I love stories – reading them, listening to them, sharing them, learning from them, wondering about them and struggling with them. I often read the same story over and over again, listening to the message and hearing something new each time.

In her book: Start Where You Are, Pema Chodron shares this Zen story about a boat: 

There is a man enjoying himself on a river at dusk. He notices another boat coming down the river toward him.  He thinks that its nice that someone else is also enjoying the nice summer evening.  However, he realizes that the boat is coming right toward him moving faster and faster. He begins to yell at the boat to watch out and turn aside. Yet the boat continues to move toward him all the while gaining speed. He stands in his boat and begins to scream and shake his fist.  As the boat crashes into him, he sees that it is an empty boat.

This is a classic story of our life situation. There are a lot of empty boats out there and we can scream and shake our fist at them or we could let them stop our minds, so we can rest in that little gap.

Before we scream and shake our fists today, let’s slow down for the empty boat.