A villager was once vending pears in a marketplace. The pears were sweet and luscious, but the price was high out of all proportion.
A Taoist wearing a tattered bandana and frayed clothes stopped before the cart and begged for a pear. When his shouts failed to turn the Taoist away, the vendor was so incensed that he loosed a torrent of abuse on him. The Taoist said, “There are several hundred pears in your cart. I ask for no more than one of them which surely could not put you out too much. Why get angry?” The onlookers recommended getting rid of him by giving up a mushy pear, but the vendor held stubbornly to his position.
Finding the annoying jabber unbearable, a shop-boy used his own money to buy a pear, which he gave to the Taoist. The Taoist bowed in gratitude, then spoke to the crowd: “We who have renounced lay life do not understand miserliness. I have a fine pear which I would like to offer to my guests.”
Someone said, ”Now that you’ve got it, why not eat it yourself?”
“I only needed the core for its seeds,” he answered. Whereupon he raised the pear to his lips and started chomping away. When he finished, he had the core in his palm. Then he took down a mattock he had been carrying on his shoulder and dug a hole several inches deep in the ground. He put the core inside, covered it over with soil, and asked people who worked in the market for hot water to wet down the soil. A certain busybody procured boiling water from a roadside shop.
The Taoist took it and poured it on the hoed-over spot. A multitude of eyes jostled for a view. They saw a curly sprout appear, get gradually bigger and, in no time at all, become a tree with luxuriant leaves and branches. Flowers quickly appeared and just as quickly turned to huge, fragrant fruits strung over every part of the tree.
The Taoist reached for the top of the tree and picked pears for the onlookers. In a moment the pears were given out, whereupon he pitched into the tree
with his mattock. The chopping sounds went on for a long time before the trunk was cut through. He raised the trunk to his shoulder, leaves and all, then ambled nonchalantly away.
When the Taoist began performing magic the vendor had mingled with the crowd, craning his neck and staring with no thought of his wares. Only when the Taoist had gone did he turn to look into his cart, which was now emptied of pears, and realized what the Taoist had just handed out were his. Looking further, he found to his great consternation that a shaft was missing from his cart and that it had been freshly chopped off. Setting off in hot pursuit, he rounded the comer of a wall and found the broken cart shaft abandoned beside it. He knew that this was the trunk of the tree that had just been chopped down. The Taoist was nowhere to be found. The whole market was humming with laughter.
The Chronicler of the Tales comments: “The dullness of the thickskulled villager is almost palpable. No wonder the people in the market laughed at him. It often happens that men who are known in the villages as prosperous become upset when good friends beg for rice. They figure what it will cost them, saying: ‘This is worth several days’ income.’ If they are called upon to succor people in dire need or feed a lone, helpless soul they calculate resentfully, saying: ‘You’re asking for food enough to sustain five or ten persons.’ In the worst cases fathers, sons, and brothers count every last dram and grain against each other, but when seized by gambling fever they upend their pouches freely. And when they sense instruments of execution hanging over their own necks, they waste no time buying their way out of trouble. Such evils defy enumeration. Is it any wonder that this story makes the villager look so foolish?”
Leave a Reply