Parable 5: That Will Pass

A student began meditating.
Sitting straight and tall.
Following the breath.
In. Out. In. Out.
Just sitting. Just breathing.
"But the meditation isn't working," the student complained. "My back hurts, and I can't stop thinking about things. Sometimes I fall asleep! I don't know what to do."
"That will pass," replied the teacher, smiling.
The student kept on meditating.
Sitting straight and tall.
Following the breath.
In. Out. In. Out.
Just sitting. Just breathing.
Several weeks later, the same student reported, "My meditation is going great! I'm completely at ease; it feels wonderful!"
"That will pass," replied the teacher, smiling.

~ ~ ~

This one always makes me laugh! You can read this story in 108 Zen Parables and Stories by Olga Gutsol. I reminds me of the proverb about Sai's horse; I should do that as a proverb next time!

CC0 image from rawpixels

Haiku 5: O snail, climb...

Here is today's haiku:

かたつぶりそろそろ登れ富士の山

And in romaji:

katatsuburi soro-soro nobore fuji no yama

And English: "O snail, climb Mt. Fuji, slowly, slowly!"

This is another haiku by Issa, and it is one of my favorites. I certainly feel like a snail climbing Mt. Fuji as I learn Japanese... slowly slowly. I had to change the word order in the translation: in the Japanese the "soro-soro nobore" そろそろ登れ is such a great sound-play, but the "slowly" and the "climb" do not echo each other like that in English, so instead of sound-play, I opted for the fun surprise of "slowly, slowly" at the end. And I suppose everything would benefit by being done even more slowly, right? One of my favorite kinds of meditation, for example, is the walking meditation, and the slower, the better, at least for me.

painting by Nishiyama Hoen

My vocabulary for today:

山
やま
"mountain"

Proverb 5: Even a dog...

 Here is today's proverb:

犬も歩けば棒に当たる

And in romaji:

inu mo arukeba bo ni ataru

And English: "Even a dog walking about runs into a stick."

I've now read two very different interpretations of this saying: one says that it is some kind of bad luck for the dog (being hit by a stick?), but the other interpretation, and the one I like better, is about how a dog can have good luck and run into a stick, i.e. find something that it wants. There is a similar English saying, "The dog that trots about finds a bone." The "bone" in that English saying makes it less ambiguous: that's good luck! In either case, the meaning I take away from this is that a dog has to walk, and we do too; you do not know what you will find when you go walking... so you just have to walk and see! You will certainly find something.

Wikimedia

My vocabulary for today:

犬

 いぬ  — "dog"

Parable 4: The Boastful Beetle

There was once a tiny beetle who one day wandered into a place where people had enjoyed a wild party the night before.

Seeing a puddle of liquor on the ground, the beetle started drinking, and soon he was drunk.

"I am so mighty," he yelled, "that the world cannot bear my weight!"

An elephant wandered by.

"I'm going to fight you, elephant!" the beetle boasted. "We'll see who is the most mighty!"

The elephant laughed as he pooped and peed on top of the beetle, killing the insect instantly.

The elephant then ran into the forest, trumpeting in triumph.

~ ~ ~

This is one of the hundreds of stories you can read in the Jataka Tales, a collection of Pali stories in which the Buddha teaches the monks with tales of his past lives. Each story begins with an incident involving the Monks, and then the Buddha tells a story which provides a lesson that is relevant to the incident. After he finishes telling the story, the Buddha then identifies the characters in the story as past incarnations. You can see how that works here, in a literal translation of this jataka story by W. D. Rouse: Gūthapāṇajātaka. You can read another translation here.

art by Utagawa Yoshimori

Haiku 4: The chicken looking at something...

Here is today's haiku:

秋の風鷄の見るもの我に見えぬ

And in romaji:

aki no kaze tori no miru mono ware nimienu

And English: "Autumn wind; the chicken looking at something I can't see."

This is another haiku by Kato Shuson. I really like the idea of how we all see the world in our own way: the chicken sees its world, I see my world... and we also share the world, during all the seasons of the year. The bird, 鷄 or 鶏, tori, doesn't have to be a chicken, but I like imagining it as a chicken.

shamo chicken

My vocabulary for today:

鷄
とり
"chicken; bird"