Parable

Can I be Zen at a time like this?

So sad that one man can disrupt not only a whole country, but seemingly now the whole world.

But what about MY WORLD?

I’ve heard tell from the teachings of Abraham/Hicks that “…everyone, everyone, everyone is inherently selfish.”

As much as we ask others, “How may I help?”

We are mostly willing as long as we have our own little world in order first before heading out the door.

Yes, it’s true, and right now I’m pondering my little wedge of planet Earth that I’ll never truly own as long as I have to pay tax-rent to some faceless nameless entity, even though I’ve lived and worked this parcel for over 24 years. If we stop—through no fault of our own— paying the property tax, eventually the town or bank will take it out from underneath of us. And the only reason that would happen and why I’m giving it any thought at all is because of one man.

So it’s come down to the only thing I can own with any certainty are my thoughts. At 72 plus years, I’ve thunk a lot of them. Some I have given up. Others I have changed, and some have gone by the wayside until some certain event triggers something and brings them back—whether they be good bad or indifferent.

My thoughts can make or break my world. No thing is good or bad that thinking doesn’t make it so and I get to choose minute by minute, day by day…

Can I be Zen like the parable of the man being chased by a Tiger?

Why is it always a tiger? Why not a couple of oversized ravenous raccoons, or a pack of delirious dachshunds, or—you get the point.

So here this man is being chased by something with many teeth and they are either hungry or —“Crikey their angry”—as the late Steve Irwin would exclaim, and probably because he had invaded their territory.

I digress.

So the man—yes, it’s always a man too it seems and to me, one of Asian descent since it’s a Zen parable from ancient times by some nameless sage of many past incarnations. (They always have the best stories and one liners.)

So this guy is running and the ‘man eating tiger’ or soon to be ‘tiger eating man’ is about to overtake him when he happens upon a cliff, and quite quickly I might add, as he’s been busy running and keeping one eye on the many teeth behind him so he doesn’t have much time to think. Shortly, the momentum of his feet and legs propels him over the ledge.

Now he’s free falling—without a parachute, he really hadn’t come prepared—down the face of this sheer cliff when he reaches out and catches onto some small branches of a bonsai tree growing out of the soil and gravel encrusted precipice.

There he’s suspended precariously from these little tree roots that could give way any second. He’s got the gnashing teeth about twelve feet above him and a sudden stop hundreds of feet below.

“What now Ollie?” He thinks, “this is a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Seconds later he sees a small patch of wild strawberries growing next to the roots of the bonsai he’s hanging from.

The man reaches out and picks one. He looks at the bright redness of it with all it’s tiny seeds impressed on its outer skin before popping it into his mouth. The sweet and tartness of the juicy berry tantalizes his tastebuds and he shuts his eyes to savor the moment.

OK reader, you’re more than likely thinking, “What the hell!? Here’s this guy facing sudden death and he’s eating strawberries like jujube's at intermission!?”

And you’d be exactly right and probably have figured out by now that nobody and nothing is coming to save his ass.

The point of the story—life is always going to have some drama, crisis, or a shit show going on and it’s up to us to choose whether we want to enjoy and delight in the simple pleasures and good that is within our purview, or dangle fearfully between each chaotic event.

Today I am going to choose strawberries.

Dipped in chocolate sauce.

Definitely gotta have chocolate around them. Or with them.

Hell, forget the strawberries, just hand me the chocolate.