Here is a beautiful little story which I found today. It inspired me and so I want to share it. At first glance it does not seem to have to do anything with Thailand or Thai massage since the story is clearly of western origin. But at second glance it shows that the Buddhist principles of kindness, going within, karma, and dealing with adversity are totally expressed in this story.
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Here in Chiang Mai several temples have regular “monk chats”. The monk is available to answer questions or tells stories or just teaches about Buddhist concepts. Anyone can attend, and some of those chats are held by English speaking monks for the benefit of the westerners. The monk with his shaved head and orange robe might look more exotic than the western grandma in the story below, but they talk about the same things, just in different words.
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Buddhism in Thailand has a remarkable tolerance and acceptance of other religions and faiths. Foreigners are always welcome in all temples. They are free to attend any ceremonies or festivities. There is a total absence of competition between religions, and there is never any attempt made to concert anyone to Buddhism, even if westerners spend extended periods of time in meditation temples.
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True spiritual concepts do not belong to any one culture or religion. They surface in different shapes and stories and legends and show us that below the surface there is much more similarity than difference in the world. Here is a beautiful story which fits very well into this crosscultural context, and which could have been told by a Buddhist monk in slighly different words:
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What PENCIL teaches us
A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point, he asked: ’Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me?’
His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson: ‘I’m writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I’m using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.’
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special. ‘But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!’
‘That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on to them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.
‘First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.
‘Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, it is much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.
‘Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.
‘Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So, always pay attention to what is happening inside you.
‘Finally,the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action.’
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