人間万事塞翁が馬 Ningen Banji Saiou ga Uma

人間万事塞翁が馬

Translated directly from Japanese to English it reads: "Humans everything Saiou's horse"

Fortunately nobody's ever put a gun to my head, a sword to my esophagus, vice grips to my testicles or worse, and forced me to choose a favorite Japanese proverb, but if they did this'd definitely be it.

It's not your every day run of the mill well known kind of proverb like "two birds one stone".  Nigen banji is a Japanese proverb derived from an old Chinese folk tale, so you need to know the story to understand it. Every now and again the opportunity arises to share it with someone but even though it's a short story, if not speaking face to face then it's a bit long for text messaging or to tap out in an email even, so I always resort to googling and sharing a link. But enough of that already.
No more seeking it out someone else's version of it. It's high time I write and publish my own.

Ningen Banji Saiou ga Uma

Human's Everything Saiou's Horse

Long, long ago in the northern parts of China lived an old farmer named Saiou. His friends called him Sai.  He only had one horse and one son to help him work the farm so when word got out after his horse ran off one day all his friends and neighbors stopped by to console him. "So sorry to hear about your horse Sai. That's such bad luck!" To which Sai replied; "Bad luck, good luck? Who knows?"

A few days later he was out working the fields only to look up and see his horse returning to the farm with another younger, stronger horse following it. News of his good fortune spread quickly and once again friends and neighbors came over, this time exclaiming "How lucky! Seriously, Dude you won the horse lottery!" to which ol Sai just smiled and said "Good luck, bad luck? Who knows?"

Well sure enough a few days later that new horse threw his son. He landed hard and broke his arm. Before long neighbors and friends were there again saying "Oh Sai this is such bad luck. Sure hope your son recovers soon it's gonna be hell working the farm without him." But Sai being Sai just looked at them all and said "Bad luck, Good luck, Who knows?"

Not a week had passed when, while out working his field, a warlord on horseback appeared with a large group of young men in tow. He was going through the area collecting all the young men to go fight and die in the Emperor's latest war. When Sai called his son out the warlord saw the boy's condition and moved on without him.

And the neighbors came by and said...
And Sai replied...

The moral of the story is, of course, that we often don't know what's good and bad. Our vision is limited to but a small corner of the big life picture. If honest with ourselves any one of us could cite more than a few "bad" that turned out "good", or vice versa.  I know I sure can. Two huge disappointments, or one disappointment and one outright game changer life FAIL, assure me Sai knows what the hell he's talking about. Thus this becoming my favorite proverb the first time I heard it and remaining so ever since.

It comes to mind every time a "bad" thing happens in life.  The most recent example is getting a call the other night and learning, quite unexpectedly, that one of my English teaching jobs was getting the ax. It's a good twenty to 25% of my income that soon will go "Poof!' and be gone.  But before panic or even worry set in I recalled the tale of Saiou, which brought to mind a couple of other "bad news" events that were some of the best things ever to happen to me. Like if I'd have landed any one of those city FD jobs I tested for up and down the State of California in the mid 90's, even the ones that I was high on the list and they hired guys under me for why I'll never know, then I'd have never come to Japan, never met my wife, never played my role in bringing my kids into this life. I just knew after receiving each and every "Thank you but..." letter of rejection that it was terrible luck. So much for certainty.  The same goes for that night the bottle killed me. Ambulance, policemen, hospital and worse.  Maybe I'll tell that tale one of these days. It was one for the books and then some. It was one of the ugliest and by far most humiliating experience of my life hands down.

Yet here I sit over fifteen years sober because of it.  I'd never have taken the actions I did, never committed myself to live by "To Thine Own Self Be True", never changed my way of living, thinking, believing and relating to myself and others in order to live in the Heaven of Here and Now if that hadn't have happened so...

Good? Bad? Who knows?

Thank you Saiou. Thank you and the horse you rode in on for helping me see Life in a new light.

And while I was going to end it there I think it only right to add that, all of the above notwithstanding, I still believe getting testicles squashed in a pair of vice grips would be really bad luck.  I just can't see how any good could come of that one, but as Sai would say...
 "Who knows?"


人間万事塞翁が馬とは、人生における幸不幸は予測しがたいということ。 幸せが不幸に、不幸が幸せにいつ転じるかわからないのだから、安易に喜んだり悲しんだりするべきではないというたとえ。