Useless
Today, I would like to tell you a little story..
There once was a town located in the high desert,
at the base of a rugged mountain range,
in which there grew,
at the centre of town,
an old,
crooked
tree —
every branch twisted and gnarled.
The tree was large enough to shade several thousand oxen —
a hundred spans around.
It towered to the heights of the rolling foothills,
with its lowest branches eighty feet from the ground.
More than ten of its branches were big enough to be made into boats.
Around it,
rose up the town marketplace,
where crowds of people would gather every day.
One day, as Hùizi, a young carpenter apprenticed to the master carpenter Shì, passed the tree,
he turned to his master and blithely commented,
“Look at that!
What a shame.
Such a useless tree.
Its trunk and branches are so crooked —
so distorted and full of knots.
The wood is truly grand, but it can not be cut up —
no straight plank can be made from it.
What good is it?
There it stands beside the road,
but no carpenter will even consider it.
Even you, master, pass it by without a glance.”
Shì, the master carpenter, without turning his head, walked on, replying:
“A tree that grows on the side of a mountain is its own enemy.
A cinnamon tree is edible, so it is cut down.
A lacquer tree is profitable, so it is maimed.
Cherry, apple, pear, orange, lemon and other fruit trees,
as soon as their fruit is ripe,
are stripped bare —
ravaged for their delicious fruit —
their branches split —
the smaller ones torn off.
Because of their so-called “usefulness” —
their utility —
their lives are short and bitter.
That is why so-called “useful” trees
rarely live out their natural lives —
rarely realize their full potential —
but rather, are cut off in their prime.
They become objects of utility —
resources —
commodities —
in this world of red dust.
Is this not so?
Now here we have this old tree.
You look at it and see it as “useless.”
And indeed, perhaps a boat made from its wood would sink,
a coffin would soon rot,
a tool would split,
a door would ooze sap,
and a beam would breed termites.
Perhaps, you might say,
“Its timber is worthless and of no use.”
But is it not because of its very “uselessness”
that it has reached such a ripe old age?
Did not the ancients say,
“It is useful (beneficial) to be useless.”
But few truly perceive
how useful it is to be useless,
never mind actually practicing it!
This tree has been practicing the art of uselessness for a very long time.
In fact, in my recollection, it was nearly destroyed several times.
Now, after many years, it has become truly useless,
and in this...
is it not indeed
very
useful?
My dear apprentice,
“No use!”
you exclaim.
And yet here it grows —
in the midst of the wilds of the wilderness —
in the vast emptiness —
beneath the clear, blue, expansive sky.
No cares.
No worries.
It adorns the landscape with its eccentric beauty.
Children frolic and delight around it.
Families gather under its shade.
Animals rest under its boughs.
No axe or saw conspires to its end.
No one gives a thought to cutting it down.
Thus it will live out its days in peace
and when the time comes,
it will naturally, effortlessly and gracefully
evanesce its physical form —
returning the five elements of its body
to our Earthly Mother —
having realized
its full potential.
“Useless!”
you say?
Is that truly so?
Indeed my young apprentice...
open your (Inner) Eye
and
look
again!”
/|\
— this reflection is a story — a literary adaptation — based upon various wisdom teachings found in the Zhuāngzǐ, attributed to 4th century BCE philosopher and teacher, Zhuāngzǐ (Master Zhuang) 莊子