Stupid Crow and Us

April 2014 edition

Stupid Crow and Us

Article summary

Let’s enjoy a short story while we apply that to our own lives to realize what we are missing all these days!

Once there was a heavy rain and all the rivers begins to flood.  A dead body of an Elephant happen to float on this flooding river.  A crow saw this and flew into the dead body.  And then the crow had a bite from the flesh and then thought "wow!!! What a marvelous treasure I found.   I should never leave this". So he decided to stay on the dead body of the Elephant.  He ate bit of flesh and had a bit of the same flooding river and thought "Wow!!! What a life I have… this is call life…"

There was something going behind the scene where the crow did not has much time to notice.  The dead body of the Elephant was floating towards to the sea as the river goes to the sea.  And then it floated towards the middle of the sea where our poor crow couldn't notice at all as he was blind fold by the pleasure he was having. 

When the dead body of Elephant reach to the ocean fishes also began to have some bite of it… now it has only few more flesh to entertain the crow & the crowd.  Then crow realize that the coming way is not healthy at all… so the crow wanted to find a way out from the danger. 

He flew into the north… and then to the south… and to the east & west… to the each direction where he can find a shore.  But the poor crow didn't know that he was too late to looking for a shore.  When he found out he thought I should go back to the few flesh left from that dead body of the Elephant.  He found nothing… He flew & flew without out food and water… got tired and dead!  That's the story of the stupid crow.

Didn't you found something similar to our life style in there?   The entertainment process from the forms, sounds, fragrances, tastes & touches which we call life is possible to compare to the dead body of the Elephant.  Just like the dead body of the Elephant float towards to the ocean with the crow on it, our life & its pleasures are also decaying… changing and reaching towards to the death in each moment.

We entering to the process of having pleasure on our young age and then we paying off the debt as a middle age person by going through a heavy restless, stressful life style where there is no true happiness.   And then in the old age where we can't have the pleasure we used to have as a young person we realize the meaninglessness of the process and we begin to sense the fear of death, old age & sicknesses and many more mental disasters.  Just like the stupid crow who wanted to fly into a shore when the dead body of Elephant begin to vanish.

So my dear dhamma friends, why you want to be lost in the illusory existence which we call samsaric ocean just like that stupid crow lost his way on the middle of the ocean?  Why you desire to run behind a hallucination by thinking it's possible to achieve.  There is nothing else to explain more… The Great Samma Sambuddha said, there are some wise people in this world that even a simple example or simile is enough them to understand the deep dhamma easily!

So… So… At the end of the day decision is all yours. Be wise as a rare human being and realize the noble opportunity which you already received!!!  Have a blessed life!!! May triple gem bless you for the best!!!

Rajitha Viduransi | Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

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