This story illustrates the uniquely human ability to cling to the past by holding on to our stories.
When two ducks get into a fight, it never lasts long — they soon separate and fly off in opposite directions. Each duck then flaps its wings vigorously several times. This releases the surplus energy that built up in him during the fight. After they flap their wings, they fly on peacefully as if nothing had ever happened.
Now, if the duck had a human mind, this scene would go very differently. The duck may fly away peacefully, for a moment, but he would not put the fight behind him. He would keep the fight alive in his mind, by thinking and story-making.
The duck’s story would probably go something like this: “I can’t believe what he just did. He came within five inches of me. He has no consideration for my private space. He thinks he owns this pond. I’ll never trust him again. I know he’s already plotting something else to annoy me with. But I’m not going to stand for it. I’m going to teach him a lesson he will never forget.”
And in this way the duck’s mind spins its tale, still thinking and talking about it, days, months, or even years later. He man never see his adversary again, but that doesn’t matter. The single incident has left its impression and now has a life of its own deep within the duck’s mind.
As far as his body is concerned, the fight is still continuing, and the energy his body generates in response to the imaginary fight is emotion, which in turn generates more thinking. This becomes the emotional thinking of the ego. The emotions feed the story and the story feeds the emotions. Endlessly. Unless the duck chooses to recognize that the fight is over, unless he drops the story, he will suffer from the endless cycle of his mind’s creation.
You can see how painful and troublesome the duck’s life would become if he had a human mind. But this is how most of us live all the time. For the average person, no situation or event is ever really over and done with. The mind and the mind-made story keep it going.
Unlike the duck, we are a species that has the power to remember, which is both wonderful and problematic.
Our duck has an important lesson to teach us and his message is this: Flap your wings, which means “let go of the story,” and live your real life — here and now, in the present moment.
~ by Eckhart Tolle
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“In the deepest within — the most infinite beyond — in ever present awareness, your soul expands to embrace the entire Kosmos, so that Spirit alone remains, as the simple world of what is. The rain no longer falls on you, but within you; the sun shines from inside your heart and radiates into the world, blessing it with grace; supernovas swirl in your consciousness, the thunder is the sound of your own exhilarated heart; the oceans and rivers are nothing but your blood pulsing to the rhythm of your soul.
Infinitely ascended worlds of light dance in the interior of your brain; infinitely descended worlds of night cascade around your feet; the clouds crawl across the sky of your own unfettered mind, while the wind blows through the empty space where your self once used to be.
The sound of the rain falling on the roof is the only self you can find, here in the obvious world of crystalline one taste, where inner and outer are silly fictions and self and other are obscene lies, and ever-present simplicity is the sound of one hand clapping madly for all eternity. In the greatest depth, the simplest what is, the journey ends, as it always does, exactly where it began.”
by Ken Wilber
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I was walking through a land which was cleared recently out of its bush for cultivation. The bush was once consisted of tall trees, under growth, and vanes that held it all tight. Now, the trees lie flat on the ground, under growth is chopped up, and vanes aren’t holding anything tight any more. Although, there was a bright Purple flower that caught my eye. It was beautiful, not because of its charm; rather due to its aliveness among the lethargic. It is a vane called “Boo Ma” that managed to survive the carnage.
This certain vane seems to have no remorse, no complaints or no agony about its situation. It is simply doing what it suppose to be doing, and for it, it was the time to blossom. With this realisation as I looked around I could see life leaping out from the dead. Ants are walking in lines again, certain birds are searching through the branches for fresh warms, and the grass is growing green on the naked soil. Nature continues on ever so silently.
It had made me to wonder… Is everything we complain about so passionately so often really worth a complaint?
"The magic is in the doing
Not the thinking, reading
Talking or listening about
But in the get down hands dirty
Shirt off doing."
by Heather Saunders
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