Like nearly every family WhatsApp group, mine if often filled with all kinds of forwards – that I tend to largely ignore or quickly glance and not dwell too long on. This morning my sister shared this piece on WhatsApp and it made me stop & think. It’s always sobering to see oneself in the mirror.
As entrepreneurs, there are a million things that frustrate us, tick us off and many times we want to scream at someone – some of us do, others keep it inside and the rest try to drink it off I assume. But this little story or parable brings home the message of “responding and not reacting” – to recognize our reactions stem from what’s inside us and not things that happen outside of us. Enjoy.
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, when 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.
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