Anger

A monk decides to meditate alone, away from his monastery. He takes his boat out to the middle of the lake, moors it there, closes his eyes and begins his meditation. After a few hours 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, and by the time he opens his eyes, he is ready to scream at the boatman who dared disturb his meditation. But when he opens his eyes, he sees it’s an empty boat that had probably got untethered and floated to the middle of the lake. At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization, and understands that the anger is within him; it merely needs the bump of an external object to provoke it out of him. From then on, whenever he comes across someone who irritates him or provokes him to anger, he reminds himself, “The other person is merely an empty boat. The anger is within me.”

A pencil story

A pencil story..Worth a read

Once upon a time...
A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter.
As one point, he asked, “Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me??”
His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson, “I am writing about you...actually,
But more important than the words is the pencil I’m using.
I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.”
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special.
“But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!”, he said.
“That depends on how you look at things”, the grandmother replied.

“This pencil has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.

First quality: You are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps.
We call that hand..God, and He always guides us according to His will.

Second quality: Now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper.
So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

Third quality: The pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes.
This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.

Fourth quality: What really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside.
So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.

Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: It always leaves a mark.
In jus the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action."

The Dot

One day a professor entered the classroom and asked his students to prepare for a surprise test. They waited anxiously at their desks for the test to begin. The professor handed out the question paper with the text facing down as usual. Once he handed them all out, he asked his students to turn the page and begin. To everyone's surprise, there were no questions....just a black dot in the center of the page. The professor seeing the expression on everyone's face, told them the following:

"I want you to write what you see there."

The students confused, got started on the inexplicable task.

At the end of the class, the professor took all the answer papers and started reading each one of them aloud in front of all the students. All of them with no exceptions, described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the middle of the sheet, etc. etc. etc. After all had been read, the classroom silent, the professor began to explain:

"I am not going to grade on you this, I just wanted to give you something to think about. No one wrote about the white part of the paper. Everyone focused on the black dot - and the same happens in our lives. We have a white paper to observe and enjoy but we always focus on the dark spots. Our life is a gift given to us by God with love and care and we always have reasons to celebrate - nature renewing itself everyday, our friends around us, the job that provides our livelihood, the miracles we see everyday.......

However we insist on focusing only on the dark spots - the health issues that bother us, the lack of money, the complicated relationship with a family member, the disappointment with a friend, and so on.......

The dark spots are very small compared to everything we have in our lives but they are the ones that pollute our minds.

Take your eyes away from the black spots in your life. Enjoy each one of your blessings, each moment that life gives you.

Be happy and live a life filled with LOVE !!

A LEAP OF FAITH

Once a man got lost in the desert. The water in his flask had run out two days ago, and he was on his last legs. He knew that if he didn't get some water soon, he would surely perish. The man saw a shack ahead of him. He thought it would be a mirage or maybe a hallucination, but having no other option, he moved toward it. As he got closer he realized it was quite real. So he dragged his weary body to the door with the last of his strength.

The shack was not occupied and seemed like it had been abandoned for quite some time. The man gained entrance, hoping against hope that he might find water inside.

His heart skipped a beat when he saw what was in the shack: a water pump..It had a pipe going down through the floor, perhaps tapping a source of water deep under-ground.

He began working the pump, but no water came out. He kept at it and still nothing happened. Finally he gave up from exhaustion and frustration. He threw up his hands in despair. It looked as if he was going to die after all.

Then the man noticed a bottle in one corner of the shack. It was filled with water and corked up to prevent evaporation.

He uncorked the bottle and was about to gulp down the sweet life-giving water when he noticed a piece of paper attached to it. Handwriting on the paper read: "Use this water to start the pump. Don't forget to fill the bottle when you're done."

He had a dilemma. He could follow the instruction and pour the water into the pump, or he could ignore it and just drink the water.

What to do? If he let the water go into the pump, what assurance did he have that it would work? What if the pump malfunctioned? What if the pipe had a leak? What if the underground reservoir had long dried up?

But then... maybe the instruction was correct. Should he risk it? If it turned out to be false, he would be throwing away the last water he would ever see.

Hands trembling, he poured the water into the pump. Then he closed his eyes, said a prayer, and started working the pump.

He heard a gurgling sound, and then water came gushing out, more than he could possibly use. He luxuriated in the cool and refreshing stream. He was going to live!

After drinking his fill and feeling much better, he looked around the shack. He found a pencil and a map of the region. The map showed that he was still far away from civilization, but at least now he knew where he was and which direction to go.

He filled his flask for the journey ahead. He also filled the bottle and put the cork back in. Before leaving the shack, he added his own writing below the instruction: "Believe me, it works!"

This story is all about life. It teaches us that we must give before we can receive abundantly. More importantly, it also teaches that faith plays an important role in giving. The man did not know if his action would be rewarded, but he proceeded regardless. Without knowing what to expect, he made a leap of faith.

Water in this story represents the good things in life. Something that brings a smile to your face. It can be  intangible knowledge or it can represent money, love, family, friendship, happiness, respect, or any number of other things you value. Whatever it is that you would like to get out of life, that's water.

The water pump represents the workings of the karmic mechanism. Give it some water to work with, and it will return far more than you put in.
Indeed an excellent article...