Stories of Wisdom - Entertaining and Enlightening Stories

Inspiring entertaining and enlightening stories of wisdom from cultures all around the world. Enjoy and get inspired!

The Childhood of Men Tze

January 15th 2007 15:33

Men Tze was a very well known philosopher of the East, from the mainland China. He was the successor of Confucius. His father passed away when he was still 3 years old. The mother and the son struggled to make ends meet.
When Men Tze was very young, they lived near cemetery area. Seeing so many of the deads' family members coming to visit and clean their own funeral so often, he was then able to imitate every single move that people usually do at the cemetery. The mother saw it not good, and she immediately moved to live at a new place with the son.

This time Men Tze lived in a very busy market area. Every day he could see around him people drinking and people asking their debt to be paid back. He then again imitated those. His mother saw that it did not fit him, so they moved to another new place again.
This time, they lived in a schooling area where most of the people there were educated and possess good manner and attitude. The mother then see that Men Tze was as well affected as he started to behave the way the nobles and educated people did. So the mother decided that they shall live there, and she sent him to school.
It was just only few days at school, and Men Tze had grown weary and bored of school. He secretly went home one day without attending school. That time his mother was knitting a piece of cloth, seeing that her son would not seriously study, she was saddened and dissapointed. She cut the unfinished knitted cloth.

"Why did mother cut that unfinished cloth?" Men Tze asked, surprised. "What i did was the same with what you had done, running away from school. Anybody who walked only a portion of a journey would not possibly reach the destination; like this cloth that i had not finished yet, but was to be cut.

Souce: Zen dan Cangkir Teh

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Comments

3 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by WeR1Family

January 15th 2007 15:37

Stories of Wisdom
Lone - My Life and Thoughts

Two points to be noted in the story ^_^

Comment by Adrian

January 16th 2007 12:19

Philosophy Blog

Dunno if this was one of the two points you intended, but what interests me in the story is the connection between self and other, that Men Tze is portrayed as being influenced by his surroundings...

Comment by WeR1Family

January 16th 2007 17:38

Stories of Wisdom
Lone - My Life and Thoughts

Yes!!! That is one of the two!!! ^_^

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