The kitchen was quiet that morning except for the slow drip of water from the roof. I was only ten, but I had already made up my mind: I would never learn the butcher’s trade. Too messy. Too boring. Too slow.
But Father, the palace cook, had other plans.
“Today,” he said as he handed me a small cloth, “you’re going to watch Cook Ding.”
Cook Ding wasn’t just any butcher. He worked in Duke Wen Hui’s great palace, where the walls gleamed with gold leaf, and the air smelled of ginger and slow-cooked duck. People whispered that Cook Ding never sharpened his knife, yet it stayed smooth as silk.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s just cutting meat.”
Father smiled. “Then you won’t mind watching.”
Cook Ding stood like a mountain but moved like water. As he sliced a huge ox for the Duke’s feast, I noticed something strange. He didn’t look at the ox. His eyes were closed. Yet his hands danced through the bones and muscles like a leaf floating on a stream.
There was no pushing, no force. Just quiet gliding. No sound but the knife whispering through the flesh.
When he finished, not one drop of sweat touched his brow.
The Duke clapped. “Bravo, Cook Ding! How can you cut with such ease?”
Cook Ding opened his eyes, which sparkled like morning dew. “When I first started, I only saw the ox. Now I move with the Way—what seems solid is full of spaces. I go where the spaces are.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
Father knelt beside me. “He means he doesn’t fight the ox. He waits, listens, and then moves where it allows.”
“But why doesn’t he just cut faster?”
“Ah,” said Father, “the fastest cut is not the one done with speed. It’s the one that moves with nature.”
I watched Cook Ding clean his blade. Even that seemed like part of a dance—no rush, just flow.
Over the next days, I stopped being annoyed and started watching more closely. His hands floated. His face was calm. He didn’t just work—he became part of the work. He didn’t try to change the ox. He listened to it. He trusted the space.
One afternoon, while delivering spices to the kitchen, I saw another butcher hurry. His cuts were quick and messy. He hacked, breathed hard, cursed when he hit a bone.
I understood something then: Cook Ding was never in a hurry because he no longer needed to be.
That night, I lay in bed thinking.
Maybe life wasn’t about rushing at things or fighting every problem. Maybe it was about moving with them. Maybe, like Cook Ding, I could learn to find the spaces—in people, in days, even in myself.
I didn’t change that night. But from then on, I listened a little more and pushed a little less.
And now, when days feel heavy, I remember the quiet sound of Cook Ding’s blade—the sound of a heart, steady and still, gliding through life without effort.
The kitchen was quiet that morning except for the slow drip of water from the roof. I was only ten, but I had already made up my mind: I would never learn the butcher’s trade. Too messy. Too boring. Too slow.
But Father, the palace cook, had other plans.
“Today,” he said as he handed me a small cloth, “you’re going to watch Cook Ding.”
Cook Ding wasn’t just any butcher. He worked in Duke Wen Hui’s great palace, where the walls gleamed with gold leaf, and the air smelled of ginger and slow-cooked duck. People whispered that Cook Ding never sharpened his knife, yet it stayed smooth as silk.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s just cutting meat.”
Father smiled. “Then you won’t mind watching.”
Cook Ding stood like a mountain but moved like water. As he sliced a huge ox for the Duke’s feast, I noticed something strange. He didn’t look at the ox. His eyes were closed. Yet his hands danced through the bones and muscles like a leaf floating on a stream.
There was no pushing, no force. Just quiet gliding. No sound but the knife whispering through the flesh.
When he finished, not one drop of sweat touched his brow.
The Duke clapped. “Bravo, Cook Ding! How can you cut with such ease?”
Cook Ding opened his eyes, which sparkled like morning dew. “When I first started, I only saw the ox. Now I move with the Way—what seems solid is full of spaces. I go where the spaces are.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
Father knelt beside me. “He means he doesn’t fight the ox. He waits, listens, and then moves where it allows.”
“But why doesn’t he just cut faster?”
“Ah,” said Father, “the fastest cut is not the one done with speed. It’s the one that moves with nature.”
I watched Cook Ding clean his blade. Even that seemed like part of a dance—no rush, just flow.
Over the next days, I stopped being annoyed and started watching more closely. His hands floated. His face was calm. He didn’t just work—he became part of the work. He didn’t try to change the ox. He listened to it. He trusted the space.
One afternoon, while delivering spices to the kitchen, I saw another butcher hurry. His cuts were quick and messy. He hacked, breathed hard, cursed when he hit a bone.
I understood something then: Cook Ding was never in a hurry because he no longer needed to be.
That night, I lay in bed thinking.
Maybe life wasn’t about rushing at things or fighting every problem. Maybe it was about moving with them. Maybe, like Cook Ding, I could learn to find the spaces—in people, in days, even in myself.
I didn’t change that night. But from then on, I listened a little more and pushed a little less.
And now, when days feel heavy, I remember the quiet sound of Cook Ding’s blade—the sound of a heart, steady and still, gliding through life without effort.
