Mani Man
2008-01-20 - 5:13 p.m.
before/after
strangely
non-functional guestbook
I just wanted to post
the story of the Mani Man, as it's rich meaning can serve you well in
the week to come.
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There was once an old man in far eastern Kham known as the
Mani Man because day and night he could always be found devotedly
spinning his small homemade prayer wheel. The wheel was filled with the
mantra of Great Compassion, Om Mani Padme Hung. The
Mani Man lived with his son and their one fine horse. The son was the
joy of the man�s life; the boy�s pride and joy was the horse.
The man�s wife, after a long life of virtue and service, had long since
departed for a more fortunate future. Father and son lived, free from
excessive wants or needs, in one of several rough stone houses near a
river on the edge of the flat plains. One day their steed
disappeared. The neighbors bewailed the loss of the old man�s sole
material asset, but the stoic old man just kept turning his prayer
wheel, reciting �Om Mani Padme Hung,� Tibet�s national mantra. To
whoever inquired or expressed condolences, he simply said, �Give thanks
for everything. Who can say what is good or bad? We�ll see��
After several days the splendid creature returned, followed by a pair
of wild mustangs. These the old man and his son swiftly trained. Then
everyone sang songs of celebration and congratulated the old man on his
unexpected good fortune. The man simply smiled over his prayer wheel
and said, �I am grateful�but who knows? We shall see.�
Then, while racing one of the mustangs, the boy fell and shattered his
leg. Some neighbors carried him home, cursing the wild horse and
bemoaning the boy�s fate. But the old man, sitting at his beloved son�s
bedside just kept turning his prayer wheel around and around while
softly muttering the gentle mantra of Great Compassion. He neither
complained nor answered their protestations to fate, but simply nodded
his head affably, reiterating what he had said before. �The Buddha is
beneficent; I am grateful for my son�s life. We shall see.�
The next week military officers appeared, seeking young conscripts for
an ongoing border war. All the local boys were immediately taken away,
except for the bedridden son of the Mani Man. Then the neighbors
congratulated the old man on his great good fortune, attributing such
luck to the good karma accumulated by the old man�s incessantly
spinning prayer wheel and the constant mantras on his cracked lips. He
smiled and said nothing.
One day when the boy and his father were watching their fine horses
graze on the prairie grass, the taciturn old man suddenly began to
sing:
�Life just goes around and around,
up and down like a waterwheel;
Our lives are like its buckets,
being emptied and refilled
Again and again.
Like the potter�s clay,
our physical existences
Are fashioned into one form after another:
The shapes are broken
and reformed again and again,
The low wall will be high,
and the high fall down;
the dark will grow light, and the rich lose all.
If you, my son, were an extraordinary child,
Off to a monastery
as an incarnation they would carry you.
If you were too bright, my son,
Shackled to other people�s disputes
at an official�s desk you would be.
One horse is one horse�s worth of trouble.
Wealth is good, but too soon loses its savor,
And can be a burden, a source of quarrel, in the end.
No one knows what karma awaits us,
But what we sow now will be
reaped in lives to come; that is certain.
So be kind to one and all
And don�t be biased,
Based upon illusions regarding gain and loss.
Have neither hope nor fear, expectation nor anxiety;
Give thanks for everything, whatever your lot may be.
Accept everything; accept everyone;
and follow Nature's infallible Law.
Be simple and carefree,
remaining naturally at ease and in peace.
You can shoot arrows at the sky if you like, My son,
but they�ll inevitably fall back to earth.
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