After calling my attention to the word Chien, she also directed me to a movie expressing its sentiment – a story of mother and son.

Then to drive home the point from an Asian perspective she broke down the word for me – rope, resistance, cow – to guide a resisting cow along a path.

I knew what had happened was important, but I didn’t know why until selecting a book to read on our travels to Norway and Greece. By coincidence I selected The Meaning of Happiness by Alan Watts and in its introduction found answer to the riddle.

I found Fu Ren’s words pointed to happiness, the kind that addresses our deepest yearnings, appreciation of the human spirit. Watts defined the subject of the metaphor shown in the ideogram, the conscious ego.  He suggests the perceived elusiveness of happiness vanishes when the ego becomes as a cow by “surrendering the conceit of personal freedom and power” and allows itself to be guided by inner nature.

Under these conditions, a new freedom and associate powers emerge that recognizes the union and harmony between all things.

As stated later in the site, this is the source of a sage or magician’s power.

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