From then on, no one in the village grew old and no one died of old age. The settlement thrived and the population multiplied and soon there was not enough space for everyone. With as much as they could carry, the Karen set out to look for new land. In the selection of their new location they relied on an adage they believed in: If you dug a hole and then filled it back up, you could supposedly judge the quality of the soil. If the surface of the ground where the hole was dug was flat, meaning that all of the dirt fit exactly back in the hole, then the soil at that spot was just right.
After a while the group reached a river. They stopped along the bank to rest and tested the ground but determined that it was not good enough. While playing in the river the children discovered an unfamiliar type of mussel. Immediately they built a fire and set a pot of water to boil. Yet no matter how long they boiled them, the mussels would not cook. After three days the elder decided that they had wasted enough time; another faction of the tribe, however, wanted to wait. In the end they agreed that those who followed the elder would leave a trail through the banana trees to mark the way they had gone.
The remaining villagers waited and waited but the mussels remained inedible. After a week they added flower petals that the children had found to the water. But the petals dissolved and turned the entire mixture into a red brew that they were afraid to eat lest they poison themselves, so they poured out the whole pot.
When finally they set out to follow the first group, they discovered that the branches that had been cut from the banana trees to mark the trail had already long since grown back! It was the rainy season when plants in the jungle grow quickly, and now the Karen could no longer see the path their brothers and sisters had taken.
So it came to pass that today there are two different tribes of Karen people. Many even believe that the elder is still out there somewhere with his magic comb and that he alone can reunite the divided tribe.
A mother lived with her son in a farming village in Karen State. They tended a small plot, and they worked hard with nary a rest, but it sufficed only for the barest necessities. In a village of poor farmers they were among the poorest, and their neighbors looked down their noses at them.
As the son got older he fell in love with a young woman from another village whom the mother did not like in the least.
“She has the powers of a wicked sorceress,” she warned.
But the son would not be dissuaded; he wanted to marry the girl.
“Don’t do it. She’ll bring you nothing but bad luck,” prophesied the mother. “Let me give you some advice: Watch everything she does very closely, and you’ll soon see that I’m right.”
Despite these words, the two were wed. And yet the man was troubled by his mother’s remarks. He wanted to make sure that his wife did not possess dark magic, and he came up with a way to test her.
“I’ve got such a hankering for mole,” he said. “Do you think you could catch me one?”
“Of course,” she replied, and off she went. She searched for hours, but found no mole. Instead she found a young child playing beside the path. She turned it into a mole and took it home with her, where she butchered it. With the meat she prepared a curry for her husband.
The husband, for his part, had secretly followed his wife and seen everything.
The only thing he wanted now was to get rid of his wife as quickly as possible.
“Do you love me?” he wanted to know.
“Of course I do,” she replied.
He led her across the fields into the woods and finally to a cliff. “My mother has disowned us. The village has banished us. I am weary of life,” he claimed. “Are you ready to die with me?”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to jump first?”
“Yes,” she said, and without hesitation she leapt over the edge but got tangled in a tree only a few yards down.
Thinking her dead, the relieved husband made his way back to the village.
The sorceress spat a curse when she realized he had betrayed her. He would pay with his life for this deceit.
And so it came to pass: Before he even left the wood he was so severely mauled by a wild boar that he bled to death within minutes.
But neither could the sorceress free herself. She died a miserable death entangled in the branches of the tree, after which she turned into a stone.
A long time ago in the mountains of Myanmar, a tribe of close-knit villagers lived with their chief, who was strong, wise, and respected by all. The community had a problem, however: Their future leader, the son of the current chief, was afraid of absolutely everything. As a child he had been too frightened to play alone or eat by himself; he would not even sleep in his own bed. At first the chief assumed it was only a phase, that the boy would eventually outgrow these childish quirks.
Alas, he was mistaken. While the boy did develop into a hardworking, sensible young man who soaked up all knowledge offered him, be it martial arts or literature, he never learned to put aside his fears. The father had no idea what to do about this, and he wondered how the clan would ever survive under his son’s leadership.
One day the chief disappeared without a trace. He had gone into the forest and not returned. The village was in an uproar and the warriors immediately prepared to send out a search party. Hopefully nothing had happened to him.
No one even bothered to ask the chief’s son; years of experience had taught them that the boy was completely useless when it came to such matters. The villagers simply walked past the chief’s house casting sad and occasionally contemptuous glances through the window at the young man, who cowered motionless in his room.
As the chief’s son sat alone, shame began to wash over him. It seeped into his limbs; his hands went numb, and his breathing grew shallow. Finally it took possession of his heart. Oh how his cursed cowardice mortified him! And heaped on top of it all, there came the worry about his father! It was too much to bear.
The moment finally came when his shame and concern outweighed his anxiety. Nothing could be worse, the young man decided, than sitting around like a picture of misery, and he got up. Taking up his father’s bow and arrows, he strode out to meet the others.
After they got over the shock of seeing him out and about, they explained that he had to do three things to prove himself as a warrior and join their ranks. He must bring them a falcon’s feather, the tusk of a wild boar, and the pelt of a panther.
The young man set off on his quest. Anything was better than remaining a prisoner to his fears. In fact, he was a good marksman, so it was not long before he brought down a falcon and put one of its feathers in his belt. After hours of hunting, just at dusk, he was also able to fell a wild boar. For his third task, he climbed a tree and lay there in wait, keeping watch all night long. This jungle was home to panthers; he had even seen one as a child, when he had wailed loudly at the sight. Most of the time, these large cats stayed far away from humans, but in the wee hours of the morning he got lucky: One of these dark, noble creatures padded silently into view and he killed it with one well-aimed shot.
Filled both with pride and with concern for his father, the young man ran back to the village. There he was honored for his accomplishments and was accepted into the ranks of the proven warriors of the clan. Naturally he asked permission to join the search for his father. The villagers gave him the task of searching a mountain known to all to be inhabited by ghosts. The only other person who ever visited this place was a shaman who spoke to these beings.
Along the way he was attacked by a masked man. The stranger jumped down on him from the trees above and pummeled him with both fists. The fight was short but fierce, and then the attacker fled. Enraged, the chief’s son followed him to a dark cave. Only after he was already inside did he realize he had walked into a trap. He could barely see anything and all around him he heard the whisper of eerie voices…
Blinding sunlight suddenly strea
med into the cave. When the young man looked up he saw that he stood before a long table with several chairs occupied by the elders of his village. In the middle of them all sat his smiling father!
The chief approached his son and proudly pressed him to his chest. He then turned to the group and asked, “How is it, my dear friends, that you now see before you my son, full of courage and strength?”
“It is because of the love he has for his father,” answered the oldest.
“That is correct,” said the chief with a nod. Beaming, he looked at his son before he continued. “I treat this tribe like a large family,” he said. “Our greatest strength lies in sticking together and watching out for one another. This is the only way we can survive!”
The young man took these words to heart and tried his best to follow them. When the father died many years later, the son took over the position of chief with pride and confidence.
Long ago there lived a girl named Saw Nan Wai, which meant something like “Budding Blossom”—an auspicious name, but one that did not live up to its promise. The girl was from Hsipaw, a Shan city in the north of Burma. She had grown up without parents or any kind of family in a monastery where instead of care and support she got nothing but neglect and abuse. The nuns would give her the least pleasant chores, and they would scold and beat her. At some point the girl could stand it no more. She decided to flee the prison-like monastery and to seek shelter in the wilderness.
She struggled just to survive until one day she came across a hermit who dwelt deep in the forest. A big heart was the man’s only possession, and he took pity on the girl wandering about lonely and frightened in the wood. He took the child into his care and looked after her. For thirteen years she served as his assistant while practicing the art of meditation. Peace now entered the life of this girl who had previously known only loneliness, sorrow, and pain. The entire time she lived with the hermit she worked hard and strove to lead a righteous and dutiful life.
The hermit, knowing well the attraction the dark woods held for sinister spirits, had impressed upon Saw Nan Wai that while gathering food she must never stray beyond the limits of a well-defined area, and she had always followed his instructions faithfully. One day, however, as she was gathering fruits and other provisions, she inadvertently overstepped her bounds. Hardly had she set foot outside the sheltered area when she ran afoul of a band of thieves who molested her and abused her so severely that she died. The final seconds of her life were dominated by a burning desire for grim revenge against her killers. Because she had yielded to her lower instincts and wished for vengeance in the final moments of her life, she was reborn not as a person but as a python.
The desperate serpent sought solace and guidance from the hermit in the forest whose beneficent instruction and tutelage had so helped her as a human child. In the meantime, however, the girl’s former teacher had also died. His years of contemplative living in nature had earned him a new existence as a monk in Bago. When the python heard this she set out on the long journey in hopes of being reunited with the former hermit. Because snakes cannot travel more than a few miles each day, it was a wearisome and difficult undertaking. Eventually she reached Yangon, completely exhausted, and asked a passerby to take her to the Kyi Taung Tawya monastery in Bago. Because no one had ever heard of that monastery, a small delegation was sent to Bago in order to find out whether such a place even existed.
Once in Bago, the emissaries from Yangon visited numerous monasteries. Only after a long and arduous search did they find the monastery the snake had mentioned. It was a modest temple in a remote corner of the city with no appreciable financial resources. As soon as they arrived in the early evening they sought out the abbot and told him of the serpent’s inquiry. The abbot was astonished and insisted on traveling with them back to Yangon that very evening. Despite the late hour, the python had waited anxiously for their return and wanted immediately to show her gratitude to the person who had sheltered and cared for her when she was a human child.
Try as he might, the monk at first had little recollection of his previous life. Nor was he inclined to believe that the serpent could be the young woman who had grown up under his care. During the night, however, he had vivid dreams full of images from his life as a hermit. He also remembered his young assistant, the little girl who had wandered alone through the forest. Bright and early the next morning he sought out the serpent again. With the help of a young clairvoyant he was able to speak directly with the snake. The python asked for permission to rest on his shoulders. The monk replied that if she were truly his companion in a previous life, she must now prove it by sloughing off the fetters of her weight, by diminishing her body until it weighed no more than a feather. The serpent happily fulfilled his request. She slithered with her bulky body up the monk’s arm and rested a few minutes on his bony shoulders—a burden he could never have borne if the snake had retained her natural weight.
The monk from the Kyi Taung Tawya monastery was completely persuaded that the python truly was the young girl he had known in his life as a hermit. Still, he hesitated to take responsibility for the giant snake. He was no longer young, and a reptile of her size required a substantial amount of care that the impoverished monastery could ill afford, not to mention the fact that the monastery grounds were already home to a host of other animals, including several that were staples of a python’s diet. When he told the serpent about his reservations, she pleaded with him not to abandon her. She swore a solemn oath to live in harmony with the other beasts. Beyond that she prophesied that the monastery would have no trouble feeding her, for food would flow into the monastery in the form of generous offerings. And so the monk agreed to take the snake into the monastery’s protection as long as she would keep her word. Having reached this agreement, the monk and the snake set out that very morning for Bago. By noon they were standing at the entrance to the monastery. The snake was released and she slithered at her leisure into the ordination hall, where she resided peacefully, just as she had promised.
The news made the rounds, and since that day the monastery has experienced no shortage of pilgrims who now stream in from all parts of the country to see for themselves the grateful serpent, a sacred animal if not indeed a saint in snake’s form. The visitors pay homage to the honorable creature in the hopes that she might pass on some of her power to them. Some lay money and a bit of snakeskin beside her because they believe that by direct contact some of the animal’s strength is conferred on both. A portion of the money is always left behind as an offering for the snake. The pilgrims carry the rest of the money in their purses, along with the pieces of snakeskin, in order to establish an enduring connection to the serpent’s magical powers.
As the python had foretold, pilgrims from near and far donated large sums of money—enough to finance the reconstruction and renovation of many stupas and temples in Bago and the vicinity.
A long time ago, in a Danu village, there lived two orphans: a boy named Saw Shwe and his sister, Saw Ngwe. Their parents had died early on, and they were very close, but they led a harsh life. They were poor, and though they worked long hours in the fields, they were almost always hungry.
One year a terrible drought spread across the land. Three years passed without a drop of rain. The fields were parched, the rivers ran dry, and the livestock died. The villagers took to scouring the jungle for food out of pure desperation.
Saw Shwe and Saw Ngwe rationed their meager stores carefully, but in the end they were left with only one single grain of rice. Unsure how to split it, they took turns sucking on it until the sister accidentally swallowed the tiny grain. Her brother was furious and yelled at her, blaming her for their predicament. He sent her out into the jungle to look for food while he waited, half-starved, outside the door of their hut. Saw Ngwe wandered brokenhearted through the forest. She had never intended to take the last meager bit of food from her dear brother. She searched for several days, but like all of the other vi
llagers, her efforts were in vain. Every piece of bark, every stalk, every edible berry had long ago been harvested. After sunset on the third futile day, she died of hunger, weakness, and despair.
Meanwhile, her brother still hoped for her return. He blamed himself for sending her off alone into the forest and deeply regretted his anger, but he was too weak to follow her. During the long wait, he fell asleep and never woke up. He died with a deep pain in his heart because his sister was not beside him.
After their deaths the children were reborn as tiny birds, and to this day you can find them flying about. The brother calls to his sister: “Saw Ngwe, Saw Ngwe!” And she answers with a sustained “Kyaut py, kyaut py!”—I am afraid! I am afraid!
Some time ago an old woman lived with her two grandchildren on the outskirts of a village. The girl was nine years old, the boy seven, and their parents had died a few years earlier. Grandmother and grandchildren lived together in abject poverty, scorned by the other villagers, who looked down on them and treated them like lepers.
One day the whole village went to fish at the nearby river. As usual, the three had not been invited, but the grandmother sent the children to follow the main group. Maybe they would find someone to play with, or maybe they would form some other kind of connection to the broader community.
At the river the lines were cast, but no one was having any luck that day. The men sat for hours on the banks, their irritation growing all the while.
At some point someone recalled the old superstition that a bit of human flesh thrown into the water would draw the fish. Everyone laughed about it at first, but it stuck in their minds. One after another the inhabitants cast sidelong glances at the two children hovering shyly on the fringes. Surely they would not be missed. No one cared for that family. Weren’t they orphans, anyway? Outcasts?
The Long Path to Wisdom Page 12