Find Your Rhythm
Once upon a time, among the rolling hills of the north, in an ancient Buddhist monastery, there lived a group of young monks with their wise teacher. Among the young monks, was one diligent fellow, Samam. He was devoted to following the practices of his teacher.
However, he often found himself distracted by his fellow monks. While doing the lessons, he watched what the others were doing; whether they were reading the scriptures as taught, were they doing the lessons more easily than him, was their work and their chanting better…
During meditation, he would take a peek to see if the others were sitting upright, were they doing it better than him. He felt jealous of the ones who he felt were better than him, and doubted his abilities. He did not feel good about himself and sometimes wished they would struggle too. On having such weak thoughts, he would feel worse about himself.
One day, he braced himself, and drawing on his courage, approached his teacher.
“Master”, he said, “I keep comparing myself with others and find so much lack in me. I am jealous and unhappy then. I constantly doubt myself and wonder if I am any good. It also makes me feel impatient towards those whom I see struggling more than me. I don’t like how I am. I am not able to do any work for myself because I am only looking at others. I am not progressing as fast as I want to. Please help me understand.”
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Samam’s teacher held him close and gently said, “Don’t feel disheartened. Let me tell you a little story, my dear Samam.
There was once, a forest filled with a variety of trees. Some were tall and strong while others were short and stubby, or fragile. A young bamboo sapling, growing next to the mighty oak, looked up and said: “Oh, dear oak tree, I wish I could be as tall and grand as you. I feel so insignificant when I look up at your strength and your broad trunk.”
The oak tree with its years of experience looked at the young one and responded: “My dear bamboo, do not waste your time comparing yourself to me. We are different trees with different qualities. I am indeed tall and strong. But you are flexible and resilient with strong roots. My height is sometimes a disadvantage in a storm, and I need all the strength of my roots to not break in the storm. However, you will bend and sway and that is the way you meet with the storm and survive. Moreover, you are still young and are yet to grow to your full height.
Nurture and focus on your own strengths. Let your roots and shoots grow abundantly.”
The oak tree added with a smile: “Don’t you think it is our differences that make the forest beautiful too?”
The last sentence in the story is heartening…to think that it is the differences that make the forest more beautiful and mysterious. Each of us is unique. Even in nature, no two fruits on the same tree are the same in taste or appearance, no two flowers are the same…either. Our features, qualities all vary from one to the other. Isn’t the uniqueness something wonderful? Why does one want sameness- be like another?
When you believe you have to be like another, you end up being hard and pushy and critical of your efforts and your performance at everything. You tend to be unhappy with whatever you have and whatever you do- wanting to be like someone else… wanting to be somewhere else…wanting to do something else…
It keeps you in a mode of fault-finding, anxious about everything that doesn’t go as it ‘should have’. The focus seems to always be on what is not going right.
All things have their own rhythm…thus, despite all our attempts at trying to make things happen a certain way, some things happen differently. Accept- that there will always be some things that go their own way irrespective of what you do or what you don’t do. Begin by changing your expectations into acceptance. Focus on what’s going right viz., what is it that the bamboo needs to be the strongest, most resilient bamboo, and not, what is going to turn it into an oak!
“Everything in nature is an original. There are no photocopies. Accept, acknowledge and revel in your own uniqueness and beauty.”
~ Pratibha Malhotra
