The frog that lives in a well
On a road leading to the shore of the East Sea is an old, out-of-use well. A frog lives in the shallow water at the bottom. It is so happy. It sleeps in the holes on the broken wall, eats worms in the mud and bugs falling from the sky. When it jumps into the water, it only comes up to its armpits and holds up its cheeks. When it walks in the mud, it covers up its feet. It has some friends, crabs, tadpoles, and so on. But looking around none of them is big enough to compete with it. Even the sky that is way up to its head looks like a small disk. “I am the Lord,” says the frog to itself, “the world is under my feet, the sky is without my vision.”
One day it has a visitor — a little head sticks out of the top of the well. It’s a turtle that lives in the East Sea. “Hi, do you know that my happiness is full?” it tells the turtle exuberantly. “No water can drown me, no mud can suffocate me, no rival can stand against me. I own both the earth and the sky. I am the king here.”
“Why don’t you come down and live with me?” The turtle sticks its right foot over the edge, then the left. But before its left foot is fully reached out, its head hits the other side of the well. It retreats.
“Have you not heard of the East Sea?” askes the turtle. “The sea’s width is beyond thousands of kilometers, its depth beyond ten thousand Zhang (an ancient measure of length). I have lived a long life. In the time of the Xia dynasty, there were floods nine years out of ten, but the waters in the sea did not go up. ln the time of the Shang dynasty there were droughts seven years out of eight, but the waters in the sea did not go down. The sea does not change with the passage of time and its surface does not rise or fall whether it rains or not. And the sky. It’s as large as the sea. The sky and the sea meet at the end of the horizon. I swim all the time but I have never reached the end of the horizon.”
The frog falls into silence. Now it knows, there is land beyond the land, mountain beyond the mountain, sky beyond the sky.
