Craving Grows Like a Creeping Vine
In one who lives heedlessly, craving grows rampant like a vine; he leaps from branch to branch, like a monkey seeking fruit in the forest.
When I get one thing, am I satisfied — or do I leap straight to the next branch?
📝Reflection
The two images of this verse are exquisite: the vine and the monkey. A vine left untouched spreads beyond control. Craving is the same — neglected, it overruns the whole mind. The monkey is more vivid still: the instant it grabs the fruit on one branch, it leaps to the next that looks better. Our minds are exactly so. Buy the thing you wanted and you are glad a moment, then the next thing to want catches your eye — a new phone, new car, new house. Satisfaction always seems to be on the next branch. But the monkey never reaches the last branch, for the forest has no end. The trap of craving is not that it cannot be filled, but that, filled, it soon wants the next. Just noticing this pattern, we can halt one leap between branches.
🌱Apply It Today
When, after getting something today, you immediately want the next, notice "I am leaping like the monkey now," and pause one beat.
This verse is read as universal humanistic wisdom, not religion — no faith is promoted, and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.
