First draft...
THE ZEN TIGER AND DALE CARNEGIE
By Jim
Byrne
One day, a Zen master went into the jungle. He was enjoying the scenery: trees, vines, flowers;
and listening to the sounds of the birds chirping, and various animals moving around and calling to each other. Suddenly
he saw a tiger. Unfortunately, the tiger also saw him. He ran for his life; but he ran so fast that he ran off
the edge of a cliff. Falling, he grasped for a tree root which that projected from the face of the cliff, and ended
up hanging from this root with his left hand. The tiger reached the top of the cliff, and stared down hungrily at him,
but could not reach him. He looked down to the foot of the cliff, and saw another tiger, looking up hungrily.
A couple of feet about his left hand, he noticed two little mice gnawing through the tree root, and he realized that before
long he would go crashing down to the foot of the cliff. Then he noticed, to his right, a small strawberry bush, with
a large, ripe, wild strawberry. He reached out and plucked the strawberry with his right hand, and popped it into his
mouth. It tasted delicious.
Explanation: A Zen master does not concern himself with the past (the
tiger up above); nor with the future (the tiger down below). He is supremely centred in the present moment (the ‘strawberry
tasting' present moment).
Illustration:
The past The tiger is up above, and cannot reach you | The
present moment There are no tigers in the present moment | The future The
tiger is down below, and cannot reach you. |
In his book entitled ‘How to
Stop Worrying and Start Living', Dale Carnegie, also deals with the past, present and future. I have extracted just
three of his strategies, and related them to the Zen Tiger story, as follows:
The past "No use crying over spilled milk". (You
should have gone into the forest; the tiger should have seen you; and you should have run over the cliff - if that's what
happened, then that is what should have happened). | The present "Live your
life in day-tight compartments". (The only time that really exists is now. The past is dead and gone.
The future is just a dream. So enjoy the present moment). | The future "I'll
cross that bridge when I come to it". (If the tiger is there when you fall, it must be there when you fall, but
you have no way of knowing that it will be there, since all kinds of things may have changed by the time the ‘future
arrives'." |
These two tables can be integrated as follows..
(to
be continued)...