The battle with your mind,

With intrusive thoughts

With conflict,

With worry….

This could ALL be a cow problem!

No, not methane…

No, nothing about veganism…

Or Eganism! 🙂

Let me explain.

One time a monk was visiting an outdoor market,

And two of his disciples were following closely behind him.

They came across an exhausted farmer,

Stuck in the middle of the road,

Trying to yank a stubborn cow along with a rope.

The farmer desperately wanted to bring his cow back to the farm,

But the cow didn’t want to go anywhere for anybody!

It refused to even move an inch.

The farmer was at his wits end…

But the monk sensed an opportunity.

He asked his two disciples to gather around the troubled farmer.

“Who is the master and who is the slave here?” asked the monk.

“Is the cow bound to this farmer or the farmer bound to the cow?”

“The cow is bound to the farmer!” the disciples replied in unison. 

“The farmer holds the rope. He’s the master,” they pointed out.

“The cow has to follow wherever the farmer goes…”

“The man IS the master. The cow is THE slave!”

The monk took a pair of scissors from his bag.

With one snip, he cut the rope.

And, the liberated cow ran away…

Exasperated, the farmer ran after the cow…

At least the cow was now moving!

“What’s happening now?” The monk asked his disciples.

“Who’s the REAL master here?” He asked.

“This cow is not interested in the man!” The monk added.

“See how the cow just wants to escape from the poor farmer!”

“Look how that man is running behind the cow!”

“This man is bound to HER!”

The monk turned to the disciples and added:

The mind is like the cow.

All the nonsense we carry in our minds is not ours.

It not interested in us,

But we’re very, very interested in it!

We want to keep it!

But, the moment we lose interest in the noise of the mind,

It starts to disappear…

Just like the cow, it just runs away…

Think of all the things that people own.

In reality, they’re NOT the owners.

They are slaves to what they CLAIM to own.

The cow isn’t interested in us.

Anger, jealousy, hate, fear etc. are like cows.

They’re NOT interested in us.

But WE are interested in them.

We keep them.

We don’t want to empty and free our minds…

We don’t want to release the grip…

All the mind wants is to further enslave us.

But, the moment we lose interest in our mental noise,

All the fear and thoughts and feelings,

The mind starts to disappear…

So release your cows.

They WILL run away,

And you can find PEACE at last.