A nun had studied the Buddhist sutra for many years, but she found there were many issues still confusing. She went to seek help from Zen master Huineng.
Master Huineng said, “To be honest, I am an illiterate, but if you can read it for me, probably I could understand it and explain it to you.”
The nun was surprised, very surprised, “Master, are you serious? How could one who cann’t read the words understand the meaning of the sutra?”
The Zen master replied, “Truth has nothing to do with text or words. Truth is like the bright moon in the heaven, or the flying bird in the sky, or flowers in the wild. Words are like fingers, with fingers, you can point where the room is, the bird or the flower is, but fingers themselves are not the moon, the bird or the flower. Besides, without finger, one can still see the moon, the bird and the flower. How do you think?”
ancient chinese fable, ancient chinese story
There were a lot of bad stories about stepmother both in China and other countries.
Wang Xiang lost his mother when he was a little child. His stepmother was very mean to him.
His stepmother liked eating fish. However in winter, as the river would freeze, people could not get any fish. One day, Wang Xiang stripped off himself, lay on the ice above the river. When the ice began to melt, he broke the ice and caught fish for his stepmother.
Having heard of this, the stepmother change her attitude toward Wang Xiang thereafter.
ancient chinese fable, ancient chinese story, The Mean step-mother
A man decided to buy new shoes in the market. He measured his feet at home with a ruler. When he arrived at the market, he found he had left the measurement at home Then the man hurried home to fetch it, but by the time he went back to the market again, the business hour was over and it was closed.
“Why not try the shoes on at the market?” a neighbour asked him.
“I trust the ruler more.” replied by the man.
ancient chinese story, chinese cultural story, chinese culture, interesting chinese fable
The old father loved his grandson very much. However his unfilial son always beat him. The neighbours asked,
“Your son treat you so badly, why are you still so nice to his son?”
The old father replied,
“I want to bring up my grandson so that he can teach his father a lesson for me some day.”
ancient chinese story, Buddhism Karma, Doing good brings good
