Bodhidharma is said to have visited the court of a king who prided himself on all the many public projects he had undertaken for the benefit of his people, including the building of a large number of magnificent places of worship. The king invited Bodhidharma to look at all his works and asked: “What merit do you think I have gained from all this?”
The gruff answer of the so-called ‘Barbarian from the West’ was: “Absolutely nothing.” The outraged ruler then demanded: “Who is it that dares to speak to a king like that?”
The sage replied: “A no-one who speaks to another no-one.” With this answer the king is said to have gained enlightenment.
I took the above story from another blog. The reason I wanted to put this story here was to point out that we often, by reading such story feel that, somehow, we have become more knowledgeable and spiritual. These stories, self-help books, reading scriptures, listening to "spiritual" discourse, etc. are not going to make us anything other than more arrogant. Unless we leave all these teachings and go back to the root that we are nothing, we will not be able to take a breath of relief. Otherwise, we are continuously living in the state of anxiety, sense of incompleteness, sense of big and small, etc. The above story will teach us only however much we are ready for it. Therefore, if we make the mistake of giving an interpretation of the story, what we have actually done is to put forward our own thesis. So, let's not give our own discourse on these stories to somehow proclaim that we know the meaning of it. Had we known the meaning of this story, we would have gotten "enlightenment" by the end of reading of that short paragraph, the way the king did just by listening such a simple answer. But we did not get it. Why? Because we do not get the story. There has been always an urge among the "spiritual gurus", and those budding to be ones, to make their proclamation authentic by citing these stories to impress the audience. These stories do not need an interpretation without the sever risk of giving our own mild and weak versions, showing the very weakness that it tries to put to shame, and, in that course, weakens our own true reaction to it. In a way, these discourses are making us more hardened and subdues the emotional reactions that these stories are supposed to create. It makes us immune to the true effects because, slowly and slowly, we take these stories for granted and do not see any brutality in the message. It no longer directly confronts our preconceived thought process. This is true even for simple poems. For example, we may completely misunderstand the meaning of "rah pakar tu ek chala chal, paa jayega madhushala". Let's not do it. Let's not try to derive a "morale" of the story. Who are we to know what the Bodhidharma meant and what the king understood?
Stop role playing.
The gruff answer of the so-called ‘Barbarian from the West’ was: “Absolutely nothing.” The outraged ruler then demanded: “Who is it that dares to speak to a king like that?”
The sage replied: “A no-one who speaks to another no-one.” With this answer the king is said to have gained enlightenment.
I took the above story from another blog. The reason I wanted to put this story here was to point out that we often, by reading such story feel that, somehow, we have become more knowledgeable and spiritual. These stories, self-help books, reading scriptures, listening to "spiritual" discourse, etc. are not going to make us anything other than more arrogant. Unless we leave all these teachings and go back to the root that we are nothing, we will not be able to take a breath of relief. Otherwise, we are continuously living in the state of anxiety, sense of incompleteness, sense of big and small, etc. The above story will teach us only however much we are ready for it. Therefore, if we make the mistake of giving an interpretation of the story, what we have actually done is to put forward our own thesis. So, let's not give our own discourse on these stories to somehow proclaim that we know the meaning of it. Had we known the meaning of this story, we would have gotten "enlightenment" by the end of reading of that short paragraph, the way the king did just by listening such a simple answer. But we did not get it. Why? Because we do not get the story. There has been always an urge among the "spiritual gurus", and those budding to be ones, to make their proclamation authentic by citing these stories to impress the audience. These stories do not need an interpretation without the sever risk of giving our own mild and weak versions, showing the very weakness that it tries to put to shame, and, in that course, weakens our own true reaction to it. In a way, these discourses are making us more hardened and subdues the emotional reactions that these stories are supposed to create. It makes us immune to the true effects because, slowly and slowly, we take these stories for granted and do not see any brutality in the message. It no longer directly confronts our preconceived thought process. This is true even for simple poems. For example, we may completely misunderstand the meaning of "rah pakar tu ek chala chal, paa jayega madhushala". Let's not do it. Let's not try to derive a "morale" of the story. Who are we to know what the Bodhidharma meant and what the king understood?
Stop role playing.
