Wise man who teaches with nails and a wooden board

[dondrup]

Hammer nail when angry – it is so easy to hit a nail onto the board i.e. to get angry at the parents.  The frequency of his anger is as indicated by all the nails hammered onto the board.  It shows his inconsiderate mind and uncontrolled emotions.   The boy needs to exercise mindulness and control.

Remove nail when not angry – it is not easy to remove a nail after it is hammered and hence to control anger.  Therefore the boy must practise patience to overcome his anger.

Holes in the board – permanet damage.  Not only it is hurtful for the parents, anger is harmful for the boy as anger destroys all his merits.

[dsiluvu]

A wise man saw an angry and stubborn boy making life difficult for his parents.One day he approached the boy and asked him how many days he had gotten angry. The boy said he cannot remember. The wise man then gave the boy a wooden board , a hammer and some nails and told him to put a nail in the board every time he got angry. The boy promised he will do that, it seemed fun ! After a few days, he had the board full of nails. The old man then ask the boy to remove each nail everyday he did not get angry. After several weeks, the boy gleefully showed the board to the wise man with all the nails removed. The wise man then said to the boy. You did well to have the nails all removed.But what about the holes left in the board ?
What do you all think the old man is trying to teach the boy?

The old man is teaching about "KARMA". That even though you are good now and your alright... but the things you have done in the past. Negative ones especially leaves a mark and imprint even though your okay now. Hence the laws of karma, cause and effect is there. ANd so we experience all the nasty and good thing we experience do to the past creation of our actions. Cause resembles the results they say.

So even though all those days the boy did not get angry, but those days that he was angry still left a mark and that cannot be removed.... so it is best we wise up not to create any more holes.

[kurava]

When the boy gets angry, he hits the nails into the wooden board. Later, the boy is asked to pull out the nails. However , holes are left in the board.

When we are angry we lash out actions of body , speech and mind to hurt or harm. Later on, when our anger subside we might feel apologetic and tried to make amends. However , imprints of the results of our action are left on the mind streams of others and ourselves - these are like the nail holes on the wooden board.

The wise man teaches the boy how anger destroys and the irreparable damage it leaves behind.

[KhedrubGyatso]

Great response from all to this topic. I would like to add a bit more from experiential perspective.

1.We can hammer a nail easily into a board in the same way when we get angry and hurt people with our speech easily.
2. Removing the nails takes more effort as all those who have tried doing it will attest. To control oneself to not manifest anger that can strike or harm others through body and speech is much more difficult , not to mention removing this destructive emotion.
3. Anger come and anger goes, but once it manifests, it leaves  deep hurt in others which no amount of apology can remove long after the incident .The person who is object of our anger, will have to suffer  long term bitterness, regret , disappointments, sadness in their hearts.
This story I believe illustrates well the destructive power of anger and why we should strive to abandon it because it has no good qualities and very difficult to control once it arises.

[VivianChin]

Beside what the wise man is trying to teach the boy, the behaviour of the boy is a reflection of ourselves. The boy feels that it is fun to hammer the nail into the wood shows how we feel when we are hurting others. It seems fun to see the person we dislike get hurts! It seems fun when we are releasing our anger and let the others absorb it! The boy used only few days to nail the wood but took weeks to remove the nail shows that the time we are getting angry are more than the time we are not angry! That is explainable if we continue to see our act of anger as fun! What is fun is the last part that the holes on the wood is showing us that damages once done cannot be removed, so do our karma. Once we have committed those karma, it can never be removed until it comes back to us and yet we are spending so much energy creating it and trying to repair it!

[Rihanna]

What the old man tried to teach the anger some boy was - each time he looses his temper and hurt someone, even though he asks for forgiveness, the harm cannot be undone. This is just like the wooden board, even though the nails were removed, it is still full of holes that were caused by the nails. Even if it heals, it will take a very long time.

The wooden board signifies the victim of his anger, once harm is done, it would be forever scarred.

Therefore, we should check our behavior and control our temper not to hurt others.

[psylotripitaka]

That you become Holy be removing anger.