A monk goes out on a boat in a small lake to meditate.
After a few hours of uninterrupted silence, he suddenly feels the jarring impact of another boat bumping into his.
While he does not open his eyes, he feels the irritation and anger building within him.
“Why would someone do that? Can’t they see me here? How dare they disturb my meditation?”
He opens his eyes, ready to shout at the person in the other boat, only to realize that it is empty. It had come untied from the dock and was floating in the middle of the lake.
In that moment, his anger and frustration disappears.
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Life is full of collisions. People, places, random shit you never saw coming. They’ll hit you, shake you up, throw you off course. They’ll spark anger, stress, frustration. Make you feel like the universe has it out for you.
But here’s the thing—most of the damage doesn’t come from the hit itself. It comes from the story you tell yourself about why it happened. You decide it was intentional. Someone’s fault. Some force working against you. That story? That’s the poison.
The “Empty Boat” idea flips it. Most of what crashes into you in life isn’t personal. It’s just an empty boat drifting on the water. No intent. No malice. Just random collisions in the big messy lake we’re all floating in.
And when you can see it that way, you take back control of your own boat. You stop getting dragged into pointless emotional spirals. You stay steady, ready to steer through whatever the waves throw at you.
So next time something smacks into your world and you feel that anger rising, stop and ask yourself:
Am I just angry at an empty boat?
August 2025
MISTER WILLIAM REILLY 