Zen Buddhist Tiger and Strawberry Notebook

A variation of the Zen Buddhist parable about the tiger and the strawberry. As the story goes, a man in the mountains was set upon by a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to see crocodiles watching him, waiting for him to fall. Only the vine sustained him. A mouse appeared and, little by little, started to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a wild strawberry growing from that vine. He plucked and ate it. How sweet it tasted! This is a Zen parable about simply enjoying the beauty of the present moment, with no attachment for the past (tiger) and no fear of the future (crocodiles) and being truly alive every second of your life. This, however, is of a young woman thinking of that parable when she notices she is being stalked by a leopard, and says she isn't going out like that. She'll fight to the death and eat all the strawberries afterward.