The parable of the vinegar tasters

Another short tale, this time based on a traditional Chinese painting subject, also known as the Vinegar Tasters.

Three wise men were travelling across the country, going from town to town to teach wisdom. At one town in particular, they were welcomed warmly by the townspeople, and offered gifts of the town's produce. One of the gifts was a large pot of vinegar. The first of the wise men dipped his finger into the vinegar, tasted it, and a sour expression came across his face. "This vinegar is too sour," he said, "take it away." The second of the wise men dipped his finger into the vinegar, tasted it, and a scowl came across his face. "This vinegar tastes terrible. It is far  too bitter, take it away." Then the third man dipped his finger into the vinegar, tasted it, and smiled. "Mmm!" The other two looked at him confused. "Now this tastes like vinegar!"

In the Chinese tradition, the three vinegar tasters are Confucius, Buddha and Loazi, and each one's reaction is representative of their respective religion's attitude on life. Confucius sees the vinegar as soured wine, and sees it in need of correction, just as society should be maintained through strict rules. Buddha recoils at the  taste of the vinegar, and sees it as being too extreme for the body and an example of the suffering of life. Laozi, on the other hand, recognises that vinegar is what it is, and our perception of it is biased by our judgement of what it "should be".

In the same way, all indifferents, be they goods such as vinegar or money or fine arts or even medicine, or events such as celebrations or tragedies or deaths, are all as they are and nothing more, neither inherently good nor bad. Recognise them as such and you will see how your perception has been coloured, and know where you have mistakenly placed your values. Only then will you be able to accept yourself as part of the harmony of Nature, rather than willing yourself against it.

The parable of the lost toy

Consider, if you will, this short tale adapted from/inspired by Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

A father takes his young son to the playground one fine weekend afternoon, as good fathers are wont to do. The boy has brought along with him his favourite toy to play with. After a round on the swings, the boy is let loose on the rest of the equipment while the father sits at a nearby bench to read the newspaper, making sure to glance up every couple of minutes to make sure everything is going fine, which it is, that is until he hears a gasp of horror and a terrible wailing. He looks up in a fright to see that the boy is weeping and running around the playground looking at the ground. After a frantic interrogation, he learns that the boy has lost his toy somewhere while he was running and climbing and playing as boys do.

The father helps look for the toy, but it is small, and has disappeared, much in the way that small toys do. Eventually the search is given up, though the boy is no less distressed. Does the father join him in his wailing and weeping? Does the father say, "Come here, and together we can mourn the loss."? No, he lays his arm around his son's shoulders and tells him that even though he is sad now, and that is to be expected, everything will be all right in the end. He knows this because he has lost many toys in his time, and in his age has acquired the wisdom to know that from time to time toys go missing, just as from time to time they break or are given up by their owners for whatever reason. It is one thing to provide comfort to those who need it, and another entirely to join in their passion, a passion founded as all are on an assumption you know to be untrue, that loss can be avoided and no separation is permanent.

The parable of the raft

Three men were trapped on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. 'Trapped' may be the wrong word to use here; the island was a hospitable one, and offered much in the way of food, water and shelter, and since they found themselves there one day the three men had led lives of relative comfort. However, they agreed that the time had come for them to leave the island.
The first man threw himself into the ocean and was dragged by the currents almost immediately down the beach. He struggled to stay above water before he eventually scrambled on to some rocks and pulled himself back inland before trudging back to their camp by the beach.
The second man tut-tutted the first and pulled out from the jungle a raft. "The other man is a fool to try and swim through those currents," he said. "I took my shelter and fashioned a raft from the wood. I'll have no such problems as him." So he dragged his raft out into the water, stepped on board and pushed off from the sand. He drifted out into the water with a grin on his face directed squarely on the first man, still dripping wet, but still set on swimming from the island.
But soon enough the current took the second man too, and pulled him down the shore. As he rounded the rocks, he passed out of the sight of the third man. "That man thinks himself superior for his raft," he mused, "but whether he is taken back to shore or left at sea, he will always be at the mercy of the currents."
And so the third man pulled out a raft of his own, made also from his shelter, but unlike the first man, he had taken the time to venture away from the camp to the interior of the island to gather materials for fashioning oars and a sail of palm leaves, and so when he cast himself out into the water, unlike the first two men who were doomed to follow where the fickle currents took them, he was able to sail away from the island, away from its currents, and go where he wanted.

In this story, the camp represents childhood, situated on an island of wider formative influences. The currents are indifferent desires, such as for wealth and fame, which both come about from the presence of the island itself and surround it. There must come a time for all youth to venture out into the world, both literally and metaphorically, and grow up. All the men in the story recognise this. The first man tries to do so, but is subject to his desires and almost becomes lost in them, to the point where he ventures back to the safety of what he knows, his bubble of influence, to keep from drowning. The second man knows that one cannot expect to swim against the current and succeed, so he builds a raft, and thinks himself all the cleverer for it, despite the fact that he is just as subject to the whim of his desires as the first man. Though the lessons learnt from childhood keep him afloat, he still goes blindly where his wants take him, and so he will never stray far from the roost. The third man recognises, however, that he must draw on a wider experience if he is to ever grow into his own man. Drawing from other parts of the island allows him to give his life new direction away from the island and towards other lands of learning and growing.

Most young adults are akin to the second man. They look at those whose lives are governed by crime or the bottle and think themselves all the wiser because they have taken up the trappings of adulthood, responsibilities towards themselves and others, and are content enough, blind to the fact that they follow the whims of worldly desires, those same destructive influences as the ones they look down on. When people come to reach the age of adulthood, they are fooled by their parents and their education into thinking their raft is a steel-hulled ship, capable of going anywhere and doing anything, even staying out at sea indefinitely. No, such ships take time and expertise to construct, and in order to do so one must visit many ports on many islands, and upgrade their raft from there. That is why it is the third man we should try to be most like. Draw from as wide a pool of learning as you can (the sort of learning about life, not the sort you find in a textbook) and consciously try to construct as good a raft as you can. Only then will you be able to reach those other ports to improve your boat even still. It may expose you to the elements, but isn't that worth it for the possibility of true freedom? Better to work at becoming a truly free person than allow yourself to always be brought back to that same old shore, and let the one that bore you become the one you die on.

The lesson is this: experience is knowledge of life. Learn experience where you can and then use that experience to learn more, because the more experience you garner the wiser you become, and wisdom is the key to freedom from desire, the only true freedom. Do not be seduced by your wants and "needs", they are phantasms and, if not heeded, will keep you from attaining the wisdom that grants you freedom and the happiness that follows.