Introduction to Yogi Stories and Others
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The Value of Stories
Buddha thought:"The truth . . . simple as it is, the people cannot understand it. I must adapt to their thoughts - I will tell them stories." |
In this collection there are wonderful stories of the East and West alike. Inner truthfulness and some sort of independence can bud and be fostered by good tales where words are spoken in some courteous, fair and fit way, and the maxims from them are sensible and fair enough.
Some stories may contain something to think about even though you don't find a deeper meaning in them at once, just like sunyata in Buddhist teachings. Some think of it as void and emptiness, and others understand it is Clear Light, Shining Intelligence, the Deep Mind, also called Suchness [Til xxxviii-xxxiv].
Some tales may work similarly - increasingly meaningful and pregrant as we gradually come to relate to them and share them with others. That gives people common stories of references, as fables and folk tales have done in so many cultures. In fact, stories build and transmit culture, says Jerome Bruner and James Kirk [Soth]. That good tales help a "clear light of" realism is an idea that the physicist Albert Einstein vouches for too, in his way:
A concerned mother once visited Albert Einstein to get his counsel on how to help her son become really good in maths. Exactly what was she to read for him to help him evolve into a prominent scientist?The idea is to let the embedded ideas in the tales incubate or rest in the minds of those who read or hear them. If so, maybe coupled with artistic output, the tales may eventually turn out to be fruitful and rewarding, as Einstein seems to mean in the story, which is said to be true.
"Folk tales," said Einstein.
"Okay," said the mother, "and after that?"
"More folk tales," said Einstein.
"And after that?" the mother asked again.
"Still more folk tales," answered Einstein. [Brms 1]
If we can refrain from always wanting to do something with things at once, we may succeed in learning nice lessons from masked stories, or at least start to appreciate tales that communicate useful sentiments or teachings - some of them only very slightly masked.
Literature
Brms: Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Magic Spell. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 1992.
Til: Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling, ed. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, according to Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup's English Rendering. London: Oxford University Press, 1927.
Soth: Kirk, James A. Stories of the Hindus: An Introduction Through Texts and Interpretation. New York: Macmillan, 1972.
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