Parable: Seeing Water and Getting Thristy
Hundred Parables Sutra
Parable: Seeing Water and Getting Thristy
Long ago there was a stupid, unwise man who was extremely thirsty and in need of water. Seeing a mirage, he mistook it for water and ran after it. He followed it all the way to the Indus River. Then he just stood by the river and stared at it, without drinking.
A bystander said, “You were so thirsty and desperate for water. Now you have found water, why don’t you drink it?”
The stupid man replied, “If I could drink it all, I would drink it. But there is so much of it I could never drink it all. Therefore, I’m not going to drink any of it.”
Hearing this, the crowd laughed loudly. This is like those of outside ways who stubbornly hold to their views and think themselves, incapable of keeping all the Buddha’s precepts. They therefore refuse to receive any of them. Because of this, they have no share in future enlightenment, but turn and flow in birth and death. They are like the man who was laughed at because he saw the water but refused to drink.
