What lives inside me?

Friends, once again I came across two beautiful tales with almost the same message. Thus, thought of sharing with you all.

I hope they help bring about some change in someone's life, no matter how minuscule.

Read on...

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Story 1: MONK PRAYING IN A BOAT

A young monk decides to meditate alone, away from his monastery. He takes a boat out to the middle of the lake, moors it there, closes his eyes and begins his meditation.

After a few minutes of undisturbed silence, he suddenly feels the bump of another boat colliding with his own. With his eyes still closed, he senses his anger rising. Can’t the other boatman see that someone is meditating? Reckless fellow! Careless fellow! Insensitive fellow!

He feels the bump again, though this time, it was gentler. After a few minutes…again!

Unable to control himself anymore, he opens his eyes, ready to scream at the boatman who dared disturb his meditation.

He sees it’s an empty boat that had probably got untethered and floated to the middle of the lake.

That became the moment of self-realization for the monk. He rose above the normal, becoming a "Buddh". In a flash of a moment he learned that the anger was actually bottled up within him all this time. And all it needed was a small bump from outside to bring it out.

From then on, whenever he came across someone who irritated or provoked him to the point of anger, he just reminded himself, “The other person is merely an empty boat. The anger is within me.”

Image credit: www.abc.net.au

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Story 2: THE COFFEE CUP

You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Question: Why did you spill the coffee?

Answer: “Well because someone bumped into me, of course!”

Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

It simply means -- Whatever is inside the cup, is what will spill out.

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It’s easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

All we need to do is to ask ourselves…

• What’s in my cup?
• When life gets tough, what spills over?

Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility. Or anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions.

You choose!

Image credit: Free image

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These two small stories certainly made me think about my own reactions and responses to the small bumps I have received in my life.

I just wish I had found them a bit earlier.

But then, who cares?

Better late, than never!