Last evening, the guest of honour at the Monastery was a Coconut Seller. He looked refined and had an air of sophistication about him. Dressed in a white shirt and a long lungi with a faded design border, he came into the main hall steering his coconut cart. The coconuts on the cart were of the brown variety, with lots of coir hair on them.
Sensei asked each of the Monks to take a coconut and then said, “Use your training and mediation to describe your findings about your coconut tomorrow.”
This morning, after the dawn meditation, Sensei invited the monks to share their coconut experience.
Inquisitive Monk said, “I just kept shaking my coconut to hear what was inside but I couldn’t hear a thing.”
Truthful Monk said, “I shaved my coconut. I meditated on it. I prayed to it. I got angry with it. I cursed it and threatened it that in the next life, Sensei would make it an insect. But my coconut did not yield.”
Money Monk said, “I made a business plan of how to make my coconut more valuable than the coconuts of others.”
Angry Monk said, “I just threw my coconut into the valley. I just couldn’t stand its ugly sight.”
Honest Monk said, “I broke my coconut. I carved out the white flesh and ate it. There was a bit of juice inside. I drank that. And that’s all I could find.”
Sensei waved his hand to Head Monk to speak. Head Monk said, “I smashed my coconut and offered it to Buddha. In the process I felt lighter.”
Sensei smiled and asked the Coconut Seller to speak. The Coconut Seller said, “I was a very successful and famous Banker a few years back. But I was also very arrogant and vain. In a short time span, I had done so well in my job that I managed to start my own business. On the inaugural day, Sensei was one of my guests and he gave me a brown coconut and requested that I ‘use’ it. But I did not. Instead, I just threw it away.
A few months later, my business and my company collapsed. My career was ruined. My fortunes were wiped out. The reason for my downfall was my ego. My vanity. My pride. I had forgotten humility. That day I realized that the coconut was my ego that Sensei had given me to smash. After my fall, I became a follower of Sensei and also a Coconut Seller.”
All the monks remained silent. Sensei then said, “The brown coconut resembles our ego that is ugly, hard and tough. Almost impenetrable. Blinding us from our actual softness and sweetness inside. Smash your ego the sooner you can, before it smashes you…”
*****
