XPost: alt.support.depression, alt.support.schizophrenia, alt.bu
dha.short.fat.guy
XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism
From: slider@anashram.com
On Sat, 17 Aug 2024 15:04:15 +0100, one wrote:
> slider wrote:
>> one wrote:
>>
>>> Sounds to me like stereotyping straw people.
>>> A story told similar to the well-frog and sea-turtle.
>>> One is reminded, at times, how happy the frog was
>>> and how the turtle was unable to see what was
>>> in the well about which the frog was happy.
>>
>> ### - (smile) if the turtle in that story had never appeared then the
>> question about the frog being happy or not wouldn't have ever arisen,
>> that
>> life (that perception of life) was all that frog ever knew and was
>> familiar with and so he lived as best he could within the confines of
>> the
>> well which was his home, he didn't even think to question it, after all
>> it
>> was all he'd ever known...
>
> Froggy was the supreme being of the well.
>
>> the turtle turning-up on the scene alters the picture, however, after
>> roaming around in the larger world outside he meets a happy frog stuck
>> down a well,
>
> If, in your telling of the tale, the frog is stuck
> it strikes me as a kind of a bias of a sort.
>
>> a lovely average frog who isn't even complaining about his
>> situation and has made a life for himself down there because there isn't
>> any other choice for him...
>
> It is your story to tell.
>
> In another tale, at the beginning of the chapter,
> the Lord of the River meets the God of the North Sea.
>
> To bring choice or no-choice in to a telling may tell
> how a story teller tells a story.
>
> The frog might have been able to choose
> to leap out of the well and explore a realm
> yet never go as far as a notion.
>
>> that turtle, however, has perhaps seen and met other average frogs
>> living
>> in the wider world above, where it's obvious to anyone there that this
>> is
>> where all frogs belong, their natural environment, and like everything
>> else they are part of the wider world, it's their natural home... so
>> when
>> he happens upon a frog whose been living down a well for several
>> generations he considers that to be a limited existence for a frog who
>> 'should' be jumping around in the light and not stuck down some hole in
>> the ground...
>
> You seem to be saying there is a sticking point.
>
>> and being a very kind turtle he takes pity on the poor frog, knowing
>> from
>> past experience that there's a much bigger/wider world that all frogs
>> are
>> part of...
>>
>> but hey, maybe that frog is a suspicious and arrogant little frog,
>> conceited in his beliefs, or just scared that the turtle maybe wants to
>> eat him, or steal his home or whatever, the turtle, however, sees only a
>> frog stuck in a hole and being forced to live a limited perception of
>> life...
>
> Wow.
>
>> and, after talking to that frog and getting no response (except maybe
>> rude
>> ones) he sadly turns away thinking that maybe that little frog just
>> wasn't
>> ready to hear his message of freedom this time, the best he was able to
>> do
>> for him being to at least let that poor frog know that 'maybe' there's a
>> much better/bigger world outside of his current home where he actually &
>> naturally belongs, but doesn't realise it...
>>
>> yet ;)
>
> Sounds like an evangelism failure.
### - well that's exactly what the frog said too lol, and closed the door?
will tell you one last story then, it's kinda true but am telling it in my
own, flowery/exaggerated way, so don't take anything 'too' literally, ok?
ya have to read it between the lines kinda thing ;)
i.e., back in the time of the buddha not long after he'd gathered his
first few students, rumours spread around locally that something weird was
going-on up at this buddha-dudes camp, strange smiling people with shining
eyes seen wandering around and coming and going from the place
eventually, a local reporter got onto the story and decided to go and
investigate, and walked into this camp looking for an interview with this
buddha-cat, to ask him what's going on here...
sure enough and true to the reports going around, there's a whole bunch of
odd people wandering around in this camp with beatific, idiotic smiles on
their faces, talking to themselves and laughing and pointing at quite
ordinary things and then staring at them in awe like they've seen them
before??
our reporter asks everyone he passes where he can find this buddha-chap
but none of them responds to him like they can't hear him or don't know
what he's saying, they just stare and laugh insanely and continue with
what they were doing...
eventually, he comes to a little clearing and finds some old guy sitting
by a pool dipping his hand into the water and letting it run out again
through his fingers, and somehow he knows that this is the dude he was
looking for whose running the place, and asks him what the hell is going
on here and why the hell is everyone acting so strangely??
and without answering him, the buddha just points to a pure white lotus
flower blooming vividly above the cesspit it has its roots in and is
growing up out of... and something strange happens to our reporter as it
slowly dawns on him what the buddha is saying/suggesting...
and then 20 minutes later he too is wandering around the place laughing
and joking and smiling at everything and everybody, just like he'd never
seen any of it ever before ;)
the end. :)
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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