Zen stories to nurture the soul
Good luck, bad luck ... do we have to be grateful for everything?
One day I heard a teacher say that we can only see the totality if we understand life not as a chain of isolated events, but as an absolute event from beginning to end, that is, from the day we are born, until the day we die. If we lead a fragmented life, then we focus on the small incidents, we miss that totality and we do not understand that everything that happens as part of a great staging. The whole is huge, but the fragments are so tiny that if we base our lives on the balances of those little segments, we will certainly lose sight of the end result.
There is a very old Zen tale that tells the story of a farmer who had a majestic horse. The steed helped with the sowing and harvesting tasks and that is why it was very important to the family; He was strong and muscular, but at the same time tame and gentle. One day the horse escaped from the stable and, knowing how important it was to the family, the neighbors came to comfort the farmer while muttering: "What bad luck." To which the farmer replied: "bad luck, good luck, who knows ... we have to be thankful for everything." The next day the horse returned accompanied by three magnificent wild mares, who followed it peacefully to the stable. Upon learning, the neighbors came to see the miracle with their own eyes while exclaiming with joy: "What good luck!". The farmer replied: “Good luck, bad luck, who knows… we have to be grateful for everything ”. A few days later the farmer's son was riding one of the fillies to prepare her for field work, when she kicked, throwing him hard to the ground. The young man broke his leg and could not help the family in the fields for a season. The neighbors went to visit the afflicted and when they approached the farmer to offer their condolences they whispered: "what bad luck." Again the farmer replied: “bad luck, good luck, who knows… we have to be thankful for everything”. A few weeks later, a series of invasions occurred in the kingdom so the army began to mobilize from town to town to recruit the young men. Having a broken leg, the farmer's son was excused and allowed to stay home. The neighbors exclaimed in wonder: "What good luck!" The farmer repeated: “good luck, bad luck… we have to be thankful for everything”.
The story continues to narrate the fragmented events of the farmer's life, but his response to each was always the same. He knew that he should not be carried away by the result of the fragments since, regardless of the product of each of those events, the total result at the end of his life would be the same and the only thing that would change would be the way he dealt with them. The chosen attitude would not change the event at all: it could face the events with resentment and anger or it could do so with patience and acceptance. The only difference is the way each of these experiences is lived.
The same thing happens to us, life continues its march and, throughout it, we find various events that make us happy or perhaps cause us some pain or anguish. But what we must do is recognize that this event is only part of the whole, observe the emotion that it provokes in us and create greater awareness about the path that we had to travel. Only then can we change our perspective from victims to that of heroes of our own history.