Living in non-attachment?
Monday, 22. October 2007, 17:54:50
One day, while walking through the wilderness, a man encountered a vicious tiger. He ran for his life, and the tiger gave chase.
The man came to the edge of a cliff, and the tiger was almost upon him. Having no choice, he held on to a vine with both hands and climbed down.
Halfway down the cliff, the man looked up and saw the tiger at the top, baring its fangs. He looked down and saw another tiger at the bottom, waiting for his arrival and roaring at him. He was caught between the two.
Two rats, one white and one black, showed up on the vine above him. As if he didn't have enough to worry about, they started gnawing on the vine.
He knew that as the rats kept gnawing, they would reach a point when the vine would no longer be able to support his weight. It would break and he would fall. He tried to shoo the rats away, but they kept coming back.
At that moment, he noticed a strawberry growing on the face of the cliff, not far away from him. It looked plump and ripe. Holding onto the vine with one hand and reaching out with the other, he plucked it.
With a tiger above, another below, and two rats continuing to gnaw on his vine, the man tasted the strawberry and found it absolutely delicious.
Living in the Moment ~ story translation and article by Derek Lin
To me this story is all about the state of harmonious balance and all that brings. Or rather the discovery of said state.
If we take for example Dao De Jing chapter 71 ...
Chapter 71
To know that you do not know is highest
To not know but think you know is flawed
Only when one recognizes the fault as a fault
can one be without fault
The sages are without fault
Because they recognize the fault as a fault
That is why they are without fault
Sages are without fault not because they never make mistakes but because they recognise faults for faults. So we take this and can say we can live without attachments by seeing attachments as attachments, without suffering by seeing suffering for suffering, pleasure for pleasure. The key being not holding on to any of them, just as we can not catch the wind ....
This seems to me to be an illustration of the yin-yang, not yin and yang or yin or yang but yin-yang as a fluid ever changing process of harmonic/dynamic balance.
peace to you
beccaxx
Mindfulness in concentration
Illumines the path.
Free from views of right and wrong,
But mindful of our own conduct,
Mindful of non-self, non-other,
We leave the shore of confusion
And begin to cross over
To the shore of liberation.
Thank you,
Becca,
For this blog entry.
*offers Becca a lotus*
*bows*
Aalar
By anonymous user, # 27. October 2007, 23:27:53
Sorry -- I'm not sure why my previous comment included so many spaces? I did not type it that way. LOL, I hope you don't mind.
Aalar
By anonymous user, # 27. October 2007, 23:29:40
beccaxx
By Munchkin97, # 28. October 2007, 17:21:27