BUDDHA: The four noble truths.

Size can often distort clarity of perception

VITHAL C NADKARNI


JAPANESE master Haruki Murakamis story The Elephant Vanishes has a kitchen equipment company PRO as a protagonist. He becomes obsessed by the disappearance of an old elephant from an abandoned zoo. The story explores the surreal consequences that flow when things get out balance. Even the most beautifully designed item dies if it is out of balance with its surroundings, ruminates the protagonist , who later goes on and on about witnessing the change in the elephants size in relation to the keepers size.
He begins to notice that the balance in size between the two has become more equal, because the elephant has shrunk or the keeper has gotten bigger, or both. Following the disappearance of the elephant and the keeper, the narrator again expresses the idea that things around me have lost their balance .
In contrast to Murakamis shrinking elephant, which progressively disappears into oblivion , is the idiom of the elephant in the room that no one notices. This is a problem somewhat like the emperor without clothes that everyone knows about very well but no one wants to acknowledge either because its embarrassing or tabooed. And it takes a childs innocence or fearlessness to rip off our collective mask of denial, to expose reality as it ought to be perceived.
Size can also distort clarity of perception with sheer proximity or gravity. Thats when being too close or too involved leads to loss of healthy perception that empowers correct decision-making . This comes out in the Buddhist parable of the elephant and its footprint attributed to Sariputta, one of the most important disciples of the Buddha, who was revered as Dharmasenapati. In terms of size, the elephants four footprints are reckoned to be the foremost among the tracks of all legged animals, Sariputta said. In the same way, all skilful qualities are gathered under the four noble truths, he added.
The first is the truth of suffering ; existence entails pain or dukkha. Whether one talks about acute pain or chronic pain, of the death or loss of a parent or the abandonment by a lover, the passing of youth or the loss of a job, there is no question that to live is to suffer. The second truth is of origination of suffering due to desire. The third is of its cessation ; and the last is that of the path of practice leading to the cessation of suffering through moderation the Middle Way. Use it to be free.