Have You Been Hit by a Poison Arrow?

The Poison Arrow is one of my favorite Buddhist parables (I seem to have many favorite parables). I hope you enjoy this replay and I encourage you to come back to it often.

The Parable of the Poison Arrow

The Buddha spoke:

It is as if a man had been wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and kinsmen would get a surgeon to heal him, but he would say, “I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know by what man I was wounded. Is he a warrior or a priest or a merchant or a farmer?” Or he would say, “I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know of the name of his family, or whether he is tall or short, or what color is his hair.” Or he would say, “I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know who made this arrow and what kind of a bow was used.” The man would die and all this information would still be unknown to him.

Letting Go

We can find many lessons in this story. All the possibilities lead back to the lower-self’s stubbornness, meaning the lower-self’s need to know, to be in control, and to keep the physical world as real…and the unwillingness to just let go.

It is not unusual that the mental body of the lower-self wants to understand. However, there must come a time when the mental aspect of who we are must surrender to “not knowing” to survive and make the transition into Light.

The end of the movie “What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole” from 20th Century Fox depicts the lower-self’s dilemma perfectly. The two-dimensional being who hears the voice of a three-dimensional being is, at first, in terror. The two-dimensional being cannot see or understand the three-dimensional world. Not until it surrenders and trusts the third dimension without knowing what to expect can it be lifted up. Not until it surrenders to the possibilities can the two-dimensional being understand the three-dimensional world. Only when it surrenders the need to know, the need to intellectually understand, and takes the chance, does the experience become real.

We must let go and trust what we cannot see. It is time to let go and trust our God-Selves. We need to surrender to Divine Love in order to know what lies ahead and to know ourselves as Divine. Where are your poison arrows?

Image from pixabay.com