Alan Watts - Mayas Many Faces

There’s an old Greek tale that there was a competition in painting. And two very great painters were the final runners up in the competition, and they had to do paintings that were going to be judged at a great affair. And the first one painted a vine with grapes on it. And it was so convincing that birds kept banging into it trying to pick at the grapes. And the bees were coming around, and, you know, wasps, and so on. And everybody thought, “My! Isn’t that fantastic! How clever this man is.” Well, they said, “We’d better have a look at the other painting.” And they said to the artist, “Unveil it. Draw the curtain and let’s see it!” He said, “What curtain?” His painting was the curtain. So he was awarded the prize because it was considered more remarkable to deceive human beings than to deceive the birds.