Here is a funny little story. A saintly man was respected and revered by the whole village and many students asked for his teachings. Then, it happened that he was falsely accused of an offensive action. When the villagers attacked him with harsh accusations, asking him to sort out the mess, he smiled and answered, “Very well, very well,” and readily complied with their request. The saintly man’s reputation was consequently ruined and his students abandoned him. After some time the real culprit confessed to be responsible for the offensive action so the villagers, sorry and ashamed, ran back to the teacher to ask for his forgiveness and to repay him in full. He smiled and replied, “Very well, very well.” The end!
When you first read this story, you will probably smile and think, “Wasn’t he a nice man! Kind of funny, though. And a bit too naïve and accommodating.” Then you tell others as a joke, enjoying the fact that you have added a small, additional piece of “knowledge” to your baggage of notions, no matter how tiny or apparently insignificant it may seem. Subsequently it might happen (as it happened to me!) that this parable comes back to your mind and, thinking it over, you feel there is something deeper that needs to be learned. You reflect upon it for a while and come to the conclusion that a morale can be found behind the saintly man’s behavior. What is it? It could be patience, acceptance, tolerance, non-judgment. Interesting! You say, “Now I feel I really understand its meaning. That strange, even amusing behavior that seems at first so illogical (who would be so naïve?) is actually almost heroic.” Everybody, in fact, would have first got angry at the false accusations and then tried to defend himself. Later, when asked for forgiveness, any human being would have felt in a position of superiority, having been publicly recognized as the good person he (or she) was. But the good teacher didn’t do anything of the sort. He calmly accepted both the accusations and the apologies, replied kindly and ... kept his peace in either case.
After such reflections, you feel proud of yourself because you understood something that had at first escaped your awareness, due to the superficial attention you had given the “joke.” But it is not over yet.
Eventually, as the parable seems to be haunting you, a new intuition dawns on you. You start wondering how “you” would have reacted, having to face the village teacher’s situation. You examine your feelings, you may recall when something similar occurred to you and remember your reaction, your upset, your denial, your recriminations. You had been extremely angry and maybe a friendship was destroyed. You had the right to do it and... you did it. Now you start to realize that such a predicament was not, after all, too big an issue. Maybe the friendship you gave up could have been saved, maybe it was more important that the offense. After all they apologized, didn’t they? But your pride was wounded, you felt resentful and swore to never forget and forgive the outrageous offense. When you are able to perceive how exaggerated your reaction, and consequent behavior have been, can you also admit that it was not worth it, that the only practical result you got was anger and upset. While you thought you were punishing your “offender,” you only created turmoil and loss of peace for yourself.
Now that you have a new, clear view of a past episode of your life thanks to a funny little story, after “knowledge” (learning something new) and “understanding” (getting the deeper meaning), you have finally achieved “wisdom” (a new, more positive belief) because you were able to teach something useful and beneficial to yourself. You are your best teacher, provided you try to detect the deeper meaning of what happens around you. Wisdom can be obtained during a shopping trip to the mall as well as while reading a magazine or watching TV. What is needed is a simple thing, that is so often overlooked and neglected: “Attention”!
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