The Parable of the Empty Boat

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You may recognize yourself in this story. What happens around you is often shaped by what’s happening within you.

A monk wishing to meditate away from others takes a boat and goes to the middle of a lake. He closes his eyes and begins to meditate. After a few hours of uninterrupted silence, he suddenly feels and hears a bumping of another boat hitting his.

He keeps on with his practice, with his eyes still closed, slightly disturbed though by the interruption of silence. He then feels the bump again. Now his thoughts rise and an irritation stirs within him. His anger rises to the point that he cannot contain it any longer. He is ready to shout at the boatman "who dares to disturb my meditation!"

However, when he opened his eyes, all that he sees is an empty boat, just floating in the middle of the lake… At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization and understands that anger is within him; it simply needs to hit an external object to provoke it.

After that, whenever the monk met someone or something that irritated or provoked his anger, he remembered: “It is just an empty boat...The anger is inside me."