Stories about Stories: The Snake, The Horse
There is a classic Buddhist story about a meditator in a cave who notices a snake in the dim light of evening and is very frightened. It stands between him and the entrance to the cave, so he doesn’t dare move until it gets lighter in the morning, when he hopes the snake will leave or at least he’ll find a way past it.
As dawn increases the light that comes into the mouth of the cave, he observes with clarity that the thing he has been frightened of is merely a length of rope, occasionally tossed by a breeze into movement.
How often have you “horribilized” (a word coined by a friend) what was happening or might happen, only to have the fear evaporate as you saw clearly what was actually true? It’s easy to notice that we do this all the time. Noticing how we jump to conclusions is one way to develop awareness of the ‘storyline’ quality of our thoughts.
Another classic Buddhist tale:
A wild horse wanders onto a farm and decides to stay. The neighbour is quite envious and says, “You’re so lucky to have another horse.” The farmer says, “We’ll see.”
The horse disappears the following day and the neighbour, secretly satisfied that the farmer’s good fortune has disappeared, says, “Too bad the horse didn’t stay.” The farmer says, “We’ll see.”
The next day the horse reappears leading its mate, so now the farmer has two new horses. The neighbour, practically dumbstruck at this good fortune, says, “That’s fantastic.” The farmer says, as you can probably predict, “We’ll see.”
The farmer’s son takes it upon himself to teach the horses to do the work of the farm, starting with training them to take a rider. In the process, he falls and breaks his leg. The neighbour says, “Now your son won’t be able to help you on the farm. It’s going to be very hard work for you to keep up – too bad those horses came around.” The farmer says, “We’ll see.”
A couple of days later the army goes through town collecting up all able-bodied men to fight in a perilous battle with a neighbouring country – but the son is not taken, due to his broken leg. The neighbour says, “How fortunate that his leg was broken and he didn’t have to go to battle.”
And the farmer says, “We’ll see.”
And on it goes from there….
When you look back on your life, is it the case that some events you thought were disastrous often contained the seeds of something new and wonderful? Did some things you longed for turn out to be harmful or unpleasant or boring?
Our stories about what we need or want, or how we will feel about what comes, or how things will unfold, are just stories. As John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans.”