Chuang Tzu with his bamboo pole was fishing in Pu River.
The Prince of Chu sent two vice-chancellors with a formal document: "We hereby appoint you Prime Minister."
Chuang Tzu held his bamboo pole. Still watching Pu river, he said: "I am told there is a sacred tortoise, offered and canonized three thousand years ago, venerated by the prince, wrapped in silk, in a precious shrine on an altar in the temple.
What do you think? Is it better to give up one's life and leave a sacred shell as an object of cult in a cloud of incense three thousand years, or better to live as a plain turtle dragging its tail in the mud?"
"For the turtle," said the vice-chancellor, "Better to live and drag its tail in the mud!"
"Go home!" said Chuang Tzu. "Leave me here to drag my tail in the mud!"
"The Way of Chuang Tzu" translated by Thomas Merton
