Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

~ Joseph Addison ~

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
 

~ Aristotle ~

One Instant and you will have forgotten all, another instant and you will be forgotten.

~Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Imperatore ~

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

~ Buddha ~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

~Aristotle ~ If you’re teaching and not learning, then you’re not teaching, and if you don’t enjoy yourself in the classroom, you might as well be driving a taxi.

~Frank McCourt, “The Teacher”, New York Times 4/14/02~

Somehow we learn who we really are and then we live with that decision.

~Eleanore Roosevelt~

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

~Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Imperatore~

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

~Bertrand Russell~

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

~Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Imperatore~

To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle."
~George Orwell~

The Blind Men and the Elephant

by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

~After a  Buddihst fable~

(from http://www.wordfocus.com/word-act-blindmen.html)

It was six men of Indostan

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind

 

The First approached the Elephant,

And happening to fall

Against his broad and sturdy side,

At once began to bawl:

“God bless me! but the Elephant

Is very like a wall!”
 

The Second, feeling of the tusk,

Cried, “Ho! what have we here

So very round and smooth and sharp?

To me ’tis mighty clear

This wonder of an Elephant

Is very like a spear!”
 

The Third approached the animal,

And happening to take

The squirming trunk within his hands,

Thus boldly up and spake:

“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant

Is very like a snake!”
 

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,

And felt about the knee.

“What most this wondrous beast is like

Is mighty plain,” quoth he;

“ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant

Is very like a tree!”
 

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,

Said: “E’en the blindest man

Can tell what this resembles most;

Deny the fact who can

This marvel of an Elephant

Is very like a fan!
 

The Sixth no sooner had begun

About the beast to grope,

Than, seizing on the swinging tail

That fell within his scope,

“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant

Is very like a rope!”
 

And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong!

Moral:
 

So oft in theologic wars,

The disputants, I ween,

Rail on in utter ignorance

Of what each other mean,

And prate about an Elephant

Not one of them has seen!

 

The Blind Men and the Elephant

(from http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/berkeley/258/parable.html)

A number of disciples went to the Buddha and said, "Sir, there are living here in Savatthi many wandering hermits and scholars who indulge in constant dispute, some saying that the world is infinite and eternal and others that it is finite and not eternal, some saying that the soul dies with the body and others that it lives on forever, and so forth. What, Sir, would you say concerning them?"

The Buddha answered, "Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.' 'Very good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant.

"When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?'

"Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

"Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows over the matter.

"Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene.

"Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."

Then the Exalted One rendered this meaning by uttering this verse of uplift,

O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.

Jainism and Buddhism. Udana 68-69:
 
Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant

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Udana 68-69: We give a version of this well-known Indian tale from the Buddhist canon, but some assert it is of Jain origin. It does illustrate well the Jain doctrine of Anekanta, the manysidedness of things. Cf. Tattvarthaslokavartika 116, p. 806. Mihir Yast 10.2: Cf. Analects 15.5, p. 1020.

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