Practice like a Turtle

Yesterday, one of my little daughters was coloring a picture, which was a turtle. Then, I remember a show on TV. One of the TV shows that our family watch often is AFV (America’s Funniest Videos). Recently, we saw a show at AFV, which was included a turtle and a dog. In the show, a turtle was walking around and (kind of) teasing to a dog. Every time the dog tried to bite or catch the turtle, the turtle put head, two front legs, two hind legs and tail into her hard shell. However, whatever the dog tried to bite any part of the turtle’s sensible body, it was unsuccessful because of the turtle’s safe defense.

After I saw that show, I remembered one of the Buddha’s teachings that “Every person who would like to go to further, higher place, with dignity appropriately, practice like a turtle.”

The Buddha’s example story was as the following:

One evening, a turtle was coming out to seek for food. At the same time, a fox was also came out to find for food. At the bank of a river, the fox saw the turtle. Yap…the fox was very happy because he saw a middle size turtle who did not have any sharp, long nail, fang or any other dangerous body part to defense his catch or bite. The fox hatched the turtle; tried to catch; approached to bite by any way with any possibility. Nothing was successful because of the turtle’s strategic defense. Every time the fox came near to the turtle, the turtle already put its head, front legs, hind legs and (almost invisible) little, short tail. The fox was hungry; tired; angry; frustrated because he tried the whole night to catch the turtle with any possibility but it did not work by any way. In the morning, when the sun come out, the fox had to leave the turtle with his hungry stomach and extreme frustration as the other bigger and danger animals come out around. The turtle safely went into the water – ‘bye bye my friend, fox!’

The Buddha said that any monk, nun or a leader or a person who would like to go further, higher place, higher rank with dignity, humble, without any kind of hinder, danger, suppose to practice like a turtle. There were / are/ shall be many kinds of threatening, dangers, persuasions, attractions those could lead to failure of us in any society of any era through out mankind’s history. How should we defense those? Practice like a Turtle!

Do you see now what did the Buddha exactly mean and how great his wisdom? Why did he give the turtle as an example; how it makes match between a turtle’s and a man’s?

As a turtle has six parts of body those make his life and at the same time can create danger for him, we also have six senses those make our lives and at the same time can create danger for us; 1. seeing, 2. hearing, 3. smelling, 4. taste, 5. feeling, and 6. our mind, itself.

We all have been experiencing that many persons, people and leaders died, assassinated, destroyed, fall downed, faced the most embarrassed matters in utter disgrace because as human beings, we all have had greed, anger, ignorance, feelings, thoughts, prides, and so on, and so forth. Where do they come from? There is no doubt that all those greed, anger, ignorance, feeling, thought, pride etc come from through out our six windows of seeing, hearing, smelling, taste, feeling and our mind itself.

Do you want to be a nice person in your life?
Do you want to be a great leader?
Do you want to be a humble man for humanity?

My dear friend, the best and the most appropriate suggestion could be, like the Buddha taught – “Please Practice Like a Turtle!” How? Since we do not have hard shells like a turtle has, please guard your those six windows as much as you can with mindfulness and self-discipline. (Next time, if I have a chance, I will discuss the guarding ways in detail.)

Thank you and have a great day!


Picture: http://www.vernonanimalcare.com/images/turtle.gif