The story concerns a carpenter and his apprentice as they observed a large oak tree growing near an earth-altar (a simple round or square structure upon which people make sacrifices to the local god who “ owned” this piece of land.)
A wandering carpenter, called Stone, saw on his travels a gigantic old oak tree standing in a field near an earth-altar. The carpenter said to his apprentice, who was admiring the oak: “this is a useless tree. If you wanted to make a ship, it would soon rot; if you wanted to make tools, they would soon break. You can’t do anything useful with this tree, and that’s why it has become so old.”
But in an inn, that same evening, when the carpenter went to sleep, the old oak tree appeared to him in a dream and said: “Why do you compare me to your cultivated trees such as white-thorn, pear, orange and apple trees, and all the others that bear fruit? Even before they can ripen their fruit, people attack and violate them. Their branches are broken, their twigs are torn. Their own gifts bring harm to them, and they cannot live out their natural span. That is what happens everywhere, and that is why I have long since tried to become completely useless. You poor mortal! Imagine if I had been useful in any way, would I have reached this size? Furthermore, you and I are both creatures, and how can one creature set himself so high as to judge another creature? You useless mortal man, what do you know about useless trees?”
The carpenter woke up and meditated upon his dream, and later, when his apprentice asked him why just this one tree served to protect the earth altar, he answered, “Keep your mouth shut! Let’s hear no more about it! The tree grew here on purpose because anywhere else people would have ill-treated it. If it were not the tree of the earth altar, it might have been chopped down”
- Chuang-Tzu. (Source- Man and His Symbols, edited by Carl G. Jung, Arkana, 1990, ` P. 163)
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