A man walking across a field encounters a tiger. He fled, the tiger chasing after him. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above.Terrified, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger had come, waiting to eat him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little began to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine in one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I discovered this after being pointed to it by a poem that was shared with me. Reproduced below. <\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.youwall.com\/wallpapers\/201203\/red-strawberry-wallpaper.jpg\")
http:\/\/www.youwall.com\/wallpapers\/201203\/red-strawberry-wallpaper.jpg<\/p>\n
Relax \nBad things are going to happen. I have no idea why the gender of the strawberry eater changes. I’m not sure it makes a difference except in how well we relate to it. Still. A good reflection. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a Koan. I’m not sure how particular the wording is or even how to find the original wording. But this version seems pretty consistent with most other versions I’ve found. A man walking across a field encounters a tiger. He fled, the tiger chasing after him. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2xIrS-fU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":990,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions\/990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.riley.rackliffe.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nby Ellen Bass<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nYour tomatoes will grow a fungus
\nand your cat will get run over.
\nSomeone will leave the bag with the ice cream
\nmelting in the car and throw
\nyour blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
\nYour husband will sleep
\nwith a girl your daughter\u2019s age, her breasts spilling
\nout of her blouse. Or your wife
\nwill remember she\u2019s a lesbian
\nand leave you for the woman next door. The other cat \u2013
\nthe one you never really liked \u2014 will contract a disease
\nthat requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
\nevery four hours for a month.
\nYour parents will die.
\nNo matter how many vitamins you take,
\nhow much Pilates, you\u2019ll lose your keys,
\nyour hair and your memory. If your daughter
\ndoesn\u2019t plug her heart
\ninto every live socket she passes,
\nyou\u2019ll come home to find your son has emptied
\nyour refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
\nand called the used appliance store for a pick up \u2014 drug money.
\nThere\u2019s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
\nWhen she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
\nand climbs half way down. But there\u2019s also a tiger below.
\nAnd two mice \u2014 one white, one black \u2014 scurry out
\nand begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
\nshe notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
\nShe looks up, down, at the mice.
\nThen she eats the strawberry.
\nSo here\u2019s the view, the breeze, the pulse
\nin your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you\u2019ll get fat,
\nslip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
\nand crack your hip. You\u2019ll be lonely.
\nOh taste how sweet and tart
\nthe red juice is, how the tiny seeds
\ncrunch between your teeth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n