The which cant be taught

02 Dec The which cant be taught

Here is famous story from the Tao tradition.

A master thief sneaked into a palace with his son at the dead of night. In one of the grand rooms there was a giant wardrobe. The thief told his son to go into the wardrobe and steal the finest clothes he could find. As soon as his son walked into the wardrobe the thief locked the wardrobe doors trapping his son in the wardrobe. The thief then ran off into the night while making as much noise as he could to wake up the palace guards.

The palace guards woke up and started searching the palace. The son who was trapped in the wardrobe started making scratching noises like a rat would make. One of the palace staff heard the noises and opened the wardrobe door expecting to see a rat. The thief’s son in a instant ran out of the wardrobe and with all the palace residents pursuing him, he raced towards the courtyard to escape .

Once in the courtyard he spotted a well and he threw a large stone in it. His pursuers hearing the splash assumed he had jumped in the well and this give him the opportunity to get away. The son ran home where his father sat there waiting for him. As soon as his father saw him he smiled at him and said “now you are ready to be a master thief!”.

The above story lends itself to lots of interpretations. There is the escape from the palace with its emphasis of status and materialism. There is the Abrahamic religious interpretation of coming home to the “father” after a test or trial. It also reminds experienced meditators of how after passing many hurdles and trials during meditation they found a “home” in their own mind that they can always come back to. Somewhere still and peaceful.

The main lesson I believe it imparts is that experience can’t be taught. A good meditation teacher can provide us with an excellent learning environment and give us guidance and tips and point us along the path, but the journey is ultimately our own and all the concepts that we are taught are ones we have to grasp individually. In the same way the thief puts his son through trials and tests when he is ready for them, but his son learns through his own experience.

Once we close our eyes in order to meditate it can feel much like being trapped in a dark wardrobe all on our own. Meditating brings with it challenges which are highly individual and personal which we ultimately have to figure out for ourselves. There is a limit to what can be communicated by words. Understanding something intellectually is very different from experiencing it. A person can know that the spider they are terrified of is small and harmless but it makes no difference to the fear they feel. Only when they pick the spider up in their hands and experience nothing bad happening to them does the fear begin to subside.

In the end we have to find our own way through the dark corridors of our mind and defeat all the inner demons single handedly. “Home” may be the same place for all of us but our journey there is unique.