The Seduction of Illusion.

[blockquote source=”Ralph Waldo Emerson”]“Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion.”[/blockquote]

There is a story I wish to share with you, the parable of the Man and the Strawberry.

In it, a man encounters a vicious tiger while walking through the woods. As the tiger lunges, the man takes flight – frantically racing through the dense forest brush. He is desperate to escape the imminence of his own fate.

Exhausted, the man soon comes to the edge of a dangerous cliff – there is no place left to hide.

Desperate to save himself, he throws himself over the edge – clinging only to the safety of a deeply rooted vine. The tiger soon reaches the top of the cliff, where he begins to pace back and forth – licking his chops.

As the man hangs over the dangerous precipice, two mice appear and begin gnawing at the vine. Trembling, the man looks down far below to where there is yet another tiger waiting to eat him.

It was within this moment of desperation that the man noticed a sumptuous wild strawberry hanging nearby. Overcome by the thoughts of the berry’s sweetness, the man plucked it…popped it in his mouth, and exclaimed,

“Oh…how delicious!”

And, while there are many interpretations of this story – we know that it is, in part, an invitation to look a little more deeply into our awareness.

And, perhaps not to become so easily transfixed with illusion.

Whether those illusions are of fear or danger or the sweetest of strawberries – each has equal capacity to pull us away, until our Universe is narrowed to the size of a small thimble.

Curiously enough, D.T. Suzuki changed the ending of the story because he feared it might not appeal to westerners. In the original text, every element is there, save for one vital difference – the berry turns out to be a deadly poison.

Some interpretations hold that the tiger above represents our attachment to past pains, while the tiger below signifies our worries for tomorrow.

That is both the blessing and the bewilderment of these open-ended stories – they’re intended to prompt introspection, a thoughtful examination of self.

And perhaps, in this case, to remind us – that we shouldn’t become so easily seduced by the trappings of illusion.

About

Tara Lemieux is a mindful wanderer, and faithful stargazer. Although she often appears to be listening with great care, rest assured she is most certainly‘forever lost in thought. She is an ardent explorer and lover of finding things previously undiscovered or at the very least mostly not-uncovered.

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