Empty boat

 Here's a Zen story in which a man is enjoying himself on a river at dusk. He sees another boat coming down the river toward him. When the Boat is far it seems so nice and motivating to him that someone else is also enjoying the river on a nice summer evening, but then he realizes that the boat is coming right towards him,  is not stopping at all and almost  hit his  boat  . He starts yelling , "Hey, ,anybody there watch out!, slow down and turn the boat around!" but the boat just kept on coming straight towards him faster and faster, by this time he's standing up in his boat, screaming and shaking his fist, and then the boat smashes right into his boat and topples him . He sees that it's an empty boat.

The point of the story is that often  in life we  encounter many  empty boats , the other kids who teased you as a child, your best  friend ignoring  you  or for  that  matter the driver who aggressively tailgated you yesterday are all in fact empty, rudderless boats. They were compulsively driven to act as they did by their own un examined wounds,and had little control over it just as an empty boat that rams into us which in  fact not  targeting us  at  all , so too people who act unkindly are driven along by the unconscious force of their own frustration and pain.

yes, we do encounter lots of empty boats during  our life  journey and  surprisingly the other boat is always empty and  even when there's someone steering it. there is never anyone to get angry with. even if the person steering the other boat deliberately rammed our boat, his behavior had nothing to do with us. as anyone else does is done for their own reasons, and much of the time they don't even know the reasons for doing  so !! and  I feel that When we see life as it is, rather than our thoughts about it, we see that every time we look for an enemy, someone to hate, someone to blame, in  fact there's never anyone there.

 Just an empty boat

     . Even though it  may  be  small story rereading the empty boat story now after so many years   all together gave  me a  new  perspective towards  Life   and  has definitely struck a nerve  in  me  .
.I  must  also  say that this story on  Empty boat  changed my life to  a  large  extent  and I realized that I had absolutely been living my life as if there was a person in the other boat.  In fact, I may have been living it as if there were a few people in the other boat.  All this anger and worrying about what other folks were doing in their boat caused me a mountain of suffering. 

This was especially true on the road while I was driving.  I would frequently get angry at other drivers. [still I  do some  times] In my teens and early twenties, I was known to end an argument with a door slam. Being ,abusive and  using  filthy  language  on  empty  boats . Looking back, I can see that most of my  acts  were  caused by my lack of understanding  the  core  principle  in  life that  we need  to  ignore and  not  respond to  Empty Boats 

  I don’t want to mislead you.  I didn't change over night  and I’m far from perfect now, but, I started using the empty boat story to alter my reactions to things.I don’t know that the empty boat story is for everyone; but, if it doesn’t resonate with you, go find your own empty boat story.  Figure out the best way for you to reduce the stress, anger and frustrations  in your life and  I  bet   You will be happier and your impact on those around will be more positive.  And that is clearly:  win/win.

Whenever we interact with other people who might “do something to us” (be rude, ignore us, be too demanding, etc., etc.), we’re bumping into an empty boat. We just think there’s some fool in that boat who should have known better, but really it’s just a boat bumping into us, no harm intended by the boat.

 On the busy river of life, boats are always bumping into each other

, learn to recognize the difference between boats and drivers and then be compassionate with the drivers you encounter