Introduction
Welcome to the second installment of the “Deconstructing…” series! Today, I’ll share The Monkey and The Horse Gram Panchatantra story and some of my thoughts. Since I couldn’t find the original story online, I’m taking full creative liberties with it 🤭 perhaps, it's for the best!
In My Own Words
On a warm May evening, a monkey named Terk lounged in a mango tree next to a riverbank. The sweet smell of the ripening fruits gently invited her to doze off. As her eyes closed, a small blue butterfly with black stripes floated in front of her. The butterfly landed on her chest, and she fell asleep.
Suddenly, the earth shook. Terk opened her eyes, and she couldn’t find the butterfly. Mango leaves fell around her. She hurriedly climbed down to a lower branch to make sense of the commotion.
A hunting party from the nearby village started setting up camp close to her tree. Two group members, one tall and one short, approached the river to drink water. Noticing the weapons they carried on their belts, Terk realized they were soldiers. She slowly shifted towards a branch's edge to eavesdrop on their conversation but remained concealed within the trees’ leaves.
After taking a long sip from the stream, the tall one sighed and grunted, “My goodness, I can’t believe the prince brought us all out here. All this for a hunt?”
The short one cautiously agreed, “Indeed — while it seems excessive, the excursion provides us with some entertainment and a change of pace. However, I would’ve appreciated a shorter journey that didn’t require us to make camp overnight.” Clearly exhausted from the day’s travel, he proceeded to take two large gulps of water.
“In addition to that, think of the cost,” said the tall one. “To adequately entertain the royal party, the planner brought three elephants and fifteen horses.” Ah, thought Terk, no wonder the earth shook when they all arrived.
The short one gleefully exclaimed, “Don’t forget the three men to care for each elephant and one man for each horse. That’s many more mouths to feed. Speaking of which, I’m famished. Let’s return to camp and feast with our friends.” As they walked back, a bright idea to steal some food entered Terk’s mind. It’d been ages since she had tasted anything prepared in the village.
Once the humans built their temporary living quarters, Terk took inventory of where she could go without raising the alarm. Unfortunately, the humans remained far too active in their area, so she decided to take some of the horse gram set aside for the animals.
Once nightfall came, Terk approached one of the large pots holding the horse gram. She grabbed two hands full of food and scampered back to her tree without thinking. Her mad dash caused a minor stir in the otherwise silent stable. Notably, it caught the attention of Tantor, the eldest elephant. He tracked the escaping intruder, disguised in the darkness, back to the mango tree.
As she approached the tree’s trunk, Terk realized that she couldn’t climb back up to her perch since horse gram fully occupied her hands. She hurriedly shoved enough of the beans in her mouth to free one of her hands and climbed up the tree.
It tasted so good that she became deliriously lost in the moment. She began to eat hastily, and a few beans slipped out of her hands to the earth below. Seeing the beans fall drove her into an unhinged state of rage that impelled her to dive for them and discard the remaining horse gram in her hand. Much to her dismay, Terk couldn’t find the few beans that fell in the grass. Even worse, she lost everything she was holding.
Tantor had seen enough. Perhaps, it’s a jaguar, he worried. He immediately blew his trunk’s trumpet, working the neighboring elephants and horses into a frenzy. The collective ruckus drew the humans to the area.
Within an instant, they spotted Terk and started chasing after her. She scurried off into the wilderness after overcoming her initially panicked reaction. Tired and hungry, Terk left her mango tree to find another home.
Moral: Be wary of sacrificing all you have for what little you may not need.
Quick Takeaways
It’s simple to judge Terk as a foolish monkey that couldn't be patient. Her unfortunate situation stemmed from an inability to be grateful for the abundance around her. Her abode consisted of a mango tree during its peak season. Only the fruit’s delicious taste exceeded its scent. Towards the end of the story, she even had two handfuls of the yummy beans. Unfortunately, she squandered all she had while trying to save a small amount of the horse gram.
Foolish, wasn’t she?
I believe the fable aims to make me, the reader, ask that very question. In doing so, I surely incriminate myself for constantly spending my attention on the least essential matters of the moment. I’ll briefly draw out the analogy to real life.
Terk’s decision to chase the few bits of beans caused her to throw away the remaining beans she held, the first-order effect of her choice. Take the case of me hanging out with a friend. Let’s assume that my friend begins vulnerably sharing a personal matter with me. Let’s also assume that my phone starts buzzing in my pocket. Now, I have two options: pay full attention to my friend or pull out my phone to scan through the notifications. One option represents the handful of beans, and the other represents the tiny amount lost to the darkness. How often do we make trivial choices at the cost of crucial elements of our social selves, precisely the capacities to be present and show warmth towards family and friends?
Furthermore, Terk’s decision caused her to lose her mango tree home, the second-order effect of her choice. Take the case of me in a time-blocked creation session. Let’s assume that I’m halfway through a two-hour Plastikman track (shoutout, Endel 🤠). Let’s also assume that Twitter, open on my laptop monitor (oops!), refreshes with another set of ephemeral headlines. Again, I have two options: pay full attention to what I want to create or get lost in the Twitter sauce. One option represents the mango tree, and the other represents the few bits of horse gram falling to the ground. How often do we select truly meaningless options at the expense of sacred aspects of our individual selves, namely our mental state and our peace?
In each moment, we find ourselves in the precarious position of allocating our attention among matters of great importance (the mango tree), immediate importance (the grams in hand) and pure insignificance (the falling grams). We often fall victim to representativeness and availability biases, which influence us to privilege information directly in front of us when making decisions. Like Terk's attention moves from the butterfly to the horse gram without considering the mango tree, our attention wildly grasps at what’s available while taking the entire macrocosm of our awareness for granted.
Learning mindfulness ultimately means identifying what’s essential and spending your attention on that. And doing it over and over again.
I don’t know about you, but I want to hang out in the mango tree 🐵 hopefully, I keep choosing to do that :)
first time reading? please check out the sailing manual for helpful guidance!