poison arrow
There is one, taken from the sutras, an old, old story in which the Buddha shows the futility of considering the causes and conditions that give rise to certain thoughts, giving the example of a warrior wounded in battle by a poisoned arrow.
The doctor is about to remove the arrow, but the wounded man says: "Wait, before you pull out the arrow, I need to know the name of the person who shot me, where he came from, the names of his parents and grandparents." I also need to know what kind of wood this arrow is made of, what exactly its tip is made of, and what feather the bird is attached to...
When the doctor discovered all these questions and returned with the answers, the warrior was already dead. This is an example of self-inflicted suffering, a kind of intellectual excess that prevents us from dealing with painful situations in a simple and direct way. The moral of the story is that you should give up looking for reasons and logic and just look directly at the experience. Remove the poisoned arrow of suffering now, and ask questions later. After the arrow is removed, questions are no longer appropriate.
🍀 Yungi Mingyur Rinpoche "Happy Wisdom".