1) A turtle family decided to go on a picnic. Turtles, being naturally slow about things, took seven years to prepare for their outing. Finally the turtle family left home looking for a suitable place for their outing.
During the second year of their journey they found a place ideal for them at last! For about six months they cleaned up the area, unpacked the picnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed.
After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow moving turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his shell.
He agreed to go on one condition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle left. Three years passed and the little turtle had not returned. Five years... six years... then on the seventh year of his absence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and begun to unwrap a sandwich.
At that point the little turtle suddenly popped out from behind a tree shouting, "SEE! I knew you wouldn't wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt."
Some of us waste our time waiting for people to live up to our expectations. We are so concerned about what others are doing that we don't do anything ourselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2) Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk were traveling together. They came to the bank of a river and found the bridge was damaged. They had to wade across the river.
There was a pretty lady who wa! s stuck at the damaged bridge and could not cross the river. The big monk offered to carry the pretty lady across the river on his back.
The lady accepted. The little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk. "How can big disciple brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?" thought the little monk. But he kept quiet. The big monk carried the lady across the river and the small monk followed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the big monk let thelady down and they parted ways with her.
All along the way for several miles, the little monk was very unhappy with the act of the big monk. He was making up all kinds of accusations about the big monk in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the big monk had no inclination to explain his situation.
Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the little monk could notstand it any! further, he burst out angrily at the big monk. "How can you claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite." The big monk looked surprised and said, "I had put down the pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are stillcarrying her along?"
This very old Chinese Zen story reflects the thinking of many people today. We encounter many unpleasant things in our life, they irritate us and they makeus angry. Sometimes, they cause us a lot of hurt;sometimes they cause us to be bitter or jealous. But like the little monk, we are not willing to let them go away.
We keep on carrying the baggage of the "unpleasant memory" with us. we let them keep on coming back to hurt us, make us angry, make us bitter and cause us a lot of agony. Why?
Simply because we are not willin! g to put down or let go of the baggage of the unpleasant memory/feelings". We should let go immediately afterthe unpleasant event is over. This will immediately remove all our agonies. There is no need to be further hurt by the unpleasant event after it is over. It is just that simple.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3) A farmer came into town and asked the owner of a restaurant if he could use a million frog legs. The restaurant owner was shocked and asked the man where he could get so many frog legs!
The farmer replied, "There is a pond near my house that is full of frogs---millions of them. They all croak all night long and they are about to make me crazy!" So the restaurant owner and the farmer made an agreement that the farmer would deliver frogs to the restaurant, five hundred at a time for the next several weeks. The first week, the farmer returned to the restaurant looking rather sheepish, with two scrawny little frogs. The restaurant owner said, "Well... where are all the frogs?" The farmer said, "I was mistaken. There were only these two frogs in the pond. But they sure were making a lot of noise!"
Next time you hear somebody criticizing or making fun of you, remember, it's probably just a couple of noisy frogs. Also remember that problems always seem bigger in the dark. Have you ever laid in your bed at night worrying about things which seem almost overwhelming like a million frogs croaking ? Chances are pretty good that when the morning comes, and you take a closer look, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4) A group of working adults got together to visit their University lecturer. The lecturer was happy to see them. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.
The Lecturer just smiled and went to the kitchen to get an assortment of cups - some porcelain, some in plastic, some in glass, some plain looking and some looked rather expensive and exquisite.
The Lecturer offered his former students the cups to get drinks for themselves.
When all the students had a cup in hand with water, the Lecturer spoke: "If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal that you only want the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all you wanted was water, not the cup, but we unconsciously went for the better cups."
"Just like in life, if Life is Water, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold/maintain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change."
"If we only concentrate on the cup, we won't have time to enjoy/taste the water in it."
