For those who believe that there is more to life, and that religion is not the answer, you are most welcome to join me in the exploration of the Spiritual side of Life.
Light and bliss to you on your journey!
Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. - Joseph Addison
A poor man asked the Buddha, “Why am I so poor?”
The Buddha said, “You do not learn to give.”
The poor man said, “If I’m not having anything?”
Buddha said: “You have a few things. The Face, which can give a smile; The Mouth, you can praise or comfort others; The Heart, it can open up to others; The Eyes, they can look at others with the eyes of goodness; The Body, which can be used to help others.”
So, actually we are not poor at all. Poverty of spirit is the real poverty.
- Source Unknown
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Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. - Orson Scott Card
Aesop, that master storyteller of old, told this fable:
A jar of honey was upset in a housekeeper's room, and a number of flies were attracted by its sweetness. Placing their feet in it, the flies ate greedily. Their feet, however, became so smeared with honey that they could not use their wings, nor release themselves, and they were suffocated. Just as they were dying, they exclaimed: "Oh, foolish creatures that we are, for the sake of a little pleasure we have destroyed ourselves."
- Aesop
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A young student approached the master who was seated in the garden and asked “Master, no matter how hard I try I just can’t achieve mindfulness."
The master said nothing but pointed to a corner of the garden where a kitten was attempting to capture a fly.
The kitten lunged, gasped and stalked the fly. Yet for all of her efforts, the fly stayed just out of her reach.
Finally the kitten wore herself out and curled up in a ball at the master’s feet.
The fly, promptly landed, of its own accord, right on the tip of the sleeping kitten’s nose.
The young student, seeing this, understood.
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The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man. - José Ortega Y Gasset
A king asked a sage to explain the Truth. In response the sage asked the king how he would convey the taste of a mango to someone who had never eaten anything sweet. No matter how hard the king tried, he could not adequately describe the flavour of the fruit, and, in frustration, he demanded of the sage, "Tell me then, how would you describe it?"
The sage picked up a mango and handed it to the king saying "This is very sweet. Try eating it!"
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Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. - Joseph Addison
There was once a great master who used to teach his students in many different and sometimes bizarre ways. One evening, they arrived at his house to find him crawling around on the ground. There was a lamp by the front door and he was moving around within the lamp light.
“Master, what are you doing?” One of the students asked.
“Searching for the front door key.” The master answered.
The students then joined him, crawling around, hunting for the key.
After quite a period of fruitless search, one student asked, “Master, where were you when you lost the key?”
“Over there.” The master pointed to a distant spot, which was in darkness.
“Then why on Earth are you hunting for it here?”
“Oh, because it’s much easier to hunt here in the light.”
This is what we all tend to do. Due to our ignorance, we look for happiness in places where it cannot be found. We keep on doing this because superficial appearances delude us into thinking that it can be found where we seek it – within the world of desires and senses. Happiness cannot truly be found there, so our efforts lead instead to frustrations, dissatisfaction, unhappiness and sometimes suffering.
Are you searching in the right place for your happiness?
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The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man. - José Ortega Y Gasset
Some years ago a successful man had a serious identity crisis. He sought help from psychiatrists but nothing came of it, for there were none who could tell him the meaning of life - which is what he wanted to know.
By and by he learned of a venerable and incredibly wise guru who lived in a mysterious and most inaccessible region of the Himalayas. Only that guru, he came to believe, would tell him what life meant and what his role in it ought to be. So he sold all his worldly possessions and began his search for the all-knowing guru.
He spent eight years wandering from village to village throughout the Himalayas in an effort to find him. And then one day he chanced upon a shepherd who told him where the guru lived and how to reach the place.
It took him almost a year to find him, but he eventually did. There he came upon his guru, who was indeed venerable, in fact well over one hundred years old. The guru consented to help him, especially when he learned of all the sacrifices the man had made towards this end.
“What can I do for you, my son?” asked the guru.
“I need to know the meaning of life,” said the man.
To this the guru replied, without hesitation, “Life,” he said, “is a river without end.”
“A river without end?” said the man in a startled surprise. “After coming all this way to find you, all you have to tell me is that life is a river without end?”
The guru was shaken, shocked. He became very angry and he said, “You mean it is not?”
The moral of the story:
The first thing to remember if you want to know what life is, is: never seek it without, never try to find out from somebody else. Nobody can give, nor tell you the meaning of life. The meaning cannot be transferred that way. The greatest masters have never said anything about life - they have always thrown you back upon yourself. Nobody, except you, can come upon it. Only in living your life will the mystery be revealed to you.
Life is already there bubbling within you. Don’t seek life anywhere else. Don’t seek it in scriptures, don’t seek it in clever explanations. Live well, and in so doing, you will find the meaning of life.
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The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man. - José Ortega Y Gasset
Once upon a time, there was a king. The king liked one of his followers very much because he was very wise and always gave very useful advice. Therefore, the king took him along wherever he went.
One day, a dog bit the king. The finger was injured and the wound was getting worse. He asked the follower if that was a bad sign. The follower said, “Good or bad, hard to say”. In the end, the finger of the king was so bad that it had to be cut. The king asked the follower again if that was a bad sign. Again, the follower gave the same answer, “Good or bad, hard to say.” The king became very angry and sent the follower to prison.
One day, the king went hunting in the jungle. He got excited when he was on the chase of a deer. Deeper and deeper he went inside the jungle. In the end he found himself lost in the jungle. To make things worse, the native people who lived inside the jungle captured him. They wanted to sacrifice him to their god. But when they noticed that the king had one finger short, they released him immediately as he was not a perfect man anymore and not suitable for sacrifice.
The king managed to get back to his palace after all. And he finally understood the follower's wise quote, “Good or bad, hard to say”. If he hadn’t lost one finger, the native people could have killed him. He ordered the follower to be released, and apologized to him. But to the king’s amazement, the follower was not mad at him at all. Instead, the follower said, “It wasn’t a bad thing that you locked me up.”
Why? Because if the king hadn’t locked the follower up, he would have brought the follower along to the jungle. If the native found that the king was not suitable, they would have used the follower. Again, the quote ‘Good or bad, hard to say’ stands.
The moral of the story is that everything that happens in this world, there is no absolute good or bad. Sometimes good things turned out to be bad things eventually, while bad things become a gain.
Whatever good things that happen to you, enjoy it, but don’t have to hold too tight to it, treat it as a surprise in your life. Whatever bad things that happen to you, don’t have to feel too sad or despair, in the end, it might not be a total bad thing after all.
If one can understand this, he or she will find life much easier.
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Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. - Orson Scott Card
A long time ago, there was an Emperor who told his knight that if he could ride on his horse across as much land as possible, then the Emperor would give him the area of land he had covered.
Sure enough, the horseman quickly jumped onto his horse and rode as fast as possible to cover as much land area as he could. He kept on riding and riding, whipping the horse to go faster and faster.
When he was hungry or tired, he did not stop because he wanted to cover as much area as he could. It came to a point where he had covered a substantial area but he was exhausted and was dying. Then he asked himself, “Why did I push myself so hard to cover so much land area? Now I am dying and I only need a very small area to bury myself.”
Moral of the story:
We push very hard every day to make more money, to gain power and recognition. We neglect our health, time with our family and to appreciate the surrounding beauty and the hobbies we love to do.
One day when we look back, we will realize that we don’t really need that much, but by then, it is too late. We cannot turn back time for what we have missed.
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One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography. - William Ellery Channing
Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk were travelling together. They came to the bank of a river and found the bridge was damaged. They had to wade across the river. There was a pretty lady who was stuck at the damaged bridge and couldn't cross the river. The big monk offered to carry her across the river on his back... The lady accepted.
The little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk. 'How can big brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?' thought the little monk. But he kept quiet. The big monk carried the lady across the river and the small monk followed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the big monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her.
All along the way for several miles, the little monk was very unhappy with the act of the big monk.. He was making up all kinds of accusations about big monk in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the big monk had no inclination to explain his situation.
Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the little monk could not stand it any further, he burst out angrily at the big monk. 'How can you claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite '
The big monk looked surprised and said, 'I had put down the pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are still carrying her along?'
This very old Chinese Zen story reflects the thinking of many people today. We encounter many unpleasant things in our life, they irritate us and they make us angry. Sometimes, they cause us a lot of hurt, sometimes they cause us to be bitter or jealous. But like the little monk, we are not willing to let them go away. We keep on carrying the baggage of the 'pretty lady' with us. We let them keep on coming back to hurt us, make us angry, make us bitter and cause us a lot of agony.
We should ‘let go of the pretty lady’ immediately after crossing the river, that is after the unpleasant event is over. This will immediately remove all our agonies. There is no need to be further hurt by the unpleasant event after it is over.
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The greatest thing by far is to be master of metaphor. - Aristotle
The venerable raises a glass of water and said to the audience:
“How heavy do you think this glass of water is? It depends on how long you hold it. If you hold it for a minute, it is Ok. If you hold it for an hour, you will have an ache in your arm. If You hold it for a day, you will have to call an ambulance.
“It is the exact same weight, but the longer you hold it, the heavier it becomes. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, we will not be able to carry on, the burden becoming increasingly heavier.
“What you have to do is to put the glass down, rest for a while before holding it up again.”
Moral of the story:
We have to put down our burdens periodically, so that we can be refreshed and are able to carry on. When you return home from work, put the burden of work down. Don’t carry it into your home. You can pick it up tomorrow.
Take a REST!
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Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. - Joseph Addison
A master took his two students into a forest. There he took a hollow coconut with a small hole and inserted sweet rice. Then he tied it to a tree and waited with his students nearby. Soon, a monkey came along, sniffed the rice, inserted his paw, and screeched in frustration when he was unable to withdraw his paw (now a fist clenching the rice) through the narrow opening. “Let go of the rice, silly! Run!” shouted the students, amazed by its obvious stupidity, but to no avail.
“What was the trap that caught the monkey?” asked the master.
“Rice,” said one student.
“The coconut,” said another.
“No,” replied the wise master, “The trap was greed. He only had to let go of his attachment to be free. Likewise, we are the ones who trap ourselves. We are always responsible. The real trap is always within, not out there. The causes of suffering are in us. External situations are only conditions.”
With that, he hacked the coconut open, and the unrepentant monkey ran away with a fistful of rice.
Don’t be like the monkey. What is in your monkey fist that you still hold on to?
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A king asked a sage to explain the Truth. In response the sage asked the king how he would convey the taste of a mango to someone who had never eaten anything sweet.
No matter how hard the king tried, he could not adequately describe the flavour of the fruit, and, in frustration, he demanded of the sage, "Tell me then, how would you describe it?"
The sage picked up a mango and handed it to the king saying "This is very sweet. Try eating it!"
Student: "Is there anything I can do to make myself Enlightened?"
Teacher: "As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning."
Student: "Then what use are the spiritual exercises you prescribe?"
Teacher: "To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise."
- Anthony de Mello
A monk decides to meditate alone, away from his monastery. He takes his boat out to the middle of the lake, moors it there, closes his eyes and begins his meditation.
After a few hours of undisturbed silence, he suddenly feels the bump of another boat colliding with his own. With his eyes still closed, he senses his anger rising, and by the time he opens his eyes, he is ready to scream at the boatman who dared disturb his meditation.
But when he opens his eyes, he sees it’s an empty boat that had probably got untethered and floated to the middle of the lake.
At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization, and understands that the anger is within him; it merely needs the bump of an external object to provoke it out of him.
From then on, whenever he comes across someone who irritates him or provokes him to anger, he reminds himself, “The other person is merely an empty boat. The anger is within me.”
