Rerouting by Kevin Thompson

 

This is a Buddhist story.  An illustration of the need to see the world and the necessity of change from time to time.

There was a woman who walked down a certain street to get to work every day.  The problem was that in the middle of the sidewalk, there was a big hole.  No one was fixing it.

Day 1: The woman, on her way down the street to get to work, doesn’t see the hole at all and falls in clumsily.  So much so that she has trouble getting out of the hole.  She never saw the hole and it took a lot of recovery physically.  

Day 2 She goes down the same street to get to work the second day.  She sees the hole this time, but she falls in again anyway.  This time it is a little easier getting out of the hole.

Day 3 The third day, she saw the hole and stepped beside it.  Crisis averted.  

On the 4th day “I didn’t even see the hole today,” she told her friend.  The friend enquired with wonder, “How is it you didn’t see the hole.” The friend asked, “What did you do differently on this day with no hole?  Did someone fix it?”  The hole-riddled woman answered, “I took a different street.”