the beautiful ego

A father and son sit down at the kitchen table and the son asks,

“Dad, what is Enlightenment?”

“Well, son.” The father said. “Let me explain it by telling you a story about a bear.

When you were young, your mind was like a meadow.

There were no animals, no bird, just some grass and a few flowers.

Everything was so peaceful and tranquil that it seemed like heaven.

Until one day, a little bear cub arrived in your meadow.

Now, you don’t really know how he got there or where he came from.

But let me tell you, he was one hungry bear cub!

And what do you do with hungry bear cubs?

You feed them! Or they will get very grouchy.

So day after day you fed your bear cub, until he became a full grown bear.

But by now, this bear is a terror!

He snarls at everything in your meadow, whether it really bothers him or not.

If he’s hungry and if you don’t feed him right away, he’ll tear up everything! He uproots all your flowers, and does everything he can to be a pain.

And even when you feed him, he’s still grouchy! He get so angry and jealous when you’re not paying attention to him that when you wake up, you’ll find everything in ruins.

While you do everything you can think of to placate the bear, but he only behaves for a little while before he gets out of control again.

You see son, the bear is like our ego. Even though its hard to remember, before the ego came into our mind, it was tranquil. Our lives were peaceful, and we didn’t have much to worry about.

But somewhere along the line, a bear came along, and before too long, started tearing things up and causing a big fuss.

Enlightenment is realizing its silly to have a bear in your head to begin with.