Thursday, December 18, 2008

Transient

A famous spiritual teacher came to the front door of the King's palace. None of the guards tried to stop him as he entered and made his way to where the King himself was sitting on his throne.
"What do you want?" asked the King, immediately recognizing the visitor.
"I would like a place to sleep in this inn,"replied the teacher.
"But this is not an inn," said the King,"It is my palace."
"May I ask who owned this palace before you?"
"My father. He is dead."
"And who owned it before him?"
"My grandfather. He too is dead."
"And this place where people live for a short time and then move on - did I hear you say that it is NOT an inn?"

3 comments:

Vaibhav Bhandari said...

"yeh duniya sirf ek saray hi toh hai, isse kaisa moh aur kya mera"

Not only the house we are living in but the world itself is a lodge, a rest house; where people come for a short duration, relax and leave. And other one comes.

And the same thing applies to all the objects. Then why attachment with them. Coz today what is ours, was with somebody else in past and will be with someone else tomorrow. We didn't even create them, nor can we destroy, still we claim the ownership. How strange?

Anonymous said...

Claiming ownership is a way where humans can satisfy their egos .Transient nature of life do not deter people to create for future generations .Whats the harm if some kind of attachement improves the passage of time till we are here.

Vaibhav Bhandari said...

This 'attachment' is the basic cause of all problems, all the sufferings, sir. Satisfaction or happiness based on illusion can never be real. And that's why there is so much of suffering all over.

And what you say is satisfying ego by claiming ownership is actually the very cause of ego. Rather that generates ego - 'me' and 'my'; instead of satisfying ego.

This Zen story entails the fact that in this temporary world where every thing is impermanent, don't get attached, which will result in dropping of EGO.

The king got annoyed when the teacher called his palace an inn. It triggered his ego because he was attached to his palace, which is actually not his. He is just holding a temporary post there. He was living in an illusionary world, far away from reality, full of ego.