A meditation student travels across Gobi Desert. He stops and rests at an oasis. When he is about to close his eyes and sit in meditation, he sees a scorpion wandering around and falling into a swamp of water. He said to himsel:
“Maybe the scorpion wants to drink water, but unfortunately he falls into the water. Let me try to pick him up.”
Therefore, the meditation student rolls up his sleeves and scoops the scorpion up from the swampy water. The scorpion stings the student in the hand with its poisonous tail by instinct. Feeling the sharp pain, the student puts the scorpion down, screams on top of his lungs and yells at the scorpion for a while. Eventually, the meditation student calms down and puts the medicinal ointment on the wound.
“The scorpion does not know who is saving him and who is not, and his action to sting someone is his instinct. Let’s not worry about it anymore.”
Therefore, the student is back to his good mood and getting ready to sit in meditation. At that moment, he looks down and sees the scorpion running around and falling back into the water. Sigh… The student thinks:
“It is the habit of the scorpion. Let me save him again!”
He then stands up and uses both hands to scoop the scorpion up. This time, learning from previous experience, he grasps the scorpion head in one hand and its tail with the other hand. The scorpion cannot sting him this time. He gently brings the scorpion to a dry place, farther away from the swamp.
Thinking that this is good, he sits down, prepares to sit in full lotus and begins to meditate. However, as soon as he closes his eyes, he hears soft sounds coming from the swampy water. He opens his eyes and sure enough, the scorpion falls back into the water the third time.
“Oh well! I need to take the scorpion much farther away from the swamp. This is making me feel tired; the sun is scorching hot and I have to get out of the oasis to save him!”
The meditation student still makes the effort to get up and take the scorpion to a location very far from where the water is before coming back to his location. He can now sit peacefully in meditation and enjoys the nice shade of the oasis.
The morale of the story is the gradual maturity of the meditation student and the way he manages the situation with the scorpion.
Because we don’t understand scorpions, we think they are bad. Similarly, not everyone is bad. Because we don’t understand and empathize with others, there might be unwholesome deeds that can happen. Let’s observe the behavior of the student:
1. When he was stung the first time, he got mad and yelled. Perhaps when we help people for the first time, we are misunderstood, blamed, insulted, become angry, hold grudge and yell at others. It’s alright and is quite normal. It is not a sin nor forbidden act. We learn to be aware of our anger and not loose track of our mission to volunteer to serve others.
2. We should be aware that the habit of the scorpion is to fall in the water, not to sting people. His natural instinct to sting is a defense mechanism.
3. We should learn the ability to forgive, be optimistic and to ‘move on’ like the meditation student. Forgiveness is to accept what happened in the past. Optimism is to believe in the future change. ‘Move on’ is not getting stuck in the present. We should continue to help others with better skill-in-means, more resourceful and more knowledgeable. That is the maturity of the path of Engaging with The World. The student did not sit still in meditation (representing Transcending Worldliness). Instead, he opened his eyes and got up to save the scorpion (representing Engaging with The World). The shift from Transcending Worldliness to Engaging with the World is to have an open mind and higher consciousness: we don’t ignore the world even if the world abandons us.
4. In the story, for the third time, the student understood the behavior of the scorpion and knew exactly what needs to be done to save the scorpion for good. He must take the scorpion to a location very far away from the water. He has to sacrifice his own comfort under the shade of the palm tree, and goes out under the hot sun to a place far away from the oasis. This sacrifice has clearly brought good results as the scorpion is saved from drowning. Similarly, in order to save someone in life, we have to voluntarily accompany them on a long journey, feel his pain and suffering in order to build trust, understanding and empathy. ‘Transcending Worldliness’ and ‘Engaging with the World’ are two facets that we need to integrate skillfully in order to become harmonious with ourselves, more mature with our behaviors and more caring for others. Indeed, Bodhisattvas are very mature in the fields of psychology and spirituality.
Excerpt from the book “The path of Transcending Worldliness and Engaging with the World”