Shakuhachi and the Dragon: a fable for nonviolence

Shakuhachi and the Dragon

Shakuhachi felt the texture of the road against his nose. Sprawled on the pebbles and oyster shells, face down as was the custom when processions of the royal family passed by, he sneezed, though he scrunched his nose and tried very hard not to when dust got into his nose and he inadvertently looked up. What he saw he could not forget, not for a very long time. Sitting in a chair, carried on long poles by six large men, the Princess Lin-Ling looked to him very much like a porcelain doll. And just as he looked up, the princess smiled. Shakuhachi fell very deeply in love and thought, just perhaps, the princess was smiling at him.

Shakuhachi was from an extremely poor family and only saw her a few times after that. While he was prostrate on the ground, he would manage to turn his head slightly and catch a glimpse of the princess though only from the corner of one eye, as her father's men escorted her to and from ceremonial rites at the ancient and royal temple at Phai-Cut. She had, he assumed, not noticed him on any of those occasions nor should he have noticed her. But we cannot always stop sneezes and a good sneeze can be either beneficial or symptomatic of bad times.

One day, and things always seem to happen on one day, a ferocious dragon landed on the spire of the Phai-Cut temple. He was not like the dragons everyone sees when a person of high birth dies and the people process through the streets dancing and singing before the official mourners. No, this dragon was real and was the first dragon to be seen in the kingdom in several centuries. Princess Lin-Ling's father, the emperor Dai-Wa-Tsu convened his council. This was an unnerving experience since none of the members of the council was allowed to look upon the face of the emperor.
They summoned the royal librarian who advanced into the council room on his knees with his head facing down. "What may I do for the emperor?" he asked.

When the emperor told him that he needed a way to remove a terrible dragon from the kingdom, the librarian fell flat on his belly and warned that all his scrolls indicated that there was only one way. "And what is that!!!????" Daiwatsu demanded obedience and subservience of all and lost patience easily.
"You must offer your daughter, the princess Lin-Ling as bride to the man who rids the kingdom of the loathsome worm."
The emperor raged for thirty minutes about the librarian’s response and insisted there must be another way, but the wise librarian insisted, as humbly as he could, that all of the scrolls in the imperial library agreed. Daiwatsu had the librarian imprisoned, “For thirty lifetimes!” he roared, for making such a suggestion, but could, with the assistance of all the wise men of the kingdom, come up with no better idea. So the offer was bruited about the kingdom with much fanfare and with clash of gongs.

No person in the kingdom was up to the task. Three of the strongest men, after cleansing themselves ritually, made the attempt on the dragon and the three were all killed.
Finally, Shakuhachi, deeply in love with the princess, decided he would try to get rid of the dragon. His life would not be worthwhile if he could not have Lin-Ling. So, he set out for the temple at Phai-Cut. He did not bathe in the River Linthel as his predecessors had. Instead, he let himself grow dirtier and dirtier. He rolled in pig fat and rooted through their wallows. He abased himself before all and received as his reward the kicks of his fellow villagers. Women poured leftover wash water on him, but his stench grew more and more foul. When he finally walked to the temple at Phai-Cut, he was unrecognizable. He was a man no one could love, a man no one could stand to be within ten feet of. He sat at the foot of a Bo tree and stared up at the temple spire. The dragon was huge: green and scaly, his wings spanned more than twenty feet and his eyes glowed a deep red. When he snorted, puffs of smokes came from his nostrils. He snorted more and more as the wind blew from the direction of the Bo tree and the stench of Shakuhachi wafted in his direction.
Shakuhachi sat quietly, his legs crossed, his hands on his knees and watched the great dragon. The dragon flapped his enormous wings until he was standing erect and snorted a huge billow of fire in the direction of the Bo tree, but the tree was far enough away that Shakuhachi could feel only the warmth of the flames and reached his hands out to warm them in the cool morning air.
He sat at the foot of the Bo tree for seven days, barely moving, concentrating only on his breathing and the joy of the days that passed. The princess was beautiful, but breathing was more beautiful. The fire from the dragon, erupting every 10 minutes from his nostrils, was, in its own way, beautiful, but sitting beneath the Bo tree was even more beautiful.

After seven days without food or water, he stood up, leaned back against the Bo tree and raised his arms high. A tremendous wind blew up and washed over the temple at Phai-Cut. "You are a beautiful dragon," Shakuhachi said softly, but his voice carried to the spire. "But it is time that you found another home. The men here would kill you, but you are too beautiful to die before your time." Shakuhachi walked closer to the temple and the winds blew more strongly. The dragon flinched. "Go away," Shakuhachi said. "Make your home elsewhere, in a place where no one will be frightened."
And the dragon rose into the air. He circled Shakuhachi three times and flew away to the East.

When the people of the village saw that the dragon had flown away they raced to the palace to tell the emperor. "And what mighty warrior has frightened him away?" asked the emperor. "No warrior, mighty emperor," a brave man said while staring at the ground. "It was Shakuhachi, the village boy. He spoke with him and reasoned with him and he flew away."
When Shakuhachi finally left the Bo tree on the next day and walked to the palace, the princess Lin-Ling looked at him, she had smelled his coming for some minutes. And when he walked into the peacock garden, she gasped, cried out, and fled. Shakuhachi only smiled and breathed in and out. He turned and walked back to the temple where he sat down again beside the Bo tree and breathed. He smelled his own honest smell. He saw the golden glimmer of the Bo tree's leaves and the deep blue of the sky. He closed his eyes and breathed.

Moral: Success is counted sweetest by those upwind.

The Fable of Saravimbi Paulina (for John McCain)

The Fable of Saravimbi Paulina Picasso

—for John McCain (by H. Palmer Hall)

A few miles from his small village of Wambiri not far from the Kalahari desert, Johannes Caina had been training in secret an elephant. He succeeded in training her to do a single trick. Unlike most of the elephants he had become acquainted with, he gave her a name: Paulina. He added his own mother’s maiden name and to him, in his deepest heart, she became Saravimbi Paulina. Not one to hold back, though, he added a surname: Picasso. She had only one real trick, but she did that very well. Johannes knew she would make his fortune and he would become a powerful person in his poor African land.

One day Johannes loaded his arms with supplies, prodded Paulina until she knelt on the ground and climbed up to her neck. Together, they began the long trek to a new wild animal theme park where American tourists were said to be abundant. Paulina knelt down at the gates to the reserve and Johannes, coughing from the red dust she had kicked up, hopped off. And then, as a small crowd gathered, he set things up for Paulina’s single trick.

Unloading an enormous mirror, he placed it on the left side of a pair of easels and then positioned a pure white, 3’ by 3’ canvas on the right. By now, a large group, curious about what Johannes was up to with Paulina, had gathered outside the gates. Johannes tickled Paulina’s ears and she trumpeted loudly. All of the gathered people put their hands over their ears, but the loud call had attracted even more people to the gates. The assembled people gaped as Johannes led Paulina to the blank canvas easel and placed a paint brush in her sensitive trunk and a large tin of black paint on the ground.

Paulina swung her head and appeared to be looking in the mirror. Then the audience gasped as she dipped the brush into the tin of paint and drew a black, curved line on the canvas. Eventually, after repeatedly dipping the brush in the paint tin and streaking lines on the canvas, she dropped the brush and stepped back.

All the people gathered around the canvas and applauded loudly when they saw a line drawing in black paint of Saravimbi Paulina Picasso her ownself. The elephant trumpeted again and stepped back to the canvas and drew two crossed lines in the lower right corner. Johannes held the painting above his head and announced loudly that he would sell it to the highest bidder. The American tourists shouted and held their hands up: $100! I'll bid $200! $300! Finally, one of the tourists shouted that he would pay $1,000 for Paulina’s “Self-Portrait in Black and White of an African Elephant.”

Later that year, when he tried to sell the painting in New York, all the wealthy art patrons laughed. She may be able to draw lines after some training, but even as a primitive artist, she has no real talent. He threw the painting in the gutter and walked away.

Johannes? His bubble burst and while he earned some American dollars, never became a truly powerful man. He returned to his village, wealthier, but discontent.

MORAL: You can train even an elephant to repeat things, but that does not mean she’s smart.