I came across thisparable told by Buddha the other day:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!
I have been thinking alot about that parable in the past day or two to help ease some nervousness I’ve got. The nervousness springs from an immensely personal gift I gave to this girl. It’s the sort of thing where if it’s taken well some form of thanks or "how sweet" statement would normally be forthcoming... but it hasn’t. This doesn’t mean it was taken poorly, I hope, she does have a tendency to be distracted in the middle of things. I would say it is more like LIFO consciousness as opposed to ADHD, heh heh.
What I’ve been taking away from this parable is also in the light of my recent thoughts on fate and chance, but specifically in the corollary issue of choice. When confronted with the tiger, the man does what he can... he runs. When confronted with a dire situation he has no control over, the man does what he can... he enjoys what can be enjoyed. So I sit here, trapped between the tigers of unknowing, trying to ignore the mice of worry and self-doubt. I’m going to try, probably with only minimal success, to enjoy the strawberry of the weekend and new fallen snow.
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