Mind Full to Mindful
Some folk singers were on their way to perform in a village fair. They were about to cross a river and paid no attention to Buddha who lay there emaciated, almost lifeless.
“You are always tinkering your lute,” one of the bards chastised his companion who was fixing the strings of his veena (lute). “Either you make the strings so tight that they snap or you make them so loose that they are out of tune. Only if you leave them the way they are supposed to be, will you be able to produce melodious music.”
These words fell upon Buddha’s ears. He had what we call Satori in Zen, an instant realization; his first flash of awakening. He understood, “I have been too hard with myself. While in my father’s palace I lived a life of luxury, almost a debauched life, and now I have gone to the other extreme of depriving my body and mind of even basic nutrition and care.”
This was not the way to progress on the path, he realized. That while life might be suffering, it had to be lived with grace and gratitude.
Living a graceful life that has meaning and happiness is an art anyone can master. As Socrates posited that whatever we do in life we have learned it somewhere. So it is with happiness. Essentially, that is what Zen is about: a state free of conditioning so that mind can rest and rejoice, so it may go with the flow of life without the anxiety to always get somewhere. Life is here. Now. This moment. Easier said than done, I…
