As the Fool walked up to the pond that Temperance stood and poured the water back and forth, The Fool noticed a man sitting in meditation under a Pippala tree. He sat cross-legged on a giant lotus flower and had a hand up with his thumb and index finger circled. Three golden chalices sat before the tranced gentleman.
The Fool could hear the thoughts of the meditating man. He seems to be having a hard time finding an empty head. He was thinking of everything from his childhood, his upbringing, the teachers he studied under, the villages he has traveled through. He thought of silencing his brain, but the harder he thought about it the harder it was to silence his brain. He thought about sex.
The Fool didn’t like the idea that he could read this poor man’s mind. He seemed tortured, not by having a sick mind, but by it not shutting up. He was trying to find an emptiness of thought. The Fool thought about suggesting a wander.
A little dark cloud floated out of the night sky and hovered in front of the meditating man. A small hand came out holding a fourth chalice. It seemed to be presenting it to the meditating man, but the meditating man was thinking about how annoying it was that he could see shadows and lights affect him from behind his closed eyes.
The cloud tried for several minutes to present the chalice to the man, but it finally gave up and sat it gently on the ground by the other three cups. The Fool could hear a heartbeat emit from the new cup.
Temperance spoke from their pond, those are four lessons.
One is suffering, Temperance went on, it is when we can’t be satisfied. We search for quick fixes, temporary gratifications, but it never seems to fill the hole in our souls. It is easy to find ourselves in this state. This is the chaos.
The second one, Temperance said, is the origin of what pains you. It is and if not let go of, the very reason you find no satisfaction. You must know what the genesis of your pain is. This is where we are born or reborn.
The third one, Temperance said, is death. We must let go of what pains us. We have to let that part of ourselves die. This is what brings us closer to self-satisfaction. This is where he sits now waiting for those parts within him to die.
The Fool could still hear the man thinking. He was angry that people were having a conversation right next to him. He was especially angry that the conversation included him. He was trying to slip further into the abyss of nothingness. He also thought about cookies and the fact that he couldn’t really figure out how snakes moved.
The one that just arrived, Temperance said, is the moving on from that death a new being. We walk away from death with compassion and love. We find where we can be of service to others. We help the ones who can’t help themselves. We begin to see the consequences, both good and bad of our actions. We can almost see into the future with our acts.
The Fool thought that if anything would wake the man up from his meditation and see the gifts in front of him, what the Temperance said would do it. The man stayed in a trance. Humming as he kept his eyes closed. The Fool felt like the man was missing what he was looking for, and the Fool knew since he could read the man’s mind.
He left the man meditation under the ancient fig tree and headed over to the pond where Temperance went back to her pouring water from jug to jug.