by Wayne Keysor
This story is adapted from a story found in the ancient Chinese literary classic, the Zhuangzi text.
Once long ago, there lived a wise hermit who had retreated to the forests to be alone and to learn the ways of nature, and through nature to understand the world. Although he spent most of his time among the thick circlet of trees that girded the foothills of the nearby mountains, the hermit would occasionally take his bow and travel down into the valley to hunt. This particular valley happened to be owned by a powerful landowner who forbade any hunting but his own, which meant that the hermit had to be careful to avoid the landowner’s gamekeepers.
One day, the hermit was wandering through the valley, bow in hand, intending to shoot for himself some forest bird or deer for his supper that night. Suddenly he noticed a large, colorful bird that he had never seen before. He froze in place and watched the bird for a moment. When it did not immediately react to his presence, he realized that the bird had not noticed him because it was so intent on stalking a mantis and was about to pounce. Looking more closely at the scene, the hermit then realized that the mantis, in turn, had not noticed the bird because it was so intent on stalking a cicada, and itself was about to pounce.
This scene struck the hermit as particularly strange, and he paused to reflect upon what lesson he might draw from it. For the hermit knew that the natural world always had lessons for the observant, if one only had eyes to see them. The more he contemplated the sight, the more fascinated and disturbed he became. He thought to himself, “things are always making trouble for other things,” and then suddenly he realized that he was no different. He too was here to make trouble for the bird. This arresting thought so disturbed him that he dropped his bow to run away.
However, before he could take his first step, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure rushing at him, which he had failed to notice before. It only took him a moment to realize that it was a gamekeeper, who had managed to sneak up on him because he had been so intent on observing how other things make trouble for each other. The man got his hands around the hermit’s shoulders, but as quick and as lithe as a snake, the hermit wriggled out of his grasp. He squirmed away and managed to get completely free of the man. He then ran as fast as he could into the forest with the gamekeeper in pursuit.
The hermit managed to lose the gamekeeper among the tangled paths of the forest that he knew so well. Upon finally returning to his solitary house in the foot hills, he was so disconcerted by the whole incident that he would not leave it for three months. Of course, eventually, he had to leave his house, whether he wanted to or not, for we are all inescapably part of the unfolding processes of Sacred Earth. There is no way to separate ourselves from her; to stand outside her as mere observers, no matter how much we might tell ourselves otherwise.
