Another in a series of stories for liberal religious kids. Dr. Kate Sullivan, the DRE with whom I work, told another version of this story in the Sunday service two days ago. She based her version on the famous Alan Watts retelling of the story. Today, we tracked down the origins of this story. It comes from the Huainanzi, a Chinese philosophical text from the 2nd century CE. I did some more research on my own, found three or four different translations, and decided to do my own retelling of the story, that hews more closely to the Chinese original.
It is difficult to perceive how misfortune and good fortune turn one into the other.
Many years ago, there was a man who understood Daoism. He lived near the frontier of China, not too many miles from where the land of the barbarians began.
One day, his horse ran away and fled into the land of the barbarians. All his neighbors came to tell him how sorry they were that he had lost such a fine horse — and a horse, furthermore, that it would be expensive to replace. But the man’s father said, “How do we know this is bad? Perhaps it is a blessing.”
Some months later, the man’s horse returned to his household, followed by a horse from the barbarian lands. Horses from the barbarian lands were known as being especially fine animals. All his neighbors came to tell him how pleased they were for him. But his father said, “How do we know this is good? Perhaps it will bring misfortune.”
Soon the man owned many fine horses. The man’s son loved to ride all these wonderful horses. Ala, one day while riding, the son fell off a horse and broke his thighbone. All his neighbors came to tell him how sorry they were that his son was so badly injured, and would probably be lame all his life. But the man’s father said, “How do we know this is bad? Perhaps it is a blessing.”
The next year, a large army of the barbarian Hu people attacked the frontier. Every man who was strong and able-bodied took their bows and went to fight. The fighting was fierce, and nine out of every ten young men from the border lands died in battle. Because the man’s son was lame, he did not go off with the army, and he and his father managed to protect each other, and so they survived the war.
Good fortune becomes misfortune,
Misfortune becomes good fortune;
Their transformations never end,
So deep we cannot understand.
And from this story comes the old proverb, or chengyu: “When the old man lost his horse, how could you know that it was not good luck.”
Sources: Huainanzi, ch. 18:7. Based on several translations: (1) Lin Yutang, The Importance of Understanding: Translations from the Chinese (Cleveland/New York: World Publishing, 1963), p. 385; Yutang’s loose translation is somewhat similar to the more famous version told by Alan Watts, but Yutang keeps closer to the original Chinese; (2) The Huainanzi, trans. John S. Major, Sarah A Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, and Harold D. Roth (Columbia Univ. Press, 2010), pp. 728-729; a scholarly translation; (3) The Chinese Text Project version of the Huainanzi; this is a scholarly website with bilingual text, Chinese and English https://ctext.org/huainanzi/ren-xian-xun#n3395