Jwing-ming Yang - Dao in Action : Inspired Tales for Life

I love these stories. Some are inspirational, some are funny, and some are thought provoking. Many of you will recognize the themes of these fables. You may have heard them with other names and places. The themes, noble and ignoble, transcend culture and time. The Dao is the Dao, and fables are the de (the manifestations) of the Dao.

In the last hours of the last days of many of Master Yangs seminars, when we were physically drained from training and mentally void from trying to remember new forms and new skills, Master Yang would sit down, answer questions, and tell stories. Sometimes, during regular classes, he would tell one of these stories to make a point. These were my favorite times; time to get to know our teacher and to absorb an important spiritual and inspirational part of the training. I find myself often retelling many of these stories to my students.

I would like to add my own story. Once upon a time, in real life, my mother was a civilian worker at the US naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, during World War II. It was not a top-secret area; we are Japanese. There was a prisoner of war, a Japanese national, who was allowed to clean the offices where she worked. She would sometimes offer this man a stick of gum or share some of the Japanese food she had brought for lunch, little kindnesses to which she gave no second thought. She never even mentioned them to us.

If the story ended here, it would just be a story about a kind lady. But the story does not end here.

It ends about forty years later when the Japanese embassy contacted my mother. That prisoner of war had gone on to become a successful CEO of a large sake company, and he had been looking for my mother for several years. He wanted to thank her. To him, her gestures were not just small kindnesses; they made him feel like a human being again and reinstilled in him the will to live. He sent her two first-class tickets to Japan and treated her and my father like royalty.

The consequence of her small actions was the profound change in the course of another human life. That consequence honors her otherwise ordinary human gestures. That is the ethos of a fable.

These fables of human integrity, kindness, perseverance, wonder, and honor are the revelations of the Dao. Read them in order or randomly. Most of all, enjoy.

Throughout his many years of teaching in his Boston YMAA headquarters school, in classes around the world, and more recently at the YMAA Retreat Center, Dr. Yang has always incorporated fables and proverbs. While we were building the retreat center, and during his years teaching there, Dr. Yang scheduled a story time at the end of each day so he could tell us these old tales and then discuss their deeper meaning.

I have heard a number of these fables over the years and fondly recall Dr. Yangs zeal in sharing and discussing them. He always had a sparkle in his eye as he reminisced about these life lessons handed down from his mother and teachers. That same passion to help others find deeper meaning shines through in this book. What astounds me is how many of these tales I have never heard over the past decades and how many more Dr. Yang has known but has not shared until now!

A fun aspect of this book is that within its pages are several stories Dr. Yang has written himself based on his personal experiences. This collection offers a rare insight into another side of Dr. Yangs personality and teaching that gives readers everywhere a chance to get to know him (and themselves) a little better.

This is a story my White Crane master told me when I was seventeen.

Once there was a bamboo shoot that had just popped up out of the ground. It looked at the sky and smiled. It said to itself, Someone told me that the sky is so high that it cannot be reached. I dont believe thats true.

The sprout was young and felt strong. It believed if it kept growing, one day it could reach the sky. So it kept growing and growing. Ten years passed. Twenty years passed. Again it looked at the sky. The sky was still very high, and it was still far beyond the bamboos reach. Finally, it realized something and started to bow. The more it grew the lower it bowed.

My teacher said, Remember, the taller the bamboo grows, the lower it bows. The Chinese people also have a saying: Satisfaction loses and humility gains. The Daoists say, In order to fill up the room, first you must empty your mind.

One day, my White Crane master said to us, There are ten buckets of water. Some are empty, some are half full, and some are completely full. He asked, If you have a choice to carry one bucket to my rice field, which one do you prefer?

Some of my classmates said, I will carry an empty one.

Another felt somewhat bad if he said he would carry an empty one, so he said, I will choose the half-full one.

Only a couple of students said, I will carry the full bucket.

My master smiled and said, Those who carry the full bucket will have a chance to condition their body, and those who choose easy ones will miss the opportunity. The Chinese have a saying: When carrying a load, choose a heavy load. When climbing the mountain, choose a high mountain to climb. ()

There was a Chinese man who earned a PhD in engineering. With his advanced degree he quickly found an engineering job, and he was very happy. On the first day at work, he discovered his boss did not like the short Chinese young guy. His boss had graduated with a BS degree and had been working for this company for more than thirty years. The Chinese engineer had graduated with a PhD from a well-known university. When this Chinese engineer reported to work in his bosss office, the boss said, Now you report to me, so you have to listen to me. I want you to bring me a cup of black coffee every morning before you begin your other work. Understand?