A truck load of dung

Extracted from the book “Open The Door Of Your Heart” by Ajahn Brahm

{Unpleasant things do happen in life the only difference between a happy person and one who gets depressed is how they respond to disasters.

Imagine you have just had a wonderful afternoon at the beach with a friend. When you return home, you find a huge truck-load of dung has been dumped right infront of your door. There are three things to know about this truck load of dung :

1. You did not order it. It’s not your fault
2. You’re stuck with it. No one saw who dumped it, so you cannot call anyone to take it away.
3. It is filthy and offensive, and its stench fills your whole house. It is almost impossible to endure.

In this metaphor, the truck load of dung in front of the house stands for the traumatic experiences that are dumped on us in life. As with the truck load of dung, there are three things to know about tragedy in our life:

1. We did not order it. We say “Why Me?”
2. We’re stuck with it. No one, not even our best friends, can take it away (though they may try)
3. It is so awful, such destroyer of our happiness, and its pain fills our whole life. It is almost impossible to endure.

There are two ways of responding to being struck with a truck load of dung. The first way is to carry the dung around with us. We put some in our pockets, some in our bags, and some up our shirts. We even put some down our pants. We find when we carry dung around, we lose alot of friends! Even best friends don’t seem to be around so often.

“Carrying around the dung” is a metaphor for sinking into depression, negativity or anger. It is a natural and understandable response to adversity. But we lose alot of friends don’t like being around us when we’re so depressed. Moreover, the pile of dung gets no less, but the smell gets worse as it ripens.

Fortunately, there’s a second way. When we are dumped with a  truck load of dung, we heave a sigh… and than get down to work. Out comes the wheelbarrow, the fork and the spade. We fork the dung into the barrow, wheel it around the back of the house, and dig it into the garden. This is tiring and difficult work, but we know there’s no other options.

Sometimes all we can manage is half a barrow a day. We’re doing something about the problem, rather than complaining our way into depression. Day after day we dig in the dung. Day after day the pile gets smaller. Sometimes it takes several years, but the morning does comes when we see that the dung in front of our house is all gone. Further more, a miracle has happened in another part of the house.

The flowers in the garden are bursting out in richness of colours all over the  place. Their fragrance wafts down  street so that the neighbours and even passerby, smile in the delight. Then the fruit tree in the corner is nearly falling over, its so heavy with fruits. And the fruit is so sweet; you can’t buy anything like it. There’s so much of it that we are able to share it with our neighbours. Even passerby get a delicious taste if the miracle fruit.

“Digging in the Dung” is a metaphor for welcoming the tragedies as fertilizer for life. It is work that we have to do alone; no one can help us here. But by digging it into the garden of our heart, day by day, the pile of pain gets less. It may take us several years, but the morning does come when we see no more pain in our life and, in our heart a miracle has happened. Flowers of kindness are bursting out all over the place, and fragrance of loves wafts way down our street, to our neighbours, to our relations and even to passerby. Then our wisdom tree in the corner is bending down to us, loaded with sweet insights into the nature of life. We share those delicious fruits freely, even with the passersby, without ever planning to.

When we have known tragic pain, learn its lesson and grown our garden, then we can put our arms around another in deep tragedy and say softly, “I know.” They realise we do understand. Compassion begins. We show the the wheelbarrow, the fork and the spade, and boundless encouragement. If we haven’t grown our garden yet, this can’t be done. }

“Perhaps the moral of this story is that if you want to be of service to the world, if you wish to follow the path of compassion, than the next time a tragedy occurs in your life, you may say “Whoopee! More fertilizer for my garden!” Ahjahn Brahm