di Antonio Napoli

A young man stopped the master at the threshold of the school.
“I want to be part of your school,” he declared. “I feel I could be an excellent disciple.”
“You cannot,” replied the master.
“And why won’t you accept me?”
“You ask me? Do you not see that you are still in chains?”
“What chains?”
“Exactly,” said the master, closing the door.

The following day, the young man returned. Finding an open window, he climbed inside. But as soon as he set foot in the room, the master appeared.
“Are you entering or leaving?” he asked.
“Are not entering and leaving the same thing?” the young man promptly replied.
“Now you may have a place in this school,” said the master.

One day, the master announced that every disciple must surrender to the flow of Becoming and renounce all that was not essential.
The new disciple claimed he had already been doing so for some time.

The next day, the master made his shoes disappear. The disciple did not complain.
Then he took away his bowl, and the disciple frowned.
Finally, in the evening, he left him without a bed. At that point, the disciple protested.

“You see? You do not surrender to Becoming,” said the master.
“Master, every change you have imposed on me has been a discomfort, an unbearable deprivation.”
“One must embrace change without complaints or regrets, reconsidering what is truly essential.”
“But man has a will precisely to resist change! Is it not true that his dignity lies in not being at the mercy of everything?”

The master shook his head.
“You still have a will of attachment, not of detachment,” he replied. “You are still a green leaf clinging to the tree. I seek in my disciples the mature leaf, the one that lets go, detaches from the branch, falls into the river, and follows the current… until the final change.”