One day Buddha was passing by a forest on a hot summer day and he felt very thirsty. He said to Ananda, his chief disciple, “Ananda, you go back. Just four miles back we passed a small stream of water. You bring a little water — take my begging bowl. I am feeling very thirsty and tired.”
Ananda goes back, but by the time he reaches the stream, a few bullock carts have just passed through the stream and they have made the whole stream muddy. Dead leaves which had settled into the bed have risen up; it was no longer possible to drink the water — it was too dirty. He came back empty-handed, and he said, “You will have to wait a little. I will go ahead. I have heard that just two, three miles ahead there is a big river. I will bring water from there.” But Buddha insists. He said, “You go back and bring water from the same stream.”
Ananda could not understand the insistence, but if the master says so, the disciple has to follow. Seeing the absurdity of it — that again he will have to walk three, four miles, and he knows that water is not worth drinking — he goes.
When he was going, Buddha said, “And don’t come back if the water is still dirty. If it is dirty, you simply sit on the bank silently. Don’t do anything, don’t get into the stream. Sit on the bank silently and watch. Sooner or later the water will be clear again, and then you fill the bowl and come back.”
Ananda goes there. Buddha is right: the water is almost clear, the leaves have moved, the dust had settled. But it was not absolutely clear yet, so he sat on the bank just watching the river flow by. Slowly slowly, it became crystal-clear. Then he understood why Buddha was so insistent. He gave the water to Buddha and touched his feet.
Buddha said, “What are you doing? I should thank you that you have brought water for me.”
Ananda said, “At first I was angry, because it was absurd to go back. But now I understand the message. Sitting on the bank of that small stream, I became aware that the same is the case with my mind. If I jump into the stream I will make it dirty again. If I jump into the mind more noise is created, more problems would start unravelling"
“Now I will be sitting by the side of my mind too, watching it with all its dirtiness and problems and old leaves and hurts and wounds, memories, desires. Unconcerned I will sit on the bank and wait for the moment when everything is clear.”
As they say, if we can control our mind we can control everything inside-out not only concerning us but the whole universe. The objective should be crystal clear, that's the ask
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