Autobiography in 5 chapters

Autobiography in five chapters:

1. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost ... I am hopeless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

2. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place. But it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

3. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in ... it's a habit My eyes are open I know where I am It is my fault. I get out immediately.

4. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I walk around it.

5. I walk down another street.

Reflection can slowly bring us wisdom. We can come to see we are falling again and again into fixed repetitive patterns, and begin to long to get out of them. We may, of course, fall back into them, again and again, but slowly we can emerge from them and change.

Power of Compassion ...

Compassion is the wish-fulfilling gem whose light of healing spreads in all directions. There is a very beautiful story that illustrates this. Buddha once recounted one of his previous lives, before he became enlightened. A great emperor had three sons, and the Buddha had been the youngest, who was called Mahasattva. Mahasattva was by nature a loving and compassionate little boy, and thought of all living things as his children.
One day the emperor and his court went to picnic in a forest, and the princes went off to play in the woods. After a while they came across a tigress who had given birth, and was so exhausted with hunger that she was on the point of eating her little cubs. Mahasattva asked his brothers:
"What would the tigress need to eat now to revive her?"
"Only fresh meat or blood", they replied.
"Who could give his own flesh and blood to see that she is fed and save the lives of her and her cubs?" he asked.
"Who indeed?" they replied.
Mahasattva was deeply moved by the plight of the tigress and her cubs, and started to think: " For so long I have been wandering uselessly through samsara, life after life, and because of my
desire, anger and ignorance , have done little to help other beings. Here at last is a great opportunity."
The princes were walking back to join their family, when Mahasattva said: "You two go on ahead. I will catch you up later." Quietly he crept back to the tigress, went right up to her, and lay down on the ground in front of her, to offer himself to her as food. The tigress looked at him,
but was so weak that she could not even open her mouth. So the prince found a sharp stick and cut a deep gash in his body; the blood flowed out, the tigress licked it, and she grew strong enough to open her jaws and eat him.
Mahasattva had given his body to the tigress in order to save her cubs, and through the great
merit of his compassion, he was reborn in a higher realm and progressed toward his enlightenment and his rebirth as the Buddha.
What a vision this story gives us of how vast and mysterious the power of compassion truly is !