Maybe you need them to help fix things, or at least pay up later. Maybe they need to take responsibility, gain some insight and change their future behaviour. The only difference is the presence, in that boat, of another person.īut in all likelihood, stoked by your shock and rush of adrenalin, all your focus is on that person – you shout at them, you abuse them for their stupidity and recklessness… you tell them all the things they were doing wrong.Īt this stage, a thoughtful and pragmatic person might start to point out to me that the other person isn’t irrelevant. The injury and damage is the same as before, so the real solutions to your problems are the same. But this time, there… sitting in the other boat… is a person. Now imagine exactly the same situation, the same impact, the same damage, the same shock and pain. You set about practically putting things right. The only ways to improve the situation are to get on and fix yourself, fix your boat, and maybe hope that some of the lost cargo can be retrieved.

But there is nobody to shout at, abuse or blame. You may be shocked, hurt, angry and frustrated. You are thrown sideways, you injure your arm, some of your precious cargo falls overboard and there’s now a crack in the hull of your boat.īut the other boat is empty! It appears to have broken its moorings during a storm earlier in the day. Imagine you are piloting your boat on the river, and another boat comes speeding into you with a violent crash. My interpretation is something like this – and I try to weave into it a picture of a place where waterways are crowded with small boats carrying passengers and produce. Later, I thought I should check the origin of the saying, and it turned out to be attributed to the Chinese, Taoist, philosopher Chuang Tzu.

It was about whether our actions and reactions are ‘on us’ or ‘on other people’, and about what shapes our decisions about this in the heat of the moment… as opposed to later.įor me, the discussion brought up a memory of a phrase I read long ago, and have reflected on at intervals ever since. I was talking with some friends in a meditation practice group the other day about – it now occurs to me – the relationship between wisdom and blame.

Chuang tzu empty boat