Mr Shieh asked me what is meant by “the same moon shines on ten thousand rivers” Well, it wasn’t long before I had several pages filled to answer “the same moon shines on ten thousand rivers”
When I went to see Mr Shieh I must have given the right answer because he kept me for his student, to study under the Taoist traditions, which is very hard – you only see the Master once every thirty days.
He gave me a discipline to do, that discipline was to walk down and go into this village and to see good in everybody, no matter what they looked like, no matter what they said, did, but to keep looking at them until I could see some good. I still do that, it’s the funnest difference there ever was – all of you try it, keep going until you can see something good about that one.
Now sometimes it aint’ easy. It was really easy for me to see a pretty lady and see something good, isn’t so easy to see an old man.
On my last day in China with Mr Shieh he didn’t come the way he was supposed to. He was supposed to come right down and greet me with the Chinese thing. Finally, late in the day, I sent the little tiny soldier that was there to ask for Mr Shieh, to please come, I only got to see him once in 28 days, he was the only one in that part of the world that could speak English.
Well, finally he showed up, he was wearing his slippers, and he looked very angry. He looked at me and he said, “you fool!” I didn’t know what he meant. I had done everything I was supposed to do. He looked at me the second time and he said “you fool!” and then he spun around and he left.
And that was the last time I saw Mr Shieh.
Some moths later, I’m home and there is a letter for me, and my dad with great anticipation said, there’s a letter from China for you. I recognized the date on the letter, it was the date of the incident, I call that the incident, the day he called me a fool.
I opened the letter and I read it, and it said approximately; Dear Bill, I will, this day, call your attention to the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. This day I am going to tell you all that stands between you and self-fulfillment, between you and peace, between you and joy, between you and victory, all that stands between you and IT – the letter went on.
This day I am going to do the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. I’m going to show you how two words, just sounds, a word can’t hurt you, you know, it’s just a sound, I’m going to show you how two words will step between a friendship of many years – I had to stop and think what the two words were, he had called me a fool,” you fool” and walked out.
Mr Shieh passed on a few months later – but he is alive now more than he ever was.
Excerpted from woodsongjournalnotes. Transcribed from William Samuel Seminar DVD by Sandy Jones
William Samuel
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