Daily Meditation: Wednesday, August 19, 2009

One fine summer afternoon, Nastradine Hodja was riding his …

08/19/2009

One fine summer afternoon, Nastradine Hodja was riding his donkey home from town, where he had just bought some sacks of wheat. The weather was hot, and he told himself a little siesta would be very pleasant! He so liked the idea of stretching out on a fine carpet of grass, he forgot there had been rumours about thieves in the region. He tied his donkey to a tree so it couldn’t escape and fell asleep. When he woke up, the donkey had disappeared, and all that was left was the rope tied to the tree trunk. Then he said to himself, ‘If I’m not Nastradine Hodja, I’ve gained a rope. But if I am indeed Nastradine Hodja, I’ve lost my donkey.’ And the same applies to you too; if thieves come and take what belongs to you while your consciousness is asleep, you will just have to be philosophical about it like Nastradine Hodja. Attraction and the desire for pleasure are what lull our vigilance to sleep. How can anyone be vigilant, realistically, when their only desire is to abandon themselves to pleasure?