A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!
This morning, the image above came to mind. East Asian Art history grad school was years and years ago, but this image returns often, and with it, the story that Dr. Glen Webb told. His version was somewhat similar to the one above, but was related as one tale in the many past lives of the Buddha (Jataka).
Dream?: In meditation, my heart knew for the first time, the meaning of this Jataka: the tiger is going to devour me whether from above or below. The beautiful and scary tiger, my death—will come sooner or later.
The tiger and the strawberry (of life) are one. And they can be both sweet and/or sour. May I grasp at life ever so lightly and enjoy it on my way to the inevitable.
This story with its apparent lesson, may not seem to be much of a realization... But it felt like one.
How sweet it tasted!
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Dream?: I'm in Venice, lost and wandering, exhausted in the illogical, cobbled streets in search of lodging. Every view is exquisite, there is amazing art, new friends, wonderful food. A sense of anxiety comes and goes.
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Dream?: Cleaning and organizing a friend's room, I am filled with unexplainable sense of joy and enjoyment. Don't want to wake up. I awake and return to the dream several times.
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tigers! strawberries! love!
The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form.
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In these stories, the future Buddha may appear as a king, an outcast, a deva, an animal—but, in whatever form, he exhibits some virtue that the tale thereby inculcates. The Jātaka genre is based on the idea that the Buddha was able to recollect all his past lives and thus could use these memories to tell a story and illustrate his teachings.
(from Wikipedia)