Like most intelligentsia of his day, he like to dabble in a bit of Zen from time to time.
One day, full of pride and self belief on his understanding of Zen, he wrote a poem basically self praising himself on how his grasp of Zen is so immovable that its like the tall mountain; nothing can shake him from his conviction.
Su Dong Bo asked his page to deliver this poem to the abbot of the monastery just outside the city to seek affirmation.
Yup, you know and I know he is trying to fish for a compliment ;)
The abbot took a glance at the poem and without saying much, wrote on the letter - Fart.
Upon receiving the written reply from the abbot, Su Dong Bo flew into a rage and rushed to confront the abbot, mumbling to himself, "Why that bald donkey..."
Just as Su Dong Bo burst into the chambers of the abbot, the abbot turned around and smiled, "Look what did my little fart wind blew over?"
Upon hearing these words, Su Dong Bo's face turned crimson and he can only let out a silly grin...
Can you figure what when on?
Did you notice I use this technique a lot with my commenters and fellow bloggers?
Hi SMOL,
ReplyDeleteI know from experience that pple have so many things they want to say out, they just need the a person to talk to if they are given a chance! Just nudge them a little and the little floodgates open and out come all the things they want to say.
You're the floodgate opener lol
Here is safe to say whatever you think what to say.
DeleteSome blogs; you say something the bloggers didn't like too much. You get ban!
LP,
DeleteEverything I've learned, I've learned from the women in my life ;)
When she says,
"We need to talk" - Oh boy! What did I do wrong now?
"Talk to me" - How did she know I'm feeling down?
"You know the other day..." - Shit, can't watch my TV now :(
LOL!
CW,
DeleteMy ego not so fragile lah! And I don't take myself
too seriously. I blog to have fun ;)
So bloggers are more "sensitive"... Perhaps the only child in the family?
Just like discovering 10 baggers, I thick-face go around asking, "Got shadow or not (有影吗)?"
Some are gems like you - super fun and sporting!
Some I go licking my wounds and tell myself, "Well, that escalated quickly! Ouch!"
LOL!
SMOL,
ReplyDeleteWhen you want to tell a story, you have to have the facts right. I happen to hear the story before and remember that the person involved was not 李白 but 苏东坡.
Here is the story in Mandarin:
据说，苏东坡在瓜州任职的时候，与一江之隔的金山寺的住持佛印禅师交往笃深，他们常在一起谈禅论道。有一天，苏东坡写了一首诗，遣书僮送过江去，请佛印禅师评点。诗是这样写的：“稽首天中天，毫光照大千。八风吹不动，端坐紫金莲。”意思是说：我的心已经不再受到外在世界的诱惑了，好比佛陀端坐莲花座上一样。诗中的“八风”是指人们生活中常遇到的“称、讥、毁、誉、利、衰、苦、乐”八种境况。
佛印看了诗后，笑而不语，信手在上面批了两个字，就叫书僮带回去。苏东坡打开一看，上面批着“放屁”两个大字，恼怒不已，立马乘船过江去找禅师理论。
此时，禅师已站在江边等他。苏东坡一见面就气呼呼地说：“禅师!我们是至交，我的诗，你看不上没关系，也不能侮辱人呀!”
禅师平静地说：“我什么时候侮辱你啦？”
“这不是侮辱人是什么? 今天你一定要给我个说法。”
禅师顿时哈哈大笑起来：“还‘八风吹不动’呢!怎么‘一屁就打过江’了呢？”
苏东坡这才恍然大悟，惭愧不已。
Sorry for being so blunt.
三页兄，
DeleteLOL!
I remembered the story but can't recall who were the protagonists...
So I just re-wrote the story using my favourite poet Li Bai; guessing this is something he would say ;)
It's labelled under "bite-sized" story; not "history" label.
When it comes to story telling, I take lots of literary liberties! I don't like to do parroting ;)
Ha! So its not 诗仙 but 诗神 - 苏东坡!
Ah! That's where I heard the story! In Hangzhou!
The 东坡肉 there die die must try! It's fantastic!
Hee, hee. See?
We can say anything we want; others will trust but verify ;)
Thank you, thank you.
(Passivepeon, if you are reading this, I am doing the same thing as you. Throw brick attract jade.)
Classic HA HA!
DeleteCW,
DeleteI feel good and humbled.
I'm surrounded by learned people :)
At least I don't surround myself with "bei kambings" ;)
hahahah...
DeleteLike CW says, not all place can write poems .. wait tio ban!
Who received ur wind this time? hahahaha...
I will just blow back the wind if it chills!!! hahahaa...
Rolf,
DeleteI tell you. Here its 龙蛇混杂 and 藏龙卧虎!
I thought I can just express my idea of "poking" with a Buddhist story I vaguely remembers...
I thought most Singaporeans cheena half-past-six; and even if cheena powderful, this Buddhist story can't be in the textbooks or official reading lists of our schools.
Surely I can get away with a bit of "creativity"; just as long the gist of the story remains the same? Or so I thought!
What do you know? I was found out by a Christian of all people!?
LOL!
P.S. I got some interesting new readers recently.
One of them feedback I like to "poke" people...
Just revealing more of my Johari window so they can feel more comfortable "sparring" with me.
My "poke" is just a technique to trust but verify; there's no malice :)
Not just cheena, hokkien and teochew also very powderful! hahaha.
DeleteExtracted from Andy's blog article:
"Sarcasm can actually promote creative thinking. Despite being considered one of the lowest forms of wit, sarcasm actually requires considerable mental powers to produce. This is a great motivator to continue insulting idiots without them realizing it."
By the way maybe sometimes better to be poke openly then to be poke behind. There are many 笑面虎!
Poker or laughing tiger? You choose. hahahahaha
I always believe if we 做人：行得正，做得端, why should we afraid of anything people poke or say! We can always ignore or clarify if we want. Somemore ur poke too mild lar... Lai Lai lai! hahhaha
If the poke affects you that you cannot clarifies, like Li Bai or Su Dong Bo, then it possibly means something that we ought to acknowledge, think about it or even apologized and change!
That explains why we met in real life! LOL
Rolf,
DeleteThere's a lot of weird stuffs going around in the internet.
I just read an article debunking the usefulness of flossing???
Who do you want to believe? Some unknown source from the internet; or your dentist?
The "equivalent" appears frequently in the realm of investing and trading...
Meeting up is another form of trust but verify ;)
Well, you could be the front man while the articles were written by ghost writers :)
Its also fun guessing where you working from. I thought your were from Baker Hughes - wrong!
LOL!
Quote : "Well, you could be the front man while the articles were written by ghost writers :)"
DeleteTrue. A real life experience. Once I attended a paid workshop by one of Singapore local author who wrote the "Best" seller trading book on how to become Millionaire. Throughout the night; he has problem with the spelling of some words and yet he wrote a book. LOL!
CW,
DeleteSome years ago, one astute Malaysian blogger caught one trading "guru" blogger using fake user-ids to post comments at his own website!?
It was full of compliments from satisfied "students" on the "guru's" prescient trading calls ;)
But that clown guru has weak IT skills...
The clever Malaysian blogger print-screened the IP addresses of the fake commenters and they were from the guru's!!!
Kenna caught, the website closed immediately. But I'm sure it will resurface elsewhere under another name.
The things people do to sell trading courses and subscription services?
Must be lucrative?
Any website owners or bloggers out there who need some fake commenting "love"?
I'll do anything for a drink! I'm cheaper than Desker Road. I'm a man-whore.
Hehe,
DeleteThere are many O&G companies around. But at least it's a good guess.
All those internet articles debunking the conventional way of life that we live for so many years w/o problems, really irks me. It arouse interest by injecting fear!
Ultimately, if u know urself well enough, the best way is always way that suit you best and as natural as possible. Diff people diff.
Anyway, a friend of mine has already published many mini books online. So what he did was create a topic say "health and beauty", just find some cheap ghost writers in Philippines online to write few thousands words, then send for proof reading, and find someone to design the cover. Then last and easiest step: just put "your name as author!"
He do not think this is cheating and wanted to do this for a living!
well well well... human beings! hahahaha
Rolf,
DeleteNow with Fiverr, we can "outsource" anything...
You play table-tennis, I play table-tennis. I hope they'll stop spending money on hired-guns to win ourselves gold medals we don't deserve... (I find myself cheering Ai Fukuhara from Japan more exciting!)
What's the point of buying a Phd from a degree mill and go round putting a "Dr" in front of our name?
Oh well! I guess we all have to make a living by hook or by crook? Now that's sad...
Everyone must meet you in real life. Because you are so much nicer as person face to face than in the blog!
ReplyDeleteRolf,
DeleteHmm... Maybe I must change strategy.
Follow Lao Lee - its better to be feared than popular?
I'm nice because of free coffee mah!
Hahahah. Hi SMOL.
ReplyDeleteWhere got?! I thought I'm learning from u to throw brick to attract jade instead?
Just look at the previous post u had. More than 100 jades were obtained right?
And what is this? Just one line from you and I wrote so much in return? 放屁！hahaha
Anyway, to digress.. Pokermon GO is fun! Hahah. Just when u thought that we are already addicted to our phones, Google comes and enslave us all with Pokermon!
I can hear the *tsk tsk* from my mum already. Opps ��
PassivePeon,
DeleteWhen we get comments that are more coherent, witty, and intellectually stimulating than our posts, you'll know we have done right some where, some how ;)
I dinosaur. I'm not into smartphones. I still use SMS.
And I roll-eyes even more now at the supermarket checkouts when people pay with their idiot smart phones for stuffs that are less than $10...
It was already bad with credit cards...
Cash not in vogue with the young?
My generation fight with real spiders and Siamese fighting fishes. We are analogue; not digital.
LOL!