🪕THE MOVED LUTE

Good morning; today's story is titled: "The Moved Lute."

The young Wen came from a long line of scholars. However, he had never shown any interest in legal matters and had failed all the exams to become a respected peer among his family.

From an early age, he had been passionate about music and would spend hours playing an old lute he had found forgotten in an attic. Later on, pressured by his father's demands—who wanted him to become a mandarin—he left the family home and began wandering from place to place as a traveling musician.

One afternoon, Wen was playing a very well-known melody in a village square when he spotted among the crowd the old Tzú, the most renowned lute master in all of China.

“Master, what did you think of my music?” Wen asked eagerly, hoping for praise from such a great and famous musician.

“You have talent,” the old man replied, “though it has not yet blossomed. Your song might cheer a few villagers, but it won’t move the birds.”

That night, Wen followed the old man into a forest clearing, where the master pulled out his own lute and played a song.

The melody brought tears to Wen’s eyes, and he thought he could see woodland creatures among the trees stopping to listen, captivated by the music.

After that, Wen approached the old man and begged him to accept him as his disciple.

The master agreed, and Wen spent the following years at his side, studying and practicing, receiving both corrections and scoldings with patience.

Until one day the master said:

“I have taught you everything I know. I have brought you to the threshold of our art. Now you must cross it. Seek your music within yourself.”

In response, Wen took his lute and asked permission to play a song in honor of the approaching winter. The master accepted the offering, and Wen began to play.

After just a few minutes, the master abruptly snatched the lute from his hands and smashed it against a tree, shattering it into pieces.

“I hear the notes, they’re perfect… but your music is empty! You move your fingers, but nothing stirs in your soul.”

For several minutes, they both remained silent. It seemed they were both holding back tears.

“The failure of a student is above all the failure of the teacher,” the old man continued. “I will never play again… Take my lute and practice your winter song. Sing to the snows and the frost, not to me—I am unworthy.”

Unable to speak, Wen watched his master walk toward the lake with determination. Was he going to drown himself? The thought that his musical ineptitude could cost the life of such a teacher filled him with despair.

He imagined a world without his master, without his music, a world engulfed in eternal winter… Almost without thinking, he took Tzú’s lute and began to play.

Sadness had overtaken him, tears streamed down his face, and Wen began to feel colder and colder. The icy wind lashed his cheeks, and snowflakes started to fall, whitening the whole landscape. Without stopping, Wen looked up: his master seemed to be walking on water. But it wasn’t so. The surface of the lake, having heard the young man’s music, had realized that winter had arrived and had frozen over.

A second later, the master was no longer there; in his place stood a beautiful white crane. When the young musician met the bird’s gaze, it lifted into the air and flew off, letting out cries that, from the lakeshore, sounded like laughter.

This story reveals the power of our emotions and the passion needed to move forward in life.

Remember: without emotion, there is no change. Emotion is the engine of transformation.

Receive a hug from the heart, and don’t forget to share.

💛💛💛💛 

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