Shifu Miao Zhang's Parables

Michael P. Garofalo writes extensively about a fictional Daoist master who carries a cane, whom he named Shifu Miao Zhang. Garofalo explicitly translates Shifu Miao Zhang's title as the "Teacher with the Magical (Wondrous) Staff".

Through a series of philosophical parables, Garofalo uses Shifu Miao Zhang and his cane to engage in witty debates with famous historical Zen Masters like Hakuin, Zhaozhou, and Yunmen. True to Garofalo's grounded, pragmatic philosophy, the master's cane is repeatedly used to cut through abstract religious dogma and bring high-minded koans back down to practical reality.

Here are some of the most notable ways Shifu Miao Zhang uses his cane in Garofalo's writings:

• Answering Famous Koans: When the legendary Zen Master Hakuin asks him, "What is the sound of one hand?", Miao Zhang simply picks up his beautiful cane and taps it three times on the floor.
• Practicality over Magic: When a man with a magical sword challenges him, asking what his crooked staff can do, Miao Zhang replies that it enabled his wobbly legs to walk to work each day so he could earn enough money to pay for poor women and children to safely ride a ferry boat.
• Locating the Divine: When asked where the Tao is to be found, Miao Zhang replies, "There is no place my cane or my mind goes or rests where the Tao cannot be found".
• Rejecting Pretentious Poetry: When Master Ummon attempts to impress him with elaborate, mystical poetry about his own staff leaping to the Eighth Heaven, Miao Zhang bluntly responds, "Ummon your poetry is lovely, but my gnarled cane cannot hear you".
• Teaching Impermanence: When asked where "the One" returns, he playfully remarks that last week his cane fell off a mountain and was lost, yesterday it was burned to nothing, and today it "is just an ordinary wood cane". In another exchange, he notes that while yesterday his cane was a walking stick, tomorrow "it may become firewood, crackling in the flames".
• Ending Arguments: When challenged to a debate where he will be whacked with a staff whether he speaks or remains silent, Miao Zhang stands up, lifts his cane in defense, insults the other masters' staffs, and simply announces, "I am leaving now to take my evening walk. Goodbye".

Ultimately, Garofalo uses the master and his cane as a reflection of his own "secular nature mysticism." As Miao Zhang explains in one of the parables, "My cane is ordinary, so it walks with me along the Watercourse Way". In another poem, Garofalo writes from the perspective of a master who, when asked a deep philosophical question about a mountain, simply lifts his cane, places it in his mouth, and says absolutely nothing.