Wednesday, October 14, 2009

it's all in the mind

In The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buddhism, Gary Gach shares the following story.

Korean monk Wonhyo (617-686 C.E.) set out for China to study Buddhism.  On the road one night, he took shelter in a cave.  He found a gourd of pure water, which he drank.  Content, he then fell asleep.  At dawn, he awoke startled to discover he'd spent the night in a tomb and that he'd drunk putrid water from an old skull.  It came to him in a flash that "mind creates all things, all things are products of the mind alone."  Realizing this, he turned around, as there was no longer any need to study in China.  He studied his own mind instead and went on to become one of Korea's greatest Buddhist teachers and scholars.

In our Buddhism class on Sunday, Howard shared a story of a man and woman who were so very hungry that they finally decided to eat their infant child in order to sustain themselves and live.  Of course, anyone who reads or hears this is immediately repulsed and thinks, "How in the world could someone do that to a child?".  Yet, when we eat meat or eggs, aren't we eating someone else's children?  It's all about perspective in your own mind.

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