Story of a Jade Freak

By Lin Qingxuan

A friend of mine was obsessed with antique Chinese jades. Anytime a premium-quality jade catches his fancy, he would do whatever it took to scoop it up. Unfortunately, not coming from a well-off family, he had to scrimp and save just to make those pricy purchases, causing endure about every miseries under the sun just to add another jade to “the collection,” so impacting his living standard.

One time, he caught sight of a white jade lion in an antique shop, which was reputedly, a fine Han Dynasty jade with intricate carvings and ornate detailing. It goes without saying that he burned with desire like an unquenchable fire and paid a visit to that shop every day just to gaze at it. His eyes blazed red at the sight of the jade lion, as if he was engulfed by a raging inferno. From then on, little attention was devoted to his job.

He was so eager to buy it, but the owner wouldn't let it go for a low price. He did however manage to procure it by selling his house, and he ended up living in a lowrent apartment.

The sight of the mint-condition white jade lion drove him into such a dither that he cuddled with it as he slept at night, fondled it constantly, gazed at it adoringly, carried it with him every time he went out, and brought it out to show off to his friends and acquaintances. Besides the jade lion, he carried several other of his precious jade objects on his person as well. A man with jade figurines popping out magically from his pockets, and jade ornaments adoring his wallet and belt must truly be a spectacular sight to behold.

As the master of jade, he was fully aware of the fact that a premium jade was a rarity indeed, and his infatuation was finely tuned to its preciousness and desirability. Eventually, he gave up his house and his car for the jades. If he weren't a bachelor he would pawn his own wife for jade. Eventually, he lost his house, car and job for his zest for jade. How so? All because he saw his job for nothing but a lowly and unworthy means to an end anyway.

He became as poor as a church mouse, with no company but the jades. Nevertheless, they were neither bread nor butter, so he was forced to sell the low-quality ones just to eke out a living. He told me that his asking price was many times lower than that of his paying price, but the buyers still found it much too expensive.我有一个朋友，爱玉成痴。

他不管在何时何地见到一块好玉，总是想尽办法要据为己有，偏偏他又不是很富有的人，因此在收藏玉的过程中，吃了许多苦头，有时到了节衣缩食三餐不继的地步。

有一回，他在一个古董商那里见到一个白玉狮子，据说是汉朝的，不论玉质、雕工全是第一流的。我的朋友爱不忍释，工作也不太做了，每天都跑去看那块玉，看到眼睛都发出红火，人被一团火炙热地燃烧。

他要买那块玉，古董店的老板却不卖，几经折腾，最后，我的朋友牺牲了他所居住的房子，才买下了那个白玉狮子，自己却租住在一个廉价的住宅区内。

他天天抱着白玉狮子睡觉，出门时也携带着，一遇到人就拿出来欣赏，一个人的时候，也常常抚摸那座洁白无瑕的狮子发呆。除了这座狮子，他身上总随时带着他最心爱的几件收藏。有时候，感觉到一个男子从口袋里、腰带间、皮包内随时掏出几块玉来，真是不可思议的事。

他玩玉到了疯狂的地步，由于愈玩愈精，就更发现好玉之难求。因为好玉难求，所以投入了全部的家当，幸好他是个单身汉，否则连老婆也会被他当了。到最后，他房子也卖了，车子也没了，工作也丢了。为什么丢掉工作呢？说来简单：“我要工作三年，才能买一件上好的玉，这样的工作不做也罢了。”

朋友成为家徒四壁的人，每天陪伴他的只有玉了。后来不成了，因为玉不能吃，不能穿，只好把他最心爱的玉里等级比较差的卖给别人，每卖一件就落一次泪，说：“我买的时候是几倍的价钱，现在这么便宜让给别人，别人还嫌贵。”

Once, when it was time to pay the rent he was running dangerously short on funds. The landlord demanded that the rent should be paid immediately and flat-out, and refused to offer even a single day's extension, so he had no choice but to sacrifice his precious white jade lion. He said to the landlord, “I will give you this precious jade in good faith, but I want it back when I have the money.”

The landlord, knowing nothing about the value of jade, replied angrily, “What good is a lousy hunk of rock anyway? If it got broken accidentally who would care? Bring me the rent tomorrow, or you will sleep in the streets!”

For a jade collector, the white jade lion was priceless, and any valuable possessions would pale in comparison. But for those ignorant of its true value, this jade lion was nothing but a worthless piece of stone. My friend got all choked up, and tears rolled down his face as he related the story.

It reminded me of my visit to the jade exhibition in Taipei's National Palace Museum. There I came across a tour group from the countryside and found that several of them were staring at the renowned Jadeite Cabbage admiringly, discussing its price.

“Oh, it looks exactly like a real cabbage! Look, there's a cricket on top!” One woman shouted excitedly.

“It must worth thousands, it looks so real.” the other added.

“Thousands,” the one who seems to know what's what said scornfully, “Shows what you know, you dilettante, it's worth tens of thousands!”

When I recounted this funny experience to my friend, his tears dried up and burst into hearty laughter. Then I said to him earnestly, “There are millions upon millions of fine jades in the National Palace Museum, and undoubtedly, unbelievable effort has been put upon those small but rare curios by countless jade lovers. But a jade passes through the hands of numerous owners since no matter how much you love it, you can't take it with you to the other side. To a certain extent, when you can fully appreciate its beauty and value, it's like you owned it for a time, and it's not necessary to actually possess it. A line from theDiamond Sutrasays that a wise man treats the gold and the stone equally, which sums up the true philosophy of collecting jades.”

有一次，他租房子的房东逼着要房租，逼得急了，他一时也找不到钱，就把白玉狮子拿了出来，说：“这块玉非常的名贵，先押在你这里，等我筹足了房钱，再把它赎回来。”

可惜他的房东是个老粗，对他说：“俺要你这臭石头干什么，万一不小心打破了还嫌烦呢。你明天找房钱来，不然我把你丢出去。”

朋友对我讲这个故事的时候，泣不成声。在痴爱者眼中的白玉狮子是无可比拟的，可以用房子去换取，然而在平常百姓的眼中，它再名贵，也只是一块石头。

有一次我在台北故宫博物院看玉展，遇到了乡下一个旅行团，几个乡下的欧巴桑看玉看得饶有兴味，我凑过去，发现她们正围着那个最有名的至宝“翠玉白菜”观看，以下是她们对话的传真：

“哇，真巧，雕得和真的白菜一模一样，上面还有一只肚猴呢。”

“这个刻得那么像，一个大概值好几千块吧。”

一位看起来是权威人士的欧巴桑说：“你嘛好了，不识字又兼不卫生，什么好几千，这一个一定要好几万才买得到。”

我把这个故事说给朋友听，他因此破涕为笑，我说：“你看故宫博物院的好玉何止千万块，尤其是小品珍玩的部分，看起来就知道曾有一位爱玉的人在上面花下无数心血，可是他死的时候不能带走一块玉，我们现在看那些玉也不知道它曾经有过多少主人，对于玉，能够欣赏的人就算拥有了，何必一定要抱在手里呢？佛经里说‘智者金石同一观’，就是这个道理。

“爱玉固然是最清雅的嗜好，但一个人爱玉成痴，和玩股票不能自拔，和沉迷于逸乐又有什么不同呢？”

朋友后来彻底觉悟，虽然仍然喜欢玉，却不再被玉所困，只是有时他拿出随身的几块玉还会感慨起来。

物固然是足以困人，情更比物要厉害百倍。对于情的执迷，为情所困，就叫“痴”，痴是人世间的三毒之一（另外两毒是贪与嗔），情困到了深处，则三毒俱现，先是痴迷，而后贪爱，最后是嗔恨以终。则情困是一切烦恼的根源，没有比这个更厉害的了。

为情爱所系缚，为情爱所茧结，为情爱所迷惑、执染，几乎是人间不可避免的，但当情爱已经消失的时候，自己还系缚茧结自己，自己还迷惑执着自己，这就是真正的情困。

“Collecting jades is an elegant hobby for sure. But when you're totally obsessed with it, then what's the difference between collecting jades, buying stocks, tossing it into a slot machine and overindulging in beer and skittles?”

My friend finally had an epiphany. Though still being a crazy jade freak, he made up his mind to never be trapped in the web of the jade again, even if waves of conflicting emotions welled up in his heart at the very site of them.

Certainly, any mere mortal can get caught up in collecting worldly possessions that bring them endless pleasure, but when the love for them becomes a ball and chain, that is when it borders on overwhelming, since the power of love has a much greater gravity than simple physical objects. “Delusion,” which refers to those who indulge in love and then are bound by it, is one of the three poisons in the mortal world (the other two are “greed” and “hatred”). If a person is trapped in love for a long time, the fatal poison of “delusion” will go straight to the heart. Initially, the individual becomes obsessed by the delusive love, and then he or she will desire to possess that love. But when the pursuit of love is in vain, he or she will die with anger and hatred. The tragedy happens when a person gets ensnared in the web of love, which would ferociously devour any ordinary man.

Granted, everyone has been bound by love at one time or another, but when stubbornly trying to recover lost love, one will ultimately be imprisoned in its web.

It was then that a question occurred to me, what qualities does a wise man have? Being of noble spiritual refinement, a wise man tends to appreciate the beauty of the clouds floating in the sky without trying to possess it. He is fully cognizant of the fact that the mortal world is fleeting, and one can count on nothing when growing old, as everything in this life, including romantic love and worldly objects are as empty as bubbles, they are nothing but a fantasy and an illusion.

A wise man is like fragrant flower, whose fragrance wafts leisurely along the warm spring breeze. When tracing the source, the pleasant aroma originates not from pedals, stems, stamens, roots, or leaves, but from the flower in its entirety. Those who are entangled by worldly possessions are intoxicated only by part of the flower of life. They do not cherish the flower in its entirety. He who fails to discover his true identity and consequently loses himself in the razzle-dazzle of the kaleidoscopic world is unable to see the forest for the trees and cannot claim to be a wise man.

For a wise man, it is meaningless to be concerned about how many worldly possessions or how much romantic love come their way. For them, the key is to gain new insights and wisdom from old things and past love, and to pass freely through the tunnel that connects the past and the future, the old and the new.

So, if caught in the web of love or worldly possessions, you should say to yourself: if I were an insect, the spiderweb would spell certain doom for me, even if it were made of gold thread. Sadly, the luster of the golden web traps up most all of us, and we seldom dare to break the web to discover our new and true self, and fly freely and carelessly under the blue and boundless sky.

(FromPurple Bodhi, China International Culture Press. Translation: Huang Mengyuan)

什么是第一流人物呢？古人说：“山中何所有？岭上多白云。只可自怡悦，不堪持赠君。”倘能如此，自是第一流人物。

第一流的人物看白云虽是至美，却不想拥有，只想心领神会，这是多么高的境界。当我们知道其实在今生今世，情如白驹过隙，物则是梦幻泡影，那么还有什么可以抱老以终的呢？

第一流人物犹如一株香花，我们不能说这株花是花瓣香，也不能说是花茎香；我们不能说是花蕊香，也不能说是花粉香；当然不能说是花根香，也不能说是花叶香……因为花是一个整体，当我们说花香时，是整株花的香。困于情物的人，往往只见到了自己那一株花里一小部分的香，忘失了那株花，到后来失去了自己，因此，这样的人不能说是第一流人物。

第一流人物，不在于拥有多少物、多少情，而在于能不能在旧物里找到新的启示，能不能在旧情里找到新的智慧，进出无碍。万一不幸我们正在困局里，那么想一想：如果我是一只蛹，即使我的茧是由黄金打造的，又有什么用呢？如果我是一只蝶，身上色彩缤纷，可以自在地飞翔，则即使在野地的花间，也能够快乐地生活，又哪里在乎小小的茧呢？

可叹的是，大多数人舍不得咬破那个茧，所以永远见不到真正的自我、真正的天空。

（摘自《紫色菩提》国际文化出版社）