If winter comes, can spring be far behind? When I hear these words, my heart warms up. Winter indeed never fails to turn into spring. But the word winter may remind many people including me of the snow covered mountains of the Alps, or the white mountain ranges of the Himalayas.
There is a commentary on the Lotus Sutra called, 'Gathered Leaves of the Lotus Sutra from a Grove on Eagle Peak’ which includes the legendary story of Kankucho (literally, birds tormented by cold). This commentary is a well known Chinese work on the Lotus Sutra, the highest Buddhist scripture expounded by Shakyamuni Buddha in India. The story is as follows:
In ancient times, there were mountains in India called Snow Mountains. These mountains were so high that the cold there penetrated to the marrow and as the name indicates snow lay deep on the ground throughout the year. In the mountains lived two homeless birds called Kankucho. When evening fell and darkness gathered, the female bird, unable to bear the cold, would cry, “I am perishing from the cold”. To which the male bird would reply, “Let us build a nest when the day dawns”. But as soon as the sun rose and the birds were bathed in the warm sunshine, they forgot all about the cold which tormented them during the night. They reasoned – “We might be destined to die today or tomorrow; nothing is changeless in this world and we are strangers to eternal peace and tranquility”. Thus they spent their entire life in vain without ever building a nest.
This story may bring to mind ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ which appears in Aesop’s fables: “Why should we work assiduously when we never know what tomorrow may bring”. This ostensibly wise attitude makes the bird all the more pitiful.
I believe this story offers a penetrating insight into the darker side of the human nature. There are more cases than we imagine where people habitually make great efforts at pretence but betray their true nature at a crucial moment. No matter how serene another’s life may appear to be, that person invariably may have some suffering or trouble which others are not aware of. Even though we may not suffer as often as the Kankucho birds who were tormented every night, human beings are destined to face great difficulties at least several times or several dozen times in the course of our lives, with hardly more than a staff to lean on. If we wait till the last moment, however no matter how frantically we prepare either to retreat or to advance and stake our lives, it will be too late as time is irreversible. Then all we can do is cry out in agony just as the birds cried in distress in the bitter cold of the snow mountains.
What I mean by a staff is some steadfast belief or a firm mind which remains unperturbed even in the face of greatest difficulties. I tend to believe that the nest that the Kankucho birds kept vowing to build implies not only a warm dwelling place but also a foundation on which an unwavering mind can be established and a spirit that will neither be carried away by pleasure nor be defeated by suffering can root. The foolishness of Kankucho birds represents nothing other than the vulnerability of the human mind to change and fluctuation. It also indicates the human tendency to take the line of least resistance avoiding immediate task that require prompt action.
You can live like rootless seaweed, adrift at the mercy of the waves or you can live upto your conviction. I firmly believe that the choice will determine whether or not you can make your life worth living. If you choose the latter, I think you need a deep solid core in your life. In order for you to develop that core, you must take constant efforts, to train yourself spiritually.
Source: Treasures of the Heart (Pg. 49-52)
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