A Stallion and A Broken Leg

We view our lives in duality most of the time. We think certain things that happen to us are good and certain things are bad. But is that true?


In the 13th Century China, there lived a farmer with his wife and a son in a small village.

He had a farm. And on his farm he had a stallion. (Remember the song, Old McDonald had a farm? ♪　♪　） The stallion was not only the farmer's pride and joy, he was a work horse. The farmer depended on his horse to do all sorts of jobs around the farm.

The neighbors said: Oh, that's good that you have a work horse. 


One day, this horse ran away from the farm to the woods. Maybe, he got tired of his hard work around the farm.


The neighbors said: Oh, that's so bad that your horse ran away.


The farmer and his son went into the woods to look for the stallion. But they couldn't find him.

A few days later, the stallion came back to the farm. But he wasn't alone! He brought a wild mare with him! Yeah, he was thinking alright. If he had a companion, she could help him with the 'household' chores! (^_-)-☆

The neighbors said: That's great! Now you have two horses! 


Now, the young son of this farmer set out to train this wild mare. In the process, the mare threw him off her back and the boy fell to the ground. The fall caused him to break his leg.


The neighbors said: Oh, that's too bad that your son broke his leg! 


A few weeks later, Genghis Khan's Mongolian army swept through the village taking all the young village boys. But guess who stayed home?

You guessed it. The farmer's boy with a broken leg! You can just hear the neighbors say,

                                 Oh, that's great! Your son doesn't have to go to war! 

The moral of the story? 

We don't know for sure what is good or bad at the time it is happening. Furthermore, one that seems to be good for one may not be good for another. 

They are happening at the same time but the effects of the event may be vastly different from each other. 

An end of a war is a defeat to one country, while it is a liberation to the other.

What seems to be duality in our lives, in reality, co-exists simultaneously. We just don't see it that way all the time.

So, which reality do we want to live in?

One that only sees one side of the duality at a time or one that sees things as perfect in their entirety?