, "it would rather do the
latter."
"Then off you go,"
retorted Chuang-Tzu, "I also will drag my tail
in the mud."
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