Cause and Effect

Professor Long had been teaching the same course for the past five years, ten semesters. Each semester, as he taught, in the back of the room stood an old man listening to his lectures. Finally one day, he approached the elderly gentleman and asked him why he kept coming to his lectures, semester after semester.

"I am no longer a human. I once was the professor who taught this very course before you. Several years ago, a student asked me if what I taught had anything to do with him becoming an enlightened individual sometime in his life. I answered, such a thing does not happen. Now I am a timber wolf. I return seeking something to turn be from this path. Can you help me?"

The next time the class met, Professor Long waited until all the students were assembled and he spotted the old man, who he now knew as Professor Short, and then he said to the assembled listeners, "My lecture today is based upon that which has been discussed. As you seek which you need, each of you here eventually will, in your own way, want to become enlightened. My advice is, 'Don't ignore cause and effect.'"

With that the former professor got up and left the room, satisfied. He passed away soon after, a happy man.

At the next class meeting, Professor Long announced there would be a brief assembly at the end of class in honor of Professor Short, who had died. As none of the students there knew who he was, there was puzzlement and whispering throughout the room. One students asked who he was, as no one knew of any professor who had recently died or of one named Short.

Professor Long lead the class out into a nearby field. There was a funeral pyre set-up and a timber wolf body lying upon it. Professor Long stopped near the pyre and said, "Professor Short was the former teacher of our course. He once erred in his instruction and was doomed to wander as a wolf for his misjudgment. Unless each of you open your minds, you too will wander.