When You're Barely Hanging On

An Ancient Tale About Life's Delicious Gifts

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When you’re barely hanging on, it’s hard to notice life’s small gifts. Yet, that is the time to keep your wits about you, for life’s juiciest gifts appear in the unlikeliest of places and most inconvenient of times.

An old monk once told the story…

One day while walking through the wilderness a woman stumbled upon a vicious tiger. She ran, but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save herself, she climbed down a vine and dangled over the precipice.

Above her, the tiger came to the edge of the cliff and waited. The woman looked down and there, prowling below, was another tiger! Trapped, she clung tightly to the vine, for what else could she do?

As she hung there, two mice—one white and one black—appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine.

Suddenly, the woman noticed on the vine a plump wild berry. She plucked the berry and popped it in her mouth. And how incredibly juicy and delicious it was!

Parables aren’t meant to be explained, but we’ll break the rules here.

The tigers represent death, imminent and inescapable. Whether she climbs up or down, or stays put, it is only a matter of time before the woman meets her end, just as we too will meet ours’.

The mice represent Time, the passing of day (the white mouse) and night (the black mouse), which continually eat away at life’s thin tether.

And the berry… well, this is the simple beauty and deliciousness of The Now, which is always here, right under our noses just waiting to be noticed and fully lived.

Of course, this isn’t a Pollyanna story. Neither is life, which is real and cruel and beautiful all at once.

Was the woman afraid? You bet. Was the berry going to solve her situation? No. She’s gonna die. The larger truth and invitation is one of Presence and seeing life’s gifts, which often go unnoticed because our attention is consumed with all the reasons not to see what is Here and Now.

You can find all kinds of lessons between the lines of this story, and I’m sure you will. Like, life is beautiful not because it lasts, but because it ends. Or, for the more practical among us, carry a big gun if you venture into tiger territory.

Ultimately, you get what everybody else gets—an adventure that is yours alone to live, tigers who will eventually best you in the hunt, and mice that will betray you in slow motion.

You also get a berry. Everyone does. The question is, will you be one of the precious few who notice it, pluck it, and taste life’s deliciousness? Or, like so many, will you let it go to waste?

When you’re barely hanging on, it’s hard to notice life’s small gifts. But that’s precisely when you can find them.

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