Wednesday 7 September 2011

TALES OF THE 24 EXEMPLARS: DING LAN




Filial Piety of Ding Lan (176 B.C.) Ding Lan's parents died when he was young. He remembers them and feels very sad that he did not serve them. He then engraves wooden images of them and serves those with food daily. After a long time of doing this, his wife feels tired and one day she tries to pierce the wooden image with a needle. Blood really comes out. When her husband returns, the images even weep. Tears fall on the table. He then immediately divorces his wife.
SOURCE: http://www.yogichen.org/cw/cw43/bk144.html
COMMENT
In this day and age, people would deem it rather silly that someone would value wooden images of their dead parents instead of a wife that is living. Tsk! Tsk!

No comments: