Shoot that poisoned arrow!

A man gets shot by a poisoned arrow. A doctor rushes to his side to pull out the arrow, but the man resists the life saving treatment. He wants to know the name of the fletcher who made the arrow, the type of wood the arrow is made of, the personality of the man who fixed head to shaft and shot him, the horse the man rode, and a thousand other details that have little bearing on the here and now of living.

The man’s commitment to thinking, thinking, thinking gets in the way of his essential predicament: often our life’s issues are not resolved by more thinking, but often by being in the here and now, getting help and taking action.

Another parable: every body gets shot by an arrow, an arrow of pain. Pain happens. But then we shoot ourselves, with another arrow, right in the soft spot, the already wounded spot. This is the arrow-the story-of our suffering.

We have no choice regarding the first arrow: pain happens. The second arrow of suffering, we have a choice about, whether to live in a story of suffering, which is gasoline on the fire of pain, or stay with the pain, a pain which is impermanent.

Our choice!