An Allegory for
Humanity
Mario Rodrigues Cobos aka “SILO”
These are the great enemies of humanity: fear of
sickness, fear of poverty, fear of death, fear of loneliness. All these forms of
suffering pertain to your mind, and all of them reveal your inner violence, the
violence that is in your mind. Notice how that violence always stems from desire.
The more violent a person is, the more gross are that person’s desires.
I would like to tell you a story that took place
long ago.
There was
once a traveler who had to undertake a long journey. He yoked his animal to a
cart and began the journey to his faraway destination, a journey he had to
complete within a certain length of time. He called the animal Necessity
and the cart Desire; one wheel of the cart he called Pleasure,
and the other he called Pain. Our traveler turned his cart
sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, yet he never ceased moving
toward his destiny. The faster the cart traveled, the faster turned the wheels
of Pleasure and Pain, carrying as they did the cart of Desire and connected as
they were by the same axle.
But the
journey was very long, and after a time our traveler grew bored. So he decided
to decorate his cart, and he began to adorn it with all manner of beautiful
things. But the more he embellished the cart of Desire with these ornaments,
the heavier became the load for Necessity to pull. On the curves and steep
hills of the road, the poor animal grew too exhausted to pull the cart of
Desire. And where the road was soft, the wheels of Pleasure and Suffering
became mired in the earth.
One day,
because the road was long and he was still very far from his destination, our
traveler grew desperate. That night he decided to meditate on the problem, and
in the midst of his meditation he heard the neighing of his old friend,
Necessity. Comprehending the message, he arose very early the next morning and
began to lighten the cart of its burden, stripping it of all its fine
adornments. Then he set off once more toward his destination, with the animal
Necessity pulling the cart at a brisk trot. Still, our traveler had already
lost much time—time that was now irrecoverable. The next night he sat down
again to meditate, and he realized, thanks to another message from his old
friend, that now he had to undertake a task that was doubly difficult because
it involved his letting go. At daybreak he sacrificed the cart of Desire. It is
true that when he did so he lost the wheel of Pleasure, but then he also lost
the wheel of Suffering. And so, abandoning the cart of Desire, he mounted the
animal called Necessity and galloped on its back across the green fields until
he reached his destiny.
See how
desire can trap you. But notice that there are desires of different
qualities. There are cruder desires, and there are more elevated desires.
Elevate desire, purify desire, surpass desire! In doing so, surely you will
have to sacrifice the wheel of Pleasure—but you will also become free of the
wheel of Suffering.
Keith and Marnie
Elliott’s “REMEDY” Site
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