Story By Master Doe:
When my Master had us, we had to go through our sacred books. We have wall hangings of sayings from these books and he had to decide how we were going to do it and how much we were going to put on the hangings. Were we going to put the whole chapter, or were we just going to take the prayer parts out or just the poetry out and write it down.
The problem with writing it, of course, is most people can’t read. And, my Master actually had some people who can’t read copying, telling them to make it look exactly the same and they could do this. Certain ones can. There’s some other ones that are sloppy and of course they will not.
But my Master took the wall hangings down from time to time. He would change them, because if the wind would whip through or something, they would get worn after a while. When it was time to take them down, they would curl them up. Then we would have a sacred fire at the time of the New Year. We would take the old scrolls down and put them into this fire. At that time we washed all the walls and then we’d hang the new ones up. It was always the same, it was just black ink. Every now and then, we had someone who could do pictures, mostly not, but when we had, we had a young boy come in one time and let me see … how did we discover that he could do pictures? Because we did not have much colors and we were not allowed to use the writing materials because they were expensive and rare so only the advanced people even got to see those things.
This young boy came along and I think what he had ... he had a piece of ... he took some scraps of wood. Ordinarily the scraps of wood, they go into the kitchen to be used in fires for cooking, but he managed to sneak a couple of scraps and he was using a … wasn’t even really a regular knife ... it was more like a knife that you eat with, it doesn’t cut that well. He was using that and every so often, he would, when he was working in the kitchen, he would take some green twigs and stick it into the kitchen fire and get it where it was glowing and he would use that also and he made a very nice picture of the front of the temple.
Somebody happened to see it. The person that saw it thought the boy was being wasteful of materials, because even though it was only a scrap of wood, it could have been used to cook us dinner. So he went and reported to my Master that this new student was wasting resources and my Master asked him “Well, how does one waste resources?”
Student: “Well, he took some wood we could have used to cook with.”
Master: “Well, did he have a use for this wood?”
Student: “Well, he made some scratches and marks on it, but he was just digging into it.”
Master: “Well, did you look at it?”
Student: “Yes, I looked at it.”
Master: “Well, how long was he doing these scratches and marks?”
Student: “Well, I watched him for a while and he would hide it. He was hiding it! He would take it out when he had a little extra time after his chores were all done, and he would either take that stick, the twig that he would put in the fire, or, he had that dull knife and he was using it”.
Master: “Well, was he making something?”
Student: “Oh no, he was just scratching it”.
Master: “So did you ask him if you could see it?>
Student: “Oh no, he was always keeping it hidden, he didn’t know that I saw it.”
And so my Master said, “tell the boy to come and to bring his piece of wood with him when he comes.”
So, naturally the other one went with a big smirk on his face and says, “the Master wants you to bring your piece of wood and give it to him”, well that’s not what the Master had said. The Master said he wanted the boy to come and bring the piece with him.
So the boy was very worried, cause he had been found out. He was afraid he was going to be kicked out and they were going to take his piece of wood and burn it. So, he came. He brought the piece of wood and my Master said, “may I see?” Cause he just saw the back of it and it was all scratched up on the back on one side. My Master said, “May I see this piece of wood, please?” And so the boy approached him and handed it to him.
When he handed it to him, then my Master could see the other side was actually very smooth, slightly rounded and it was a fairly nice picture he had drawn and gouged in it. It wasn’t completely flat anymore, so it stuck out a little bit, but it was the front of our temple and he used the dark, cause it was dark wherever he used that glowing stick to make round the edges so it looked like it was even deeper than it was to stain some of it.
And, my Master gave it back to him and said, “it is a very nice picture,” He said, “there is something missing here.”
The young boy said, “what is missing?”
He said, “you did not write the name of our Temple, or, of our monastery.”
And the young boy said, “Master, I do not know how to write.”
And the Master said, “tomorrow you will report to … and he gave him the name of the other monk ... and you will begin your training to learn how to write and you will take your pieces of wood with you,” and you notice he said “pieces, not piece”.
And the Master said, “when you have time, I would like to see the other ones.” Well you see the one that had been spying on him did not realize that there was more than one! And my Master, of course, I think he was guessing. So the boy was very relieved and overjoyed because now he’s going to get to learn how to read and write.
Not everybody gets to do that. So, when he went back, he showed my Master that he had a little round piece. He had made a pretty ... I told you we had a pond and there’s a nice tree beside the pond … and he made a picture of part of the pond with the tree, and then another one he had taken. I think it was a piece of a scrap of a piece of paper he had found, and he had used some of the plant juices and berries and he actually made a picture of some of the front of our garden. Remember I told you it was very fancy out front for people to come in?
And we made it beautiful because this was the house of God, and we wanted the people to see how God’s house is beautiful. This is the part we would let the people come into every so often. We would open our doors, and they were allowed to come into that part, and so it was beautiful. And he made a picture of some of that, and he put color into it, because he took some grass, and he bent it and rubbed around the bottom, so it looked like grass. And he took ... I guess it was, I don’t know exactly … but some berries and he took some other ... some earth ... he used different colors, so it was pale, but it still had color to it.
So, when he went to see the Master, he took his pieces of wood and his piece of paper, cause even though the Master didn’t ask him for that, he knew that he was supposed to bring that as well. He brought the piece of paper and showed them all to ... he was our scholar. We called him our scholar because he did all this reading and he did lots of copying, and he’s the one that was teaching those that could not read and write how to copy ... even though they couldn’t write they could still copy.
Showed the Scholar that and he was, oh he was so happy, because now every so often on the side here’s a picture of pretty little lake with a tree standing by it, and the story over here talks about serenity and how good it is to sit in nature and contemplate a tree by some water, and there’s another part that talks about how important it is to have a sacred altar – a place to go and sit and be near to God – and you want to make it the very best possible, with the most beautiful flowers, the most lovely cloth, a bowl, a candle, these kind of things, and here he had a picture of the garden out front.
A beautiful picture of the garden which was far more than just a bowl and a candle on little shelf, but it’s the idea that gets it across. Especially when we had the big ones on the wall and the monks, when the people were allowed to come in they would read these, and the ones that can’t read they can see the picture, they can see it’s a picture of a tree next to a lake. They can see it’s a picture of a beautiful garden, so that was a very good thing.
Now, the boy that was the one that revealed his spying, because he was jealous of this other boy. Because this new boy, the monks liked him. He worked very hard so he would have a little extra time so he could do this in his spare time. The other boy saw that that ... I don’t know what he thought … he thought this boy was doing something wrong and he was telling on him.
My Master called the other boy in and said, “I want to thank you for being so observant and seeing that this boy was taking pieces of wood and turning them into beautiful works of art.”
And the boy, said, “but Master, I…..”
The Master said, “because you are so observant I’m going to send you with this boy because both of you are going to start to learn from the same teacher.”
My Master also said, “He is going because he has made some nice works of art. You are going because you are very observant, and you come and you tell me what you see. I want you to come and tell me what you see after you start taking this class.”
The other boy was going to learn to be one of the copiers. Well, he came back and he reported exactly how many students were working, the ones that fell asleep, the ones that would sneak outside and whistle to the birds. Actually everybody did a lot more work with that boy around because they knew he was going regularly to see our Master to make his report.
And, because he was so observant, he was the best one of all the copyists. They could not read or write, but his, when he did his, it looked right and it was so you could read it. So, they ended up working together, because they would leave parts open for a picture and then they would show him what text to put and he would copy it and make it go around the edge of the picture.
So, they ended up working together and they became friends after a time. My Master knows very well how to find the greatest gift of each one of his students, even if the student is not necessarily intending the best.
And that is the end of my story for today.
Excerpt from MDOE s152.doc
