Chapter 68: Strawberries

Amazing photo by Shari Fleming Photography. Wig by Angel Hair and Carolyn Anderson Salon. Both in Minnetonka, MN

 Yesterday evening, I cozied up under two warm blankets as the foggy, chilly fall weather made its way into my home. A few hours later, I found myself completely mesmerized by a nonfiction book, The Buddhist on Death Row.

This book is about (as you may have guessed) a prisoner on death row who finds comfort in Buddhism and ends up becoming a well-known Buddhist student and writer. In this book, an ancient Buddhist story is told. Despite the incredible amount of reading I have done over the past few months, this story was new to me and instantly became one of my favorites.

I don’t think you need to practice Buddhism or be religious in any way to relate to this story, which is why I want to talk about it.

The tale goes something like this- a man is alone outside. He sees tigers chasing him and he runs towards a high cliff in front of him. There is a vine hanging from the cliff, so he grabs onto it and pulls himself up, just out of the angry tigers reach below. As he is climbing the vine, he hears a chewing noise above him. He looks up and sees mice chewing through the vine, his one and only lifeline. The man faces a dilemma- tigers below, small thread of vine in a mouse’s mouth above. A beautiful, red strawberry is growing out of a plant on the cliff in front of him. In this moment, what does the man do? He eats the strawberry, the most delicious strawberry he has ever tasted.

Ok. So, I loved this story from the first moment I read it. In my mind, this story had an obvious message- enjoy life in the present moment, because the present moment is the only one you can guarantee.

Interestingly, I googled this story before attempting to write this blog post and I found much disagreement about the lesson of this story.

Some people believe the man in this story was a fool; he was enchanted by a temporary pleasure (a strawberry) instead of focusing on saving his life.

Others believe the man was running an impossible race against mortality- running from death (tigers) with time (mice) pushing him closer to his ultimate fate, with the strawberry simply being a distraction.

Take from it what you will. Ultimately, I think the meaning of this story is simpler than all that. I think it’s incredibly easy to feel fear. We all have our own tigers and our natural instinct is to try and escape them. Problem is, the mice are always waiting. The vine won’t hold us forever. We can climb, only to find the vine cut down above us just as we’re about to escape the tigers waiting below.

If we spend our lives running from tigers to an uncertain future, we may miss the sweet strawberry sitting in front of our face.

Today, taste the strawberry. The tigers will always be there, but perhaps they make the strawberry taste even sweeter.

Thanks for reading my philosophical musings of the day. In other life updates, I have my next MRI in three days. I’ll be trying to enjoy the strawberries of my own life until then, since I don’t yet know how many tigers or mice wait for me. No use worrying about it now.

PS: I met an amazing graphic designer this week who is working on the cover of my upcoming book, Difficult Gifts. Stay tuned for more updates on publication through the “Book” page of this blog, and please subscribe for very infrequent email updates. Pre-order will be available starting in October.

Fondly,

Courtney

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