Does anyone know the source of this story?

[Boleo]

An old Chinese parable tells of a poor man who lives with his teenage son. Their one possession is a horse, and they need the horse to ride to market, to pull their cart, to do the plowing-and the horse runs away. So everyone says, "Oh, what bad luck!"
And the man says, "We’ll see, we’ll see."
Well, the horse winds up leading a whole pack of wild horses back to their farm. And everyone says, "What good luck!"
He says, "We’ll, we'll see."
Then the son rides one of the horses and tries to tame it, and he falls and shatters his leg. Everyone says, "Oh no! What bad luck."
And the man says, "We'll see, we’ll see."
Before long an officer comes around from the court, conscripting young boys to fight an impossible war. And of course, all the boys in the neighborhood go except for the son, and they're all killed, and all his neighbors say, "Oh what good fortune you have!" And it goes on and on.

[MycoolFitz]

I have it at home, but I'm traveling on business. I'll get it to you later if no one else does first.

[citychick]

I read it on a Buddhist site a while ago.

[Believe808]

Blessing or Bane



Near China's northern borders lived a man well versed in the practices of Taoism. His horse, for no reason at all, got into the territory of the northern tribes. Everyone commiserated with him.

"Perhaps this will soon turn out to be a blessing," said his father.

After a few months, his animal came back, leading a fine horse from the north. Everyone congratulated him.

"Perhaps this will soon turn out to be a cause of misfortune," said his father.

Since he was well-off and kept good horses his son became fond of riding and eventually broke his thigh bone falling from a horse. Everyone commiserated with him.

"Perhaps this will soon turn out to be a blessing," said his father.

One year later, the northern tribes started a big invasion of the border regions. All able-bodied young men took up arms and fought against the invaders, and as a result, around the border nine out of ten men died. This man's son did not join in the fighting because he was crippled and so both the boy and his father survived.


This is a chinese parable as you stated in your post. Here is a site with many like this.

Classical Chinese Story / Parable in Chinese and English translation

[Rusty Zipper]

you beat me to it Bee,

thats a great site...

[MycoolFitz]

I didn't know about that site.Thanks

[brokenhalo]

believe808,

i just added that to my favorites. thank you.

bh

[preta]

Thats the 'story of mr. sai', and I read it in a book called "jizo bodhisattva"...Its probably a folk tale that was orally transmitted thru the generations because the translation I saw was a little different. The general ideas were the same tho...

[riley1400]

i thought it was a taoist parable but who knows