a fable from beckyb

[trochee]

beckyb told me a story the other day from her cousin. I'm adapting it here because I wrote it down for an IM chat with firinel and I thought it might be interesting to others as well:

a bodhisattva was walking along and came upon a chalk mudra mantra.
the bodhi had nothing with him. it started to rain.
Rather than let the rain destroy the mantra, the bodhi put an old shoe over the mantra to protect it from the rain -- top-down, to avoid defiling the mantra more than necessary
this is a good thing, he thought.
he went on his way.
a second bodhisattva came down the same road, not two hours later. The rain had passed.
"Why is there a shoe on the mantra?!" she exclaimed.
"surely this is the work of some thoughtless, evil person!"
Here endeth the lesson.

It occurred to me that this story is a lot like recovering from the traumas of your past. You install all sorts of nasty countermeasures under those problems -- because you need them, to survive.

But when it is no longer raining, the shoe remains.

Comments

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Huh, aside from the fact that a mudra is generally a hand position, my second thought is that this is more about how either a) context creates a lot of what meaning is or b) our own judgements and emotions create things more than things in themselves. Very Buddhist :).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudra

She must have meant Mantra.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantra

[trochee.livejournal.com]

she must have said "mantra". I remembered it wrong -- I know both words, but I think of the mudra as a manual thing and the mantra as a verbal thing -- neither one, in my mind, is associated with writing or drawings, which is why I couldn't get it straight here.

Thanks for the tip -- I'll correct.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Well see, things that can be verbalized, can be written, generally ;).

The mantra in this icon is Om Mane Padme Hung (Om Mane Pema Hum).

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

Mudras are accompanied by finger and hand gestures.
Mantras are just the words.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Mudras are the hand gestures themselves, actually. They can exist independent of a mantra.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

Ah... got it , thanks !

[beckyb.livejournal.com]

I said mandala actually. Now, the fact that sand mandalas are supposed to be impermanent shouldn't change the point of the story. I'm trying to remember what the lama (not my cousin actually) said. The essence is definitely correct. This was gently told to me when I was behaving in an absolutist kind of way one day.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Ok, that makes the most sense. Yes, it's true that a monk wouldn't be overly concerned that rain was going to take away a chalk mandala, but the story is kind of an educational device :).

[lapartera.livejournal.com]

Well whatever the right word is, and mandala makes the most sense, it's a great lesson. I keep finding shoes everywhere.

[beckyb.livejournal.com]

Yep, all these old shoes lying around and my feet keep growing and stretching. Not only do the shoes not fit, they take up space and are pretty uncomfortable when I do use them!

[bwb-archive.livejournal.com]

Hm.

I would have turned this into 15 pages of post :) Sometimes, I'm glad I know how to listen and choose not to write. Saves your eyes. Saves my hands.

This is a fantastic lesson, and as these things go with sharing, I can tell it'll be something I think on and retell often. Thanks for the perfect timing of that.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

It doesn't save our eyes. Because our eyes like to read anything the wingedboy has to say. At least my eyes do.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

You install all sorts of nasty countermeasures under those problems -- because you need them, to survive.

I don't think we *need* them to survive. I think they are crutches that we think we need. And sometimes it's scary to put the crutches down because we have to limp for a while. And it hurts. And it's uncomfortable.
But really we could walk all along . And as we limp forward, we become increasingly stronger and more confident. And soon we walk. Without crutches.

[lapartera.livejournal.com]

I read "we need them to survive" to mean that we needed those countermeasures to survive at the time we put them there. But then they're there years later -- we think we still need them, but we don't. My idea is that I DID need them to survive originally. And that's OK. I think it's important, for me anyway, to find a way not to blame 6 year old me for finding a way to survive. What's not OK is still keeping those shoes there when they're no longer needed. Not that it's easy to move them out of the way when it's no longer raining.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

Absolutely right.
I see what you're saying.

[beckyb.livejournal.com]

Yes. We can think of them as scaffolding that we forgot to tear down when the building was built but there is a lot I could not have done as a 20 year old if I didn't have some of that there.
No blame is a good thing.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

Hey hey Beckster, I wasn't blaming !
No passive agressiveness is also a good thing.
:)

[beckyb.livejournal.com]

Nope. I was just agreeing that we shouldn't blame 6 year old, 10 year old, 17 year old selves for coping however we can.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, got it !
I keep misunderstanding things on this thread. The methaphor must escape me...
:)

[isolt.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that.

*saves*