I'm trying to find the exact wording of a Zen - or another spiritual tradition's - parable, but I can't find it, and I have spent over a minute searching the web. That's my limit. But what I can do, is make it up, fill in the details that either weren't there to begin with, or that I have forgotten.
So one day the master, sitting where he likes in the afternoon by the pond, receives the recently arrived American novice Jerry-chan. The novice says, "master-san, each day as I wake, I am overcome by disgust that my day-trading career, once so successful, and yet now in tatters, was a complete waste. And that I should have listened to my father's advice to 'pursue a career that gives, for this is the only source of true happiness.' But what did he know, he sold vacuum cleaners for god's sake! And then there is my ex-wife who constantly harangues me for child support, when I can barely make my condo and boat payments. And the Beemer. But the bitc - excuse me - my ex, she got the friggin' house. It's that brat Gerald, sucking the life-blood out of me at that preppie boarding school, scheiße!" Jerry-chan is in his early forties, has some gray in an otherwise stylishly coiffed jet-black hairdo. A two-day beard stubble highlights his angular features, and he is greatly admired for his handsome appearance. Save for the scowl lines that seem to be slowly marking their way down the sides of his mouth. When he isn't forcing his usual game face smile that is, like just now at the monastery. He looks down at the still water beneath them, and says, "and look at this," he gestures with his right hand moving in a circle around his face, "I'm starting to go gray - and look at these," he squints and points at the crow's feet either side of his eyes.
Master Jikan, whose name means 'silent one' looks at Jerry-chan with compassion, and the slightest hint of mirth in the curl of his lips. From his features, he looks like he could be fifty, or a hundred and fifty. He points up the hillside to where the cave is located, and holds up two fingers. Jerry-chan begins guessing, "two hours, days, weeks? What do you mean?" The master's helpers explain that Jerry-chan would need to spend as long as it takes to receive at least two insights that the cave holds.
Having packed his bundle of provisions for what he thought would be an afternoon - tops - he enters the cave. As he proceeds into the increasing darkness, holding a small lantern, by turns he beholds and recoils at the gruesome paintings on the walls. Wild animals, in poses of attack, also take his breath away.
After wandering for many hours, in one large chamber he finds a platform that could serve as a bed. He sits down to meditate in the fashion of the monastery, but soon finds distractions, and all of his worries come to him in relentless waves. Repeating a mantra, or 'following the breath' seem to bring no relief. Within an hour he falls asleep. He dreams of being gored by the ferocious animals, surrounded by other victims in their agony as they had been depicted on the cave walls. He wakes in a cold sweat.
The lamp beside him has gone out, and once he manages to find matches he relights it. Lying on his back, he opens his eyes to behold a mirror on the ceiling of the cave above him. It is just large enough to make out his general form, illuminated as it casts flickering shadows. He does not know how long he has slept, but he feels an overwhelming hunger. He eats a bowl of cold rice with tamari, sips some cool spring water, and packs his satchel. He retraces his steps to the entrance of the cave, where it is morning.
What insight might he have reached? If it isn't too obvious (even Jerry-chan got it), his worries and troubles were every bit as 'real' as these paintings - that is to say, they were inventions from a hypersensitive imagination, not happening now in this moment - and he would go back to them over and over, feeling the same emotions of dread and self-loathing. The insight that took longer to find, was that he alone is responsible for painting these inside the cave of his mind, that there was no source outside his own psyche that tormented him. This second insight was to take him many subsequent visits to the cave, and years of practice. And a further insight, namely how to find refuge from the pain these images and ideas and opinions cause, would take him a decade more.
In the case of Peter-chan - though I heard a much shorter (and hence more powerful) version of the parable some years ago - it only recently made any sense to me. Actually, in the version I heard, the insight - or insights - were not spelled out, but one was left to ponder the idea of a monk, or novice, painting and being frightened by such images, over and over again.
So to further spoil the tale, I'll elaborate: I have come to see how I will continually cast scary images on the walls of the 'cave' in my mind. What could she possibly have meant by that? What if he actually does it, how could I go on living? What will happen if I lose my sight? My ability to walk? To drive?
We can be such masterful painters it seems, scaring ourselves so many many times.
[Bonus question: in my depiction of Jerry-chan (a completely added-on conceit for this telling of the tale), the typical stereotype of what I might consider an antithesis of myself - or at least of my aspirations - have I painted with too broad a brush? Thereby denying the fact the he, like all of us, deserves and wishes to be free of suffering?]
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