To a new start...

Once two villagers were sitting under a tree and watching the sunset.They were very close friends.  After sitting quietly for some time, one asked the other, “What are you thinking? I am planning to buy five acres of land, a garden.”  The other friend immediately said, “Don´t buy the garden!” The first one was surprised. He asked “why”?  The second one replied, “I am planning to buy a buffalo. Then, my buffalo will enter your garden and we will fight, have misunderstandings and lose our friendship. I do not want to lose our friendship.” The first one said, “Then, you cancel your plan of buying a buffalo. I am going to buy my garden.”  The second one said, “No, no, no. I have already decided to buy a buffalo.”  The first one said, “How will your buffalo enter my garden? I will fence it thoroughly.” The second one said, “No, you see, it can just enter; a buffalo is a buffalo. Who can stop it? It can do anything.” Then the fight went to such an extent that they bro...

A monk once decided to meditate in isolation. He took a boat and travelled to the center of a tranquil lake. He anchored his boat and closed his eyes, let himself fall in deep meditation. After a while, of peaceful and undisturbed meditation, suddenly his boat was rocked and his peaceful meditation was broken. With his eyes closed, he could still understand that another boat had collided onto his, causing the disturbance.  Anger, welled through him and he opened his eyes to curse the person on the other boat. He saw that the other boat had no one on it and it was just drifting along, aimlessly and had hit his boat by accident. The monk, realized that anger dwells within and empty vessels/external objects cause it to erupt. He attained self realization. From then on, whenever he bumps into a person, who irritates or angers, he reminds himself, 'The other person is an empty vessel, the anger is within us.' Moral: Control oneself to have control over others.