Once upon a time, a wealthy elder lived in a big mansion with an old gate. The estate was showing its age, with crumbling walls and cracks. Nevertheless, it was home to his many children and him.
Something caught fire in the dwelling one day. The fire grew out of control. When the father saw this, he thought, "I can escape safely, but the children are inside. They're unaware of the danger and do not know they need to escape. I must save them!"
He hurriedly found the children engrossed in play. He told them about the fire and tried to gather them. He knew there was only one path out, and they needed to move quickly. The children were not alarmed, for they had no idea of the threat. They went back to playing.
The father decided to try to lure them out. He called to the children, telling them three carts were outside waiting. Each cart was pulled by a different kind of animal: goats, deer, or oxen. He was confident this rarity would attract them to leave.
The children hurried to see the carts. They looked around but did not see them. They asked, "Where are the carts pulled by goats, deer, and oxen?" Their father presented them with something even better: a large, jeweled carriage staffed by many servants and pulled by a giant white ox.
The children were thrilled. They climbed into the majestic carriage, and they and their father set off for a distant destination, far from the burning mansion.
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In this story, the father, or elder, represents anyone trying to alert others to the peril of their way of life or their situation. This elder can act on a large scale, like a religious or political reformer or advocate for justice. These elders seek to transform oppressive and outdated systems. The elder can be someone - God, your true self, a friend, a counselor, a spiritual guide - trying to help you out of your suffering. You can be an elder for others regardless of your age.
The 'mansion' is the material plane of existence. The elder sees it burning down. Nothing is permanent about the material world; attachment to materiality is a dead-end. So, Jesus spoke, "Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and robbers break in and thieve, but lay up for yourselves treasures in the heavens, where moth and rust don't corrupt, and thieves don't break in and thieve." - 'earth' and 'heavens' can connote material and spiritual reality, 'thieve' the energies that slowly age and eventually consume everything. The mansion is a place of attachment to and greed for things, seen or unseen.
The mansion can be any situation, relationship, group, habit, or addiction harmful to our well-being. We need to lift these into a more subtle consciousness, including our interbeing with all beings, and not merely relate from ego-consciousness: ego, or the fleeting self-sense, is the mansion aflame, too. The ego is not wrong or sinful, any more than materiality generally is; they are temporary. As the saying says, "You can't take it with you."
The 'fire' is the suffering of clinging to what is impermanent as though it is permanent. Suffering is not pain; it is emotional. We can feel this suffering in our bodies. If we are like the elder father, we can see the need to escape. We can also awaken to compassion to aid others in escaping from the burning mansion. This suffering is a warning to us when we are anywhere and feel the fire. When we have physical pain, we know there is a root to that pain; likewise, we know suffering arising from causes and conditions.
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In Buddhism, we acknowledge and take refuge in The Three Refuges: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which can be understood as the Seed of Awakening within us, Truth, and Community of Spiritual Friends. We aspire to escape samsara, the wheel of suffering. Escape is not simply from but to. Spiritual paths provide a vision of refuge for us. So, escape is a positive movement toward something worth aligning ourselves with, something able to ground us, moor us, and lead us from suffering into love, joy, and peace. What do you take refuge in?
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Sometimes, we do not need to get out physically of a challenging, trying situation. We learn how to find refuge while in it. Discernment leads us to explore how to respond and how to live as healthily as possible in it. Sometimes, we may find that we need to remove ourselves.
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The 'children' is us. What are the children doing while the mansion is burning? Playing games and ignoring warnings. The children are acting from ignorance. Our environment and the nations are burning, and we look at all the people playing as though there is no need to escape the flames. They are playing with politics, religion, and spirituality. They are playing money, greed, glitter, lust, drugs, entertainment, discrimination, hate, and fame. The party goes on while the roof overhead is aflame. Yet, thankfully, many beings have woken up to see that the nonsense is nonsense.
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We all have the elder within us. We need to know, as the Buddha taught, "Be a light to yourself." So, "Be your elder." Listen to your heart. Listen to the Presence alive within you. Wake up!
All the outer elders are present to awaken us to the inner elder. We are born with this native intuition and get separated from it. The world system is designed to keep us in the burning dwelling. We are socialized to be consumers while the fire is consuming us. We need to reconnect to the Truth within us, the ancient wisdom. And past cultures, their origins distant in time, have much to teach us. Just think of the difference it would have made if the wisdom of the Native Americans had been listened to and honored or if those in the States would listen now. Intellectual and nationalistic arrogance closes our eyes to the wisdom of those we consider the minority or to so-called less advanced or underdeveloped countries and peoples.
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And what about the 'one gate'? To have only one way out to safety and life may sound limiting and exclusive. The gate, however, is any way of wisdom leading us to solidity, freedom, and peace. The one gate includes many ways. Please, if you have not, find the way that works for you. If you have, practice that way daily.
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Jesus said, "You are in the world [the mansion], but you are not of it." This saying says we are not to try to escape the world physically, as though suicide or floating into an ethereal realm are the answers; yet, we escape through detachment from its harmful, ignorant ways.
We are here to help fellow beings attain wise awareness and lifestyles and to join in saving the environment, too. If we do not change our ways, the environment might set the world afire through our abuse of it (Is it already doing this?). How unwise it is to set aflame the environment that is our home, and how foolish it is to burn down our bodies that serve as our home - the house of spirit while we are in this human realm.
There is much we can learn from this story. I have offered a few wisdom pointers. I invite you to reflect on the story and ask yourself, "How does this speak to me?" or "What am I hearing?"
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024. Permission is given to use photographs and writings with credit given to the copyright owner.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery
*Story adapted from Derek Lin. The Tao of Tranquility: The Wisdom of Lao Tzu and the Buddha.
