The following fables are the fruits of a long meditation. To provide readers with some guidance, I should mention that these stories all have the same meaning: if you understand one story, you understand them all.

The Kind Chimpanzee

A chimpanzee lived in a big tree. One day, a sheep came by, bleating for help; he was running from a brutal tiger. The chimpanzee let him hide in the tree. Soon, more sheep came to the tree seeking shelter. The chimpanzee kept all eleven of them. It wasn’t long before the sheep had eaten up all of the leaves, leaving the branches—large and small—bald. The chimpanzee and the sheep found themselves exposed. Soon afterward, the tiger came along. He shook the tree with his sharp claws. The chimpanzee and the sheep held fast to the branches. But the tree was sick and aged. The trunk snapped, and the tree collapsed. The chimpanzee and the sheep tumbled to the ground. The tiger pounced upon the animals and gobbled them up, one by one. When he was finished, he took a nap under the tree, surrounded by piles of bones. The spirits of the chimpanzee and the sheep began to haunt him. In his dream, the tiger opened his bloody mouth and spat up piles and piles of large, green leaves; soon, the leaves buried the tiger and enveloped the entire forest.

Fish Bones

The cat’s owner was a giant. The giant often stroked the cat with his large palm. Every day, the giant would eat a whole shark, while the cat had three bones plucked from a live carp. Reluctant to kill the carp, the giant kept it in a thick glass tank. Each day, he took three bones out of the fish before returning it to the water. For a long time, the cat had hated his owner. Then he came up with a wicked idea: “If only the giant would choke on a bone.” Not long afterwards, the carp died, and the cat worried for his next meal. The giant pulled three ribs out of his body and placed them in the cat’s bowl. He watched most tenderly as the cat licked the bones clean.

Lying

The mother was one year older than the daughter: the father was two years older. From the moment the parents had learned how to speak, they had told their daughter lies. When she was little, she saw nothing wrong with this. But every day she grew older. One day, she asked her parents, “Why are you about the same age as me?” Once again, they came up with a lie, and she decided not to trust them.

In the eyes of her parents, she was not a living girl, but a doll. They lied because they wanted to feel like adults. As soon as they did, they threw her into a ditch. Perhaps she would float to the open water: perhaps she would sink to the bottom and drown.

The Head

A boy found a head while playing in the valley. When he brought it home, he noticed it smiling at him sneakily; its eyes rolled as if it were planning something evil. The boy was horrified. He buried the head in his yard and planted three carp bones to mark the spot. The next morning, he awoke to find the head lying beside his pillow. He buried it again and planted three more fish bones. Still, the head reappeared the next morning. As the days went on, the boy began to suspect he was sick. He went to see a doctor. The doctor diagnosed him with sleepwalking: the boy had been digging up the head at night and bringing it back to his bed. 

“What shall I do?” the boy asked. 

“There’s only one solution,” the doctor said. “You must replace your head with the head.” The boy agreed. After the surgery, when the boy went to visit the doctor again, he immediately recognized him as his father.

The Milk Princess

A princess was born beautiful and elegant. But she had one small problem: she could only drink milk. Her drool was extremely adhesive and would stick fast to anything else.

One day, a foreign ambassador came to visit. He was enthralled by the princess’s beauty and sought to become her servant. When the princess finally relaxed her defenses, the man took advantage: he pulled a special packet of spice from his pocket and covered her nose with it. The princess fainted, and he couldn’t help but kiss her madly. His lips got stuck to hers, and he could not pull them off. The other servants went to find the experienced royal doctor. The doctor dipped a cotton stick into fresh milk and daubed it onto the seam where their lips were connected. Unfortunately, in this kingdom, cotton was scarce, and the cotton swab was extremely tiny. Discouraged by the lack of progress, the doctor fell ill, and was soon confined to bed. When the princess woke, she was eager to seek revenge against her assailant. She pushed her tongue further into his mouth, seducing him. When the servants finally managed to part them, they had both turned to skeletons.

A Poor Child

A child ran to his father for help. “Mother is trying to kill me,” he said. “She’s chasing me with a butcher knife.” The father made no attempt to save the child, and instead began to strangle him. When the mother with the knife caught up, the father took the child’s arms, lifted him up, and laid his head on a cutting board. The mother brought the knife down. The headless child dropped to the floor, struggling. He kept struggling until he had bled his last drop of blood.  

In his parents’ eyes, the child was only a rooster they had raised at home. It was reasonable to slaughter a chicken when there were guests coming for dinner. 

A Poor Man and A Tree

There was once a poor man with ten talking fingers. In fact, the fingers never stopped talking. One day, the poor man could no longer stand the racket and cut nine of his fingertips off, leaving only his left thumb intact. This thumb was very smart and often had wonderful ideas to offer. Not far from their home was a forest, and in it was a large, wizened tree. Men were often found hanging dead from this tree. The thumb told the poor man to stand beneath the tree and sell ropes. The man followed his advice and sold nine ropes in nine days, profiting from nine different suicides. On the tenth day, a very fat man came along. He too bought a rope. When he tried to hang himself, the rope snapped, and he fell to the ground, still living. “Sorry,” said the fat man to the poor man. “I’m too fat.” But the thumb told his master that the fat man was heavy only because he was carrying gold. The poor man grew greedy, and, when the fat man had his back turned, he wrapped a rope around his neck and strangled him. The poor man unbuttoned the fat man’s cape, and from inside leapt a tiny, smiling man. It turned out that the fat man had been the tiny man’s puppet. The tiny man gave the poor man a gold coin in exchange for a second rope. He climbed onto the tree and hung himself.

The Monk

A monk left town alone after a visit with a Zen Master. Somehow, he lost his way. As darkness fell, he neared an inn. At first, it looked like a crude, simple inn, but as night approached, the monk realized he was staying in a fancy brothel. As he ran to the doors, an attractive prostitute stood in his way. He asked her for her name, and he was surprised to find that she shared a name with his Zen Master. A sudden impulse came over the monk, and he found himself taking her to his bed. Afterward, regretting what he had done, he began chanting scripture. “Later, the Zen Master himself will appear,” the prostitute said. “And all because of my name.” The monk refused to believe her at first, but after seeing the honesty in her expression, he found no reason to doubt her. He hid under her bed so that he could know if she was telling the truth. Suddenly, he grew very sleepy, and he found himself closing his eyes. When he woke, he found himself inside the Zen Master’s meditation room. The master unfolded a colorful scroll of hell. Outside, cicadas were chirping. It must have been noon.

Two Thieves

There were two thieves who made a living stealing cotton. They were very skillful. Once, they stole almost all the cotton from a large kingdom. They always stored the cotton in an empty valley. One day, one of the thieves had an evil idea: “Why not take all the cotton for myself?” So the thief hacked off his partner’s head. The dead thief bled so much blood that all the cotton turned red. The murderer couldn’t sell red cotton to foreign kingdoms. Instead, he spun it into thread and sold it to a man who made ropes for a living.

Fleeing from Famine

A farmer walked through a desolate field, leading a white horse and a donkey, one with each hand. He had suffered a year of poor harvest and had to seek a living elsewhere. Both the donkey and the horse were thin. They looked like they could collapse any minute. Suddenly, the donkey went wild and started to bite the horse with surprising ferocity. The horse tried to run but was held in place by the farmer’s rope. The angry farmer rushed to beat the donkey. The donkey soon weakened and fell to the ground, dead. As the farmer let out a long sigh of relief, his horse went mad and began to eat the hair off his head. The farmer turned around and sank his teeth into the horse’s neck. Injured, the horse began to run, dragging the farmer along. The farmer refused to let go of the rope. Eventually, the horse collapsed. The farmer wiped blood from his mouth. He considered eating the horse, but found it was nothing but skin and bones. Carefully, he peeled off the skin, wrapped himself inside it, and staggered towards another town.

A Writer

On a cold, rainy night, a writer bought a booklet from a second-hand book market. Back home, he lit a fire, unfolded the book under an oil lamp, and started reading. It was a collection of fables. All of the stories were childish and boring. He kept reading nonetheless. At first, he expected to finish that night; but as the next day dawned, most of the book remained untouched. So he continued. He had a principle: once he opened a book, he would finish it by any means. But as the days went on, he found himself with more pages to read, not fewer. “What’s the matter?” Confused, he placed the book face down on the desk. To his astonishment, he saw a tiny man scribbling away on the back cover, page after page, endlessly. “It’s all because of this wicked man!” The writer captured the tiny man and locked him inside a thick glass tank. The tank had once held a carp, but the fish had since died and been removed. The tiny man crawled around the bottom of the dry tank, licking up the white dirt on its sides ferociously. The writer hated the tiny man to his core. He put the tank into the fireplace. Soon, the little man had shriveled into a skeleton. The writer fed the skeleton to his cat, then returned to the unfinished book. This time, he reached the last page quickly. By then, he too was dead.