Don’t Worry

In Buddhist life, there are people who follow the path and don’t understand clearly and these people worry about many things. For example, keeping the precepts. People express doubts, “What is the right thing to do? What is the wrong thing? What punishment do you get after doing wrong?” Some come to me and ask these questions. I just advise, “Don’t worry, and just live normally, patiently carefully and mindfully”. I don’t forget to tell them a good story which might help them understand more. I would like to share it with you now. It may help lessen your worry. Here is the story:

Once there was a Zen monk who specialized in the Buddhist precepts, and he kept to them strictly all his life. Once when he was walking at night, he stepped on something. It made a squishing sound, and he imagined he had stepped on an egg-bearing frog.

This caused him no end of alarm and regret, in view of the Buddhist precept against taking life. When he finally went to sleep that night, he dreamed that hundreds of frogs came demanding his life.

The monk was terribly upset, but when morning came he looked and found that what he had stepped on was an over-ripe eggplant. At that moment his feeling of uncertainty suddenly stopped, and for the first time he realized the meaning of the saying that there is no objective world. When worry, alarm and regret are already in the mind, the world is very subjective. Then he finally knew how to practise real Zen.

The story tells us not to worry too much about rules and regulations; “We have rules and regulations, don’t let the rules and regulations have us”. The rules and regulations ‘have us’ in terms of the control they exert on our life or limit our ability. We have to understand them or just live a careful and mindful life, so that it is increasingly unlikely that an accident will happen in our lives.

It is said, “Rules and regulations are for learning and practice; they are neither for alarm nor regret”. It is true that if we worry too much about them, we will be unable to do anything. They will become stumbling-blocks to our living. Even worse, if we attach to rules and regulations, it is said, "Rules and regulations become stumbling-blocks because you attach to them, you are hindered by those rules and regulations, and they obstruct your understanding".

Do you believe this or not? I leave it to you to decide.