Be Like A Duck.

The other day my wife was upset with something that happened in her office and was feeling very insulted.

This is a very common situation in life. We feel insulted in many ways and forms. Sometimes, person closest to us says or does something which is insulting. Teenage kids insult their parents in many ways. Students insult teachers. Colleagues insult other colleagues.  Where does it begin and where does it end.

When I look back, I had insulted many others and had been insulted myself so many times. If I could, today I would behave differently and would take back those hurts that I had caused to others. But what about the insults others had given me?  How can I undo all those hurts in my own mind?

It dawned on to me that nobody can actually insult me. It is me who is taking the insult. If I could think that the other person is ignorant, most likely suffering from low self esteems him/her self, it would have been easier not to get affected. And there is the key.

There was a famous sage in Bengal, India, called Shri Ramkrishna Paramhansa. He once said, we have to be like the duck living in the water. While the duck is living in the water, the water is not touching it. Give the duck milk mixed with water, it will only drink the milk and leave the water in the bowl. If only we could filter out the good out of the bad in life just like the duck. That is the learning exercise of this life. To learn the good and discard the bad.

Most of the time we carry all negative emotions in our mind. Let me share a story of two Buddhist Monks in Thailand. As you know, Monks are not supposed to touch women. Now this senior monk and his disciple monk were going around from village to village begging for rice. That is a part of monk life where they live on the charity which allows them to remove ego. While going from one village to another, they came across a young girl, dressed in her finery , possibly going to attend a function to another village. But she was waiting hesitantly as the road was full of mud. The senior monk asked her why she was waiting there and on being told that she could not cross the muddy road as it will spoil her dress, the monk picked her up, carried her up across the muddy road and placed her on dry land on the other side. There the two monks took her leave and went their own way for begging to another village.

After quite a while, the young monk asked his guru, master, we are not supposed to touch any woman, then why did you carry her? The old monk replied, my son, I have put her down long time back, why are you still carrying her?

This goes to show, we carry all the weights in our mind. And insults are no exceptions. We take the insults nobody can give it to us. If we can train our mind to be like a duck, it will not get wet even in water. Then we will be free.