The Box

A long time ago, in a far away place, a boy was born into this world, in a small town in the western most region of an ancient land.

His mother was as loving as most mothers and wanted her child to go through life without suffering.

At this time in the world, this feat was near impossible, as any wise person will tell you. Life is suffering, said the Buddha, and a host of elders from tribes around the world. Unfortunately, this land was now devoid of tribes, and true elders were few and far between, so young boys rarely got the chance to go through appropriate initiations that would help them become the men they were meant to be.

So, although this boy greeted his new world with wide-eyed wonder, his natural curiosity and awe was stifled as soon as he was sent away to be educated, as was the custom.

School meant an imperialistic force would capture you and force you into a tight fitting box, made of invisible threads, gathered from dark, stagnant places, and woven into an impenetrable set of walls and towers, built on strong words which passed for knowledge in this land.

The boy did not understand. He wept most nights, confused and alone, and without a guide or a torch that might shine on the way out of this cage.

And with nowhere to go, and no-one to turn to, he went about the long and arduous process of shape-shifting. This, unbeknown to him, was a kind of magic. But it felt tortuous, as it meant turning himself inside out, in a manner of speaking. He thought the process would bring him happiness, as everyone else around him seemed to be happy. Natural features on the landscape of his being, were pushed deep down, into chasms and rifts, and hidden behind the mountainous regions of the internal world, where sunlight could not penetrate and shadows reigned.

Delightful aspects of his character were thus lost, and only things that were considered appropriate by slumbering authorities were seen and heard.

The boy was learning how to fit in to the box that was made for him, even though it was the same box made for everyone else.

When he finally left school, the transformation was almost complete. But the boy was still miserable and suffering and he could not understand why.

He realized that he did not feel comfortable with many people. He noticed that people moved in herds around him and each herd wore the same kind of cloth, spoke the same words and acted in the same manner. In some herds, he felt more at home than with others. In all herds, though, he felt alone.

Another kind of transformation was needed, he decided. He needed to learn from each herd; to be with them, no matter how uncomfortable, and try to learn their ways.

He learned to speak like them, sing like them, talk of the same knowledge, perform the same rituals and dance the same dances. He travelled to many distant lands, by ship or flying machines, by bicycle or machine driven vehicles; and sometimes by foot. He crossed deserts, swam in seas, walked through mountains and lived in jungles. He slept in bus stops, in comfy beds, in earthern houses, and bamboo huts. He partook of medicinal plants that altered hs mind and sometimes numbed his senses - these latter ones he liked a little too much, because it releived the suffering that he still couldn't locate or describe.

Many years went by and although he felt a lot calmer in himself and more settled in his skin, he was still wary of other humans. He realized he was scared. Afraid that he would not fit in, would not be welcome in their circles; that he would be judged as wrong.

Wrong! He stopped to look at this word. Wrong! Where did I become wrong? He asked.

Could I be a mistake?

Am I really so wrong?

I've done everything to be like everyone else, and yet still there is something that does not feel right. What is it? What else can I do? Even trying to fit in seems wrong.

He sat and pondered these questions for a long time. He sat for months in heavy rains. He meditated every day for years. And he even went without food and isolated himself in the wilderness so there could be no distractions.

And one day, when everything seemed just as ordinary as it always was, he looked again and saw himself spending so much time and effort trying to fit in. What he had previously seen as wrong was actually not wrong at all...he realized he simply wanted to feel at home, wherever he went. He wanted to feel welcomed by every person he met, but he had just been going about it upside down.

The box he was given was upside down. So the proper opening was facing into the ground and he had been stuffed in through a small hole in the side which served as a handle. The box itself, made from the stuff of dark and stagnant places, was meant to be compost for his roots. Only his feet were meant to fit into the box, which was really just a place to start growing from. As his roots grew, the box would disintegrate and be used as food for his roots to flourish and send nourishment up to his branches and leaves which were meant to spread and reach up to the boundless skies.

Here was space. Space to grow in any shape he desired. So with this in mind, he jumped and jiggled and managed to turn the awkward box the right way up. You would have thought, dear listener, that after all those years, trapped in such a tiny and uncomfortable space, that the boy would have burst out of it like a Jack-in-a-box. But no. Gradually, he emerged. Slowly he stretched out. Months passed just to reach out with one branch and it's dendritic fingers. But that was enough. Enough for the light of the sun to touch the tips of those fingers as it passed over the shadow of those mountains, behind which the boy had hidden all his gifts.

The light spread and fizzled and popped and reached every part of the boy's being. Every cell, every internal world had been waiting for this moment...waiting to be allowed and embraced by the world, nay, the universe.

And they delighted in it. So much so that it didn't take long before every branch was fully extended and the tree grew as tall as the mountains...taller!

It provided shelter for other smaller trees and plants, and a home for many beings...creepy crawlers, four legged ones and flying ones. Rivers flowed around it and the mountains, once desolate and barren, began to be colored with grasses and flowers of all kinds.

And the boy. Well, the boy is the tree. The tree is the boy. And they rejoice in a life well lived. They have found the home they were looking for, by becoming it. And there they still stand, to this very day.