Proverb 7: The fisherman's profit.

Here is today's proverb:

漁夫の利

And in romaji:

gyofu no ri

And English: "The fisherman's profit."

This proverb is the punchline to a story, much like the way proverbs coexist with Aesop's fables. Here is the story, which is a story about, literally, grasping: A snipe found a clam on the beach, and its shell was open! Hungrily, the snipe stuck its beak and grabbed the clam, intending to eat it, but the clam snapped its shell shut. The snipe wouldn't let go of the clam, and the clam wouldn't let go of the snipe. Then a fisherman came along and he captured both to the snipe and the clam. Their loss; the fisherman's profit.

I thought this made a nice little Buddhist parable about grasping: snipe grasping! clam grasping! And nothing but loss to show for it.

My vocabulary for today:

漁
ぎょ
"fishing" (and so: 漁夫, fishing-man = fisherman, ぎょふ)