Parable 17: Storing the Milk

A foolish man was planning a party. "The party is in a month, and I'll need a lot of milk for my guests," he thought. "But I don't have enough pots, and it would go sour anyway."
Then he noticed his best cow. "Aha! She can store the milk!" 

So he led the cow's calf away. "Nurse somewhere else!" he told the calf. "Your mother is busy holding my party milk!"

The day of the party arrived. "There will be so much milk!" the man said. 

But the cow had gone dry; there was no milk there for his guests.

~ ~ ~

This another one of the stories from the Buddhist "Garland of Fools" collection; you can see more fool stories here. You can find an English translation of this story online at the Internet Archive in Li Rongxi's A Garland for the Fool. You can also find the Chinese text and another English translation online.

The sermon attached to the story offers a very ingenious lesson that we can all learn from the foolish man and the milk: "This is like stupid people who want to give alms all at once and say that they will wait until they possess great wealth. Usually, before they can accumulate enough money, it is seized by the government, lost in a fire or flood, or taken by robbers. Or else they may even die before they get around to giving. They are just like that stupid man who tried to store up milk."

So, don't try to hoard the "milk," including the milk of human kindness. Let it flow! Now!

Here is an Indian sculpture of a cow and her calf:

Haiku 17: First snow

Here is today's haiku:

はつ雪やもの書けば消え書けば消え

And in romaji:

hatsu yuki ya mono kakeba kie kakeba kie

And English: "First snow: I write something, it disappears; I write, it disappears."

This is a haiku by Chiyo-Ni, a remarkable woman haiku poet who lived in the 18th century. You can read more about her at Wikipedia. This poem is included in the recent book by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi, The Poetry of Chiyo-Ni, and in their note to this poem, they explain that this poem belongs to her later life, and the idea of the writing disappearing is a comment on the fragility of her writing and of her life, as quick to melt as snow. I've seen some translations of this poem with the word "melt" instead of "disappear," but I stuck with disappearing: the snow melts, but it also makes things disappear when the snow covers them... and then those things return.

My vocabulary for today:

雪
ゆき
"snow"

Proverb 17: One day, one step

Here is today's proverb:

一日一歩

And in romaji:

ichi-nichi ip-po

And English: "One day, one step."

This is one of my favorite Japanese sayings! We say in English "one step at a time," which is good advice, but "One day, one step" is even better advice I think — and yes, I'm trying to blog every day here. One day, one post.

Note the euphonic change, called rendaku in Japanese, that takes place in the compound: ほ (ho) becomes ぽ (po).

from lovepik

My vocabulary for today:

歩
ほ
"step"

Parable 16: The Two Otters

There were once two otters who caught a fish, and then they quarreled about how to divide it.

“The middle is mine," one otter said. "You can have the head and the tail."

“No!” said the other otter. “I want the middle! I'll give you the head and the tail.”

A greedy jackal came by. "I'll be glad to judge between you," he said.

The otters explained what had happened.

"Oh, that's easy!" the jackal exclaimed. "You take the head... and you take the tail..." and then the jackal ran away with the middle part of the fish for himself.

~ ~ ~

This is another one of the Buddhist Jataka stories, the tales of the Buddha's previous births; this is known as the Dabbhapuppha Jataka. The Buddha was prompted to tell this story because of a greedy monk; you can read about the greedy monk here in the first part of the jataka. And who was the Buddha in this story? As in many of the jatakas which do not contain a noble, wise character, the Buddha was a "tree spirit" who witnessed the dispute of the jackal and the otters.

One lesson learned: don't trust jackals! But the better lesson learned is that it is good to share. If the otters had shared instead of being greedy, they would have had some nice fish to eat.

Here are two Indian otters:

Haiku 16: First dream

Here is today's haiku:

初夢や秘めて語らず一人笑む

And in romaji:

hatsuyume ya himete katarazu hitori emu

And English: "First dream: a secret not told, smiling to myself."

This is a haiku by Ito Shou (you can use Google to translate Shou's Wikipedia article to English). The new year is coming soon, and so too are our first dreams of the new year. English Wikipedia has an article about this dream tradition, called Hatsuyume. Apparently, dreaming of an eggplant is a good sign:

from Leiden University Library

My vocabulary for today:

夢
ゆめ
"dream"

Proverb 16: In the horse's ear

Here is today's proverb:

馬の耳に念仏

And in romaji:

uma no mimi ni nenbutsu

And English: "Nenbutsu in a horse's ear."

The first proverb that I blogged about, 朝題目に宵念仏 asa daimoku ni yoi nenbutsu, invoked the nenbutsu, a Buddhist prayer, and here it is again: this time being spoken into the ear of a hose, who couldn't care less. The horse is not deaf, but he has no idea what the nenbutsu is all about. This is a popular saying in Japan, hence this framed print:

My vocabulary for today:

耳
みみ
"ear"

Proverb 15: The fallen blossom

Here is today's proverb:

落花枝にかえらず 破鏡再び照らさず

And in romaji:

Rakka eda ni kaerazu, hakyou futatabi terasazu.

And English: "The fallen blossom doesn’t return to the branch; a broken mirror doesn't shine again."

I wanted to share this proverb because of the haiku that plays with the fallen petal returning to its branch. That part of this proverb could stand on its own, and the second half could also stand on its. I saw in a blog post that the mirror part is especially associated with divorce, and the wiktionary entry for 破鏡 says it means, literally, "broken mirror" and, figuratively, "parting of a married couple."

fallen blossoms

My vocabulary for today:

鏡
きょう
"mirror"

Haiku 15: A fallen petal

Here is today's haiku:

落花枝にかへると見れば胡蝶哉

And in romaji:

rakka eda ni kaeru to mireba kocho kana

And English: "A fallen petal settling back on its branch... wait, look: a butterfly."

This is a haiku by Arakida Moritake. I was delighted to find out that this haiku is in dialogue with a Japanese proverb about how fallen petals do NOT return to their branch; I'll post that proverb here in a separate post. So, it is a charming haiku to begin with, and all the more so when I know the proverb too! The proverb makes you realize that it cannot really be a petal returning to its branch, and then we can see: a butterfly.

art by Shibata Zeshin

My vocabulary for today:

枝
えだ
"branch"

Parable 15: The Frog in the Well

A frog was born in a well and lived there all her life.

Another frog was born and lived in a lake.

The lake-frog went exploring, and when she hopped up on the edge of the well, she fell in.

She tried to tell the well-frog what the lake was like. "It's big!" she said.

"As big as this?" asked the well-frog, hopping from one side of the well to the other.

"Bigger!" said the lake-frog.

"But there's nothing bigger than the well. You've lost your mind!" shouted the well-frog. "That 'lake' is something you dreamed; it can't be real."

~ ~ ~

After yesterday's proverb about the frog in the well — "The frog in the middle of the well doesn't know the big ocean," 井の中の蛙大海を知らず i no naka no kawazu tai kai wo shira-zu — I knew I wanted to share this parable. I know this story from the Indian tradition (specifically from Sri Ramakrishna), but I am guessing it must be out there somewhere in the Buddhist tradition also, right? Maybe I will come across it in my future reading. I have certainly found many Buddhist parables which are familiar to me already from other religious traditions as well.

Here is a frog who is NOT inside a well:

art by Sakai Hoitsu

Haiku 14: Quick, into the hazy sky!

Here is today's haiku:

とくかすめ とくとくかすめ放ち鳥

And in romaji:

toku kasume toku toku kasume hanachi-dori

And English: "Quick, into the hazy sky! Quick, quick, into the hazy sky! Bird set free."

This is another haiku by Issa. It is very simple, and full of so much empathy with the bird set free; the way I read this haiku, the simplicity of the first part is the simplicity of the bird's thoughts, as if we were experiencing the moment of liberation together with the bird.

art by Maekawa Senpan

My vocabulary for today:

鷄
とり
"bird" 

Proverb 14: Frog in a well

Here is today's proverb:

井の中の蛙大海を知らず

And in romaji:

i no naka no kawazu tai kai wo shira-zu

And English: "The frog in the middle of the well doesn't know the big ocean."

This proverb is sometimes told as a parable too, so I'll have to include the parable version here at the blog too! It's a notion that fits in all kinds of religious traditions, whether the "great ocean" is God or the ground of being or what have you — something bigger than the well in which we frogs find ourselves.

painting of the proverb

My vocabulary for today:

海
かい
"ocean, sea"

Parable 14: The Wise Jackal

The Buddha was once born as a jackal, and he made his home in the cremation fields amidst the corpses.
A wicked man who wanted to kill the jackal had gone there and lay on the ground, club in hand, pretending to be dead.
The jackal approached, but he suspected this man was not really dead, so he grabbed the club in his teeth and tugged. The man tightened his grip, and the jackal let go.“Human, if you were dead, you wouldn’t have tightened your grip.”
The man then sprang up, but he was too late: the Buddha had escaped. 

~ ~ ~

This is yet another one of the Buddha's past-birth stories, a "jataka" tale; this one is known as the Sigala-Jataka (sigala means "jackal" in Pali). I like the fact that the Buddha would be reborn as a jackal, a creature who does not get a lot of respect, and as a jackal he dwells in the cremation grounds, the most lowly place a creature could be. And I guess you could say that the man pretending to be dead was still "grasping" ... he had not learned to pretend to be a good Buddhist even in death! Meanwhile, the deceitful man was the wicked Devadatta in a past life; more about Devadatta at Wikipedia.

Indian painting of a jackal and peacocks

Parable 13: The Grieving Fortune-Teller

There was once a village wise man who claimed to know the future.
So when the villagers saw him weeping bitterly, they asked, "What's wrong?"
"Alas," the man groaned, "I weep because my son will die in seven days."
"But perhaps he won't!" the people replied, offering comfort. "Why weep in advance?"
"Because I know that he will die," the man insisted, "and I am never wrong."
When the boy was still alive after seven days, his father killed him.
At the funeral, the villagers murmured to one another, full of admiration, "Our wise man really can foresee the future!"

~ ~ ~

This story is another "fool's tale" from the Baiyu Jing 百喻經 Sutra of a Hundred Parables. You can find an English translation of this story online at the Internet Archive in Li Rongxi's A Garland for the Fool. You can also find the Chinese text and another English translation online. In this story, the main character is not the fool (he is something even worse!); this time, the fools are the people who go on believing in the wicked fortune-teller. 

Although we might make fun of fortune-tellers and of the people who believe in them, we are all trying to do "fortune-telling" when we think about the future, making plans, and even acting wrongly in the present because of the expectations we had about the future and our willful insistence to make things go as we planned them. So, while this story is obviously fantastical, I think there is a warning here for all of us to ponder whenever we are tempted to live out our futures in advance and to even make our dreams (or fears) come true.

art by Su Hanchen

Proverb 13: Futon on a tombstone

Here is today's proverb:

石に布団は着せられず

And in romaji:

ishi ni futon wa kiserare-zu

And English: "You can’t put a comforter on a tombstone."

I thought this was a brilliant proverb, and it was also fun to see a Japanese word that many English speakers now know — futon — used here: 布団, ふとん, futon. The proverb just says "stone," 石, but the idea is "stone in a graveyard, " i.e. a tombstone, specifically the tombstone of your mother or father. Be kind to them now while you still can... otherwise, it will be too late. So it can be specifically a saying about filial duty and filial love, but also a more general admonition to do good deeds, any good deeds you can, now, before it is too late.

1902 drawing: Japanese cemetery

My vocabulary for today:

石
いし
"stone"

Haiku 13: Mountain doves

Here is today's haiku:

山鳩が泣事をいふしぐれ哉

And in romaji:

yama-bato ga nakigoto wo iu shigure kana

And English: "Mountain doves utter weeping words; winter rain (kana)."

This is another haiku by Issa, and again the focus is on the animals and how they experience the world. It's a cold, wintry, rainy day for me here today, but I cannot hear the birds weeping. I am guessing that Issa really did. I've seen this translated with "grumble" for the pigeon's words, but I went with "weeping words" for 泣事 nakigoto when I saw that one of the metaphorical uses of しぐれ shigure, winter rain, is "shedding tears." I like the sound-play of the compound yama-bato / hato (mountain-dove, i.e. turtle-dove) and naki-goto / koto (weeping words).

(Japanese doves)

My vocabulary for today:

鳩
hato (bato)
"dove, pigeon"