“Once, the Buddha came to his disciples holding a scarf in his hands, a beautiful silk scarf. It was probably a gift from some king. The Buddha usually did not accept such things, and now everyone looked at him in bewilderment, wondering why he was holding it, as if he were saying, ‘Look carefully!’ All eyes were fixed on the scarf, yet no one saw anything other than a beautiful silk scarf.
Then the Buddha began to tie knots in the ends of the scarf. A deep silence fell; everyone watched closely to see what he was doing. After tying five knots, the Buddha asked:
‘Is this the same scarf I brought with me, or is it another?’
Sariputta said: ‘Are you making fun of us? Of course it is the same cloth.’
‘Sariputta, think again,’ the Buddha replied. ‘That scarf had no knots, and this one has five tied into it. How can it be the same?’
Only then did Sariputta grasp the meaning and said: ‘I understand now. Although it is the same scarf, it is now knotted and resembles a suffering human being.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Buddha. ‘All I wish to show you is that a person who is suffering is, in essence, no different from a Buddha. I am simply a scarf without knots. You are a scarf with five knots. These knots are aggression, greed, falsehood, unawareness, and egoism.’
Then the Buddha said: ‘Now I will try to untie these knots. Who will help me?’
He began to pull the two ends of the scarf, and the knots grew smaller and tighter.
Someone exclaimed: ‘What are you doing? That way they will never be untied! The silk is so delicate, and you are pulling it so hard. The knots will become so small that it will be impossible to undo them.’
The Buddha said to them: ‘Ah, you understand this perfectly well when it comes to the scarf. Why, then, can you not understand yourselves? Are you not in exactly the same situation? You pull at your own knots, and they only become tighter and tighter.’
Then he asked: ‘Who can say how the knots should be untied?’
One disciple suggested: ‘First, one must come close and carefully examine how the knots were tied.’
He studied the cloth and added: ‘The knots were tied in such a way that they will loosen only if we relax them. By allowing them to loosen, they can be untied – this is not difficult. These are simple knots.’
The disciple took the cloth and gently untied the knots one by one.
The Buddha said: ‘Today’s sermon is finished. Go and meditate.’”
From a book of parables
