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• March Banyan Tree

Teaching story
Peace of mind

While walking from one village to another, a teacher and his student suddenly heard a roar behind them. Turning their gaze in the direction of the roar, they saw a big tiger following them.

“What shall we do Master?” asked the student.

The teacher looked at the student and answered in a calm voice: “There are several options. We can fill our minds with paralysing fear so that we cannot move and let the tiger do with us whatever it pleases. We can fight with it, but physically, it is stronger than us. Or we can choose to influence the tiger with the power of our mind by sending it love. Which option do you choose?” “You are the Master. You tell me what to do. We don’t have much time,” responded the student. The master turned his gaze fearlessly towards the tiger, emptied his mind from all thoughts, and entered samadhi (a kind of trance). In his consciousness, he embraced everything in the Universe, including the tiger. In this deep meditation, the consciousness of the teacher became one with that of the tiger. After a little while, the tiger gradually lowered its head and tail and went away. The student asked his teacher in astonishment, “What did you do?” “Nothing. I just cleared all thoughts from my mind and united myself in spirit with the tiger. We became united in peace on the spiritual level. The tiger sensed the inner calmness, peace, and unity, and felt no threat or need to express violence, and so walked away. When the mind is silent and calm, its peace is automatically transmitted to everything and everyone around, influencing them deeply,” concluded the teacher.

Rabindranath Tagore
This, I know

• Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it.

• The small wisdom is like water in a glass: clear, transparent, pure. The great wisdom is like the water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable.

• Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realising that, on the contrary, the mind is itself the principal element of creation.

• The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

• My dearest life, I know you are not mine forever; but do love me, even if it’s for this moment. After that, I shall vanish into the forest where you cast me. I won’t ask anyone for anything again. Give me something that can last me till I die.

• Great calm, generous detachment, selfless love, disinterested effort: these are what make for success in life. If you can find peace in yourself and can spread comfort around you, you will be happier than an empress.

inspiration
Outlook

Forget each kindness that you do
As soon as you have done it.
Forget the praise that falls to you
The moment you have won it.
Forget the slander that you hear
Before you can repeat it.
Forget each slight, each spite, each sheer
Wherever you may meet it. 

Remember every kindness done
To you, whate'er its measure.
Remember praise by others won
And pass it on with pleasure.
Remember every promise made
And keep it to the letter.
Remember those who lend you aid
And be a grateful debtor. 

Remember all the happiness
That comes your way in living.
Forget each worry and distress;
Be hopeful and forgiving.
Remember good, remember truth,
Remember Heaven's above you,
And you will find, through age and youth,
True joys and hearts to love you.

—Priscilla Leonard

ONE-MINUTE WISDOM
Socrates and the marketplace

True philosopher that he was, Socrates believed that the wise person would instinctively lead a frugal life. He himself would not even wear shoes; yet, he fell under the spell of the marketplace and would go there often to look at all the wares on display.
When one of his friends asked why, Socrates said: “I love to go there and discover how many things I am perfectly happy without.”.
—Anthony de Mello

Just for laughs
Honest philosopher 

A Chinese philosopher, widely envied for the court patronage he enjoyed, occasionally responded to certain questions with a humble: “I do not know.”
This once prompted the comment: “But the emperor pays you for what you know.”
“Certainly,” the philosopher replied. “If he paid me for what I did not know, all the wealth in the empire would still fall short of the mark.”

Quote
“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not that one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk—and to act.”

—André Malraux