Shao Yung                                                SHAOYUNG.TXT
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       We are blessed to live in an age when it is possible to have access to
       ancient texts that contain information and principles of great
       importance.....

       Unfortunately a great amount of time is usually consumed going through
       1000's of pages of text to find the jewels that are hidden in the
       pages. To those of us who are seekers and have spent years seeking,
       sharing the jewels that were found with other seekers is a part of our
       Karma Yoga. So we share with those who are interested and or ask to
       learn....
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       If one learns "spiritual principles" that govern what happens here and
       how it happens, many things become far easier.... If one learns who
       they really are inside, inner peace becomes an everyday situation....
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       Shao Yung was born in 1011 in the very small town of Fan-Yang in the
       Hopeh province of northern China. [The first century of the Sung
       dynasty (960-1279)].

       It was a time when China was once again unified and its society set in
       order. Intellectual and culture life flourished and philosophy, always a
       major preoccupation of Chinese life, attained a spectacular level of
       development.

       Men like Shao Yung, who were very intelligent and had attained a very
       high level of self-cultivation, usually lived a very simple life, often
       in the country growing their own food and working on their internal
       development. They had no interest in material possessions, wealth or
       fame and had great integrity of being.

       The story:

       One day at noon Shao Yung woke up suddenly from a nap and saw a rat
       coming toward him. Startled, he picked up his ceramic pillow and threw
       it at the rat. The pillow broke and out of it fell a note.

       The note said that the pillow would be sold to a certain Shao Yang, a
       man of great knowledge, who would break the pillow when he threw it at
       a rat, at a certain time, on a certain day, of a certain month, of a
       certain year.

       Shao Yang had just broken the pillow under the very circumstances and
       at the exact time given in the note !

       When he realized this he went immediately to find the potter who had
       made the pillow and sold it to him. The potter recalled that long ago
       an old man had come into his shop carrying a copy of the I Ching. He
       had been sitting near the pillow and had picked it up to look at it.
       The potter was certain that it must have been the old man who had put
       the note in the pillow. Although he had not seen the old man for a long
       time, he knew where he lived.

       Shao Yang and the potter went to the old man's house. The door was
       opened by his son, who told them that the old man had died two days
       before and that they were too poor to pay for his funeral. However,
       just before he died the old man had told his family that a great
       scholar would come to the house at this time on this day. When he
       arrived they were to give him a book. Once the book was in the
       scholar's hands, he would be able to predict where the money was to pay
       his funeral expenses.

       The book that the family gave to Shao Yung was a copy of the I Ching
       and attached to it were formulas for prediction. These were the
       formulas for which Shao Yung had been searching in his study of the I
       Ching.

       Shao Yung studied the formulas and with them calculated that the old
       man had buried silver for his funeral expenses in a container under the
       northwest corner of the house-directly under his bed. The silver was
       found as calculated.

       This is of course a wonderful story that basically implies that the
       study and use of the I Ching can be a great asset in one's life.

       However that is not the most important part of the story at all.

       The story gives important information on how the universe functions
       and the implications of the information in the story are VAST !

       --DAS