Overcoming Pride

I stumbled across this story today and it has really affected me. It is sad and depressing, but spoke a truth that hit me right between the eyes. I thought I would share it, more to unburden it from my heart than anything else.

A young man went off to war, leaving his pregnant wife behind. Two years later, he was able to return home, and the young woman went with their young son to meet her husband. They cried together out of joy. In Vietnam, it is traditional, when an event of this kind takes place, that it be announced to the ancestors. So the young father asked his wife to go to the market to buy the things that are needed for the offering that is placed on the altar to the ancestors. Such an altar is found in every house. Each morning a stick of incense is burned to the ancestors on this altar, and in this way a connection is made with them. Burning the incense, adorning the altar with photographs of the ancestors, and dusting the shrine are very important gestures....So the young wife went off to the market. During this time, the young father was trying to convince his child to call him Daddy. The little boy refused: Mister, you're not my daddy. My daddy is somebody else. He visits us every night, and very often she cries with him. And every time my Mummy sits down, he sits down too. Everytime she lies down, he lies down too. "After he heard these words, the young father's happiness entirely evaporated. His heart turned to a block of ice. He felt hurt, deeply humiliated, and that is why, when his wife came home, he would no longer look at her or speak a word to her. He ignored her. The woman herself began to suffer; she felt humiliated, hurt.When the offering was placed on the altar, the young father burned the incense, recited the prayers to the ancestors, and did the four traditional prostrations. Then he picked the mat up instead of leaving it there for his wife so she could do the four prostrations in her turn. In his mind he thought that she was not qualified to present herself before the ancestors; she was humiliated by this.After the ceremony, he didn't stay at the house to eat but went to the village and spent the day in a bar. He tried to forget his suffering by drinking alcohol, and he did not come back to the house until very late at night. The following day, it was the same thing, and this went on for several days in a row. The young woman could not take it anymore. Her suffering was so great that in the end she threw herself in the river and drowned.When the young father heard this news he returned to the house, and that night he was the one who went to get the lamp and lit it. Suddenly the child cried out: "Mister, Mister, it's my daddy, he's come back!" And he pointed to the shadow of his father on the wall. "You know, Mister, my father comes every night. Mommy talks to him and sometimes cries; and every time she sits down my daddy sits down too."In reality, this woman had been alone in the house too much and every night she had talked to her shadow.Misperceptions can destroy an entire family. Every time you think it is somebody else who is causing your suffering, you must remember this story and check things out with the person in question by asking: "Dear one, I am suffering so much, help me please".

Thich Nhat Hahn (1997) True Love: A practice for Awakening the Heart, Shambhala Publications, Boston, pg 25-31.