Any rocks in your path?
Do you know this story?
Once there was a very wise king who spared no effort to teach his people good habits of being industrious and careful. He felt that nothing good can come to a nation whose people complain and expect others to fix their problems for them.
One night while everyone else slept, he placed a large stone in the road that went past the palace. Then he hid behind a hedge and waited to see what would happen.
Some folks drove went around the stone. Others daydreamed and stumbled into it. Everyone who came by complained and whined because the stone lay in the road, but no one touched it.
Just before dark a shepherd came by and worked hard to move the heavy stone for worry that someone could be hurt by it in the dark. To his surprise, he found a bag of gold underneath with a note saying that the gold belonged to the one who moved the stone.
The king explained that we often find obstacles and burdens in our way. We may even complain out loud while we walk around them if we choose, or we can move them and find out what they mean.
And the king said that the one who travels the road best is the one who makes the road smoother for those who will follow.
So, (without focusing on national issues)
- what lessons can we learn and apply in our own lives?
- how can we make the road smoother for all of us?
- can we stop complaining and whining about others?
- what can we do to ease the burdens or obstacles in our relationships, at work, in the community?
Can we stop judging what someone else is doing or not doing and, instead, focus on what we can do?
Sometimes the best way to deal with the vicissitudes of life is to just
- start where we are and
- do what is in front of us to do.
Any suggestions on “rock removing” from YOUR experience?
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I’ve been thinking about this lots and lots since coming back home to the States. There was the inevitable re-entry shock and, with it, being flabbergasted by things that wouldn’t have seemed so shocking if I hadn’t been away from things here at home so long. I found myself having to relearn little social agreements that have been standing arrangements for a long time, but this time, I found I could stay awake and see…
Nothing like pulling up your roots and moving halfway round the world and then moving back to make you see that no matter where we go, there we are. We carry our consciousness with us. That was a good lesson to learn on my way out and on my way back in.
I have learned to ask myself:
+ I wonder why this is “the way it’s done”?
+ What about that (if anything) is true for me?
+ What is it about that that bothers me? I wonder why…
+ Am I buying into a feeling or a thought that is limiting my ability to focus on that which I can control (my own life and experience and contribution to greater society)?
More than anything, I realize if I’m complaining, it means I have either ignored my own discomfort and have become frustrated–and therefore need to change course (around the obstacle in my way) or else I need to set about moving the rock. The former is practicing non-resistance; the latter is walking up to what I’m afraid of and doing something about it.
People often ask how they can tell the difference between what we can change and what we can’t. In my estimation, what we need to change is the person staring back at us in the mirror. When we do, the obstructions either fall away of their own weight, or we don’t feel so angry or regretful or rueful for them because our having been involved in a constructive effort to change them helps assuage any frustrations we have. And any we still have need to be forgiven and forgone by us. Or so it seems to me from my current vantage point. It’ll doubtless change. Everything does. Gassho.