Waxing Poetically: Addressing Culture with a Twist of Poetry

Image Source:buddha-said.net

A man approached the Blessed One and wanted to have all his philosophical questions answered before he would practice.

In response, the Buddha said, “It is as if a man had been wounded by a poisoned arrow and when attended to by a physician were to say, ‘I will not allow you to remove this arrow until I have learned the caste, the age, the occupation, the birthplace, and the motivation of the person who wounded me.’ That man would die before having learned all this. In exactly the same way, anyone who should say, ‘I will not follow the
teaching of the Blessed One until the Blessed One has explained all the multiform truths of the world’-that person would die before the Buddha had explained all this.” -from the Majjhima Nikaya

In this parable, the Buddha explains to the young man that the desires to know certain answers to questions can at times burden the issue. In the same vein, a person could tell another person a fact and then be asked for documentation of that fact. Or, say a car were racing toward a person. Should that person stop and think about the make, model and destination of the car before moving? Of course not. Most likely, he or she will just move out of its way - no more, no less. The virtue of common sense can never be denied.

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