I saw this mural in a monastary and it immediately got me thinking. First, the tiger is pulling away from the master. Second, the master is actually holding the tiger back…..he IS exerting effort but still, he IS doing it. In reality, wouldn’t the tiger be ATTACKING the master; not pulling away??? Wouldn’t the master be RUNNING AWAY from the tiger; not trying to keep it from running away???
There are some Buddhist, spiritual implications here and I won’t go into my own thoughts on what those are or could be. I will, however, exert my own world view on this mural and it will likely reflect where I am in relation to my own walk.
I think this mural represents what we THINK we are doing. We think we have control over what our problems are. We think we can tame them, curb them, and even keep them ourselves. But, isn’t that chain broken? Haven’t we all been freed? Why do we keep struggling with things that are bigger than ourselves? We don’t even have to run AWAY but TO. Amen.