Eastern tales

[proxodimec]

Bird's karma

Once upon a time somewhere in big Krung Thep, on the outskirts of Bangkok, further from the noise, closer to the sea, there lived a bird. She had not too bright a color, not too charming a voice - ordinary oriental myna, tropical Asia is full of those. One morning she landed on a beautiful large pile of grain, to peck some, and got stuck - quite literally. A couple of hours later came the bird catcher, removed her from the glue, put in a bamboo cage and took to the temple, the big one on Chao Phraya, to sell. Added some rice, too - so that the live merchandise remained vivid. It was a full moon day, throngs of pilgrims coming to pray, so in no more than twenty minutes someone bought the bird and sent her to the sky, improving his own karma.

The myna, to be honest, enjoyed the adventure - to see the world, to mingle with people, to visit a holy place, plus a free lunch! Practically a pilgrimage tour, all-inclusive. So on the morrow she flew to the same place and got glued again. Good thing birds aren't conscious - if she had human brains, she could've analyzed the process, understood the meaning and chosen a trap closer by, there was one right next to her tree. But this one had been set by a boy who caught little birds, fried them and sold for crunchies to lorry drivers on the highway. Because nothing ever repeats itself in this world, and the ability to recognise patterns is harmful as often as useful; anyway, this is not what what our story is about. Our myna was collected by the same catcher, took a comfortable lazy ride to the temple, returned home on her own, well fed and entertained. And so it went from then on - every morning the myna hurried to be caught, had her breakfast in the trap, lunch in the cage, dinner at home. Maybe for a month the bird enjoyed herself, maybe for an year, maybe for two. No-one can count how many people she'd led a step closer to nirvana by her rapid release, for how many had improved their next lives. But finally, one day the bird catcher failed to manage Bangkok's hectic traffic and bumped on his bike into a pickup truck. Himself, luckily, came out unscathed, but the bird cages in the back got smashed - and the birds too, of course.

And after death it turned out that the wheel of karma has its own law of preservation, so every bonus the pilgrims got by setting the myna free ended up as her personal credit. She was reborn as a worm - and would have been eaten by a bird had the Universe known justice, or at least some sense of plot. However, since it is not so, she got eventualy trampled by an elephant, right through 10 cm of soil, which obviously affected her karma as well - but that's already a different story...

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Dreaming sheep

Once upon a time there was a sheep in North India. All day through she wandered on the slopes, afraid of every shadow, especially - of two huge Tibetan dogs and a Gujjar shepherd, and prayed to Pashupati to let her be reborn in her next life as a cow: to have real freedom, to be sure no-one dares do any harm, and to give milk to people out of sheer kindness. Meanwhile she had to give wool - it was unpleasant, sometimes even painful. One day the sheep was sold to a Kashmiri, slaughtered for Korban Bairam and reborn as a cow - in China, in Shaanxi province. No-one would milk her, Han don't eat dairy; instead, she was forced to work from dawn till dusk. And so she prayed to Guan Yin, hauling the plough: "May i please be born a human being next time, to be completely free, to do whatever i want and to give others useful structured data - wise words, kind deeds! After all, don't i deserve something better for all my disappointments?" Eventually, the cow was butchered too - and born as a girl in some European megalopolis. But human consciousness quickly replaced the memory of previous lives, left only the feeling that she deserved something better. So the woman grew up petty and bitter, with repulsive personality and depressive tendencies. She loved to lecture people on their immoral behavior which only made them wish she went mute, or fell dead, to do good without asking, so that her subjects had to waste a bloody lot of time and effort washing this good off, served someone or something for her entire life; and, even though she didn't believe in reincarnation, kept dreaming to become one day - well, doesn't matter what, but free as a bird and able to give people something they'd value. When her time had come she died of peritonitis and poached as a swiftlet on a small rocky island in Sunda Straits. Now she flies faster than anyone, excluding planes, only can't take off from a level place, and gives people her saliva. You see, Buddha doesn't bother with justice, but he definitely has a mighty sense of humor.