So, a man is walking in the forest and minding his own business. Elsewhere in the forest is a tiger, and his stomach is growling. Then, sniff sniff: the tiger smells dinner. The man walking in the forest and minding his own business suddenly happens upon the hungry tiger. He runs! But the tiger is faster, so he climbs. Up and up a hanging vine he goes. There he hangs, hovering out of the tiger's reach. But what is that sound? The man looks up and sees two mice, one black and one white, gnawing at the vine. It's only a matter of time before they eat through it and the vine falls. The tiger meanwhile paces below him, licking his lips. Within the man's reach is a strawberry. He reaches out and picks it. How sweet it tastes!
I don't need to tell you what might be a tiger in your life - you already know. But what are the mice? My hypothesis is that perhaps they are like the Tao - the dark and the light of a world that has both life and death, beauty and terror. In this world of ours, all things must come to an end.
Personally, I have at times felt as though my life were crumbling to pieces around me. The fact that I did learn to calm the "ef" down and so to speak eat a strawberry is because of having known this story. Since then I've had a new mantra: "Eat the strawberry." One's always there.
Zen Buddhism offers a wealth of short stories much like this one. I encountered this story in a pocket sized book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, but there are many other great sources out there, including a free and lucrative google search.
http://www.amazon.com/Flesh-Bones-Shambhala-Pocket-Classics/dp/1570620636
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