Walking around the elephant, for those of you who don't know the expression, it basically means to examine something from all sides. When you examine an elephant from the front, it's quite a different story than if you examine the elephant from the back and so on. So this person tries to walk around the elephant, so to speak with their decisions, they try to look at them from every angle possible to make a good, wise decision. Now, how is it that this person is going to be able to actually consider any of these things unless the person also reflects on these sorts of situations in normal life. And this is the reflection on Actions and the Results of Actions, this is how we can develop more Wisdom as to what we're going to do in decisions that come to us.
For a lot of us, we have things that happen again and again. And we have brand new things come up often, a brand new decision. We never thought about this one, we never thought about that one. In the meditation practice, can you bring up thoughts of all the possibilities of what may come to you in the future? What do we teach about reflection on death? Reflect on every different way that you could die. You are only going to have one way that you will die, right? Maybe a combination of injuries or something, but it's really only one way; you're not going to have a hundred-fifty thousand different ways that you will die, but there are about a hundred-fifty thousand different ways that you could die, if not more than that, I don't know, but, there are heaps and heaps.
Now, if you've reflected on all these different ways, then you will be more prepared for when the moment actually comes. And, if you get hit by that truck on the side of the road and you're laying on the ground realizing that your last breath might be coming soon you may think, "Well, I thought of this one, here it is", instead of, "Oh no, not me! How can this happen to me?", which is what happens to so many people. Instead of that reaction, if we have reflected on it beforehand, we go, "Yep. Okay, this is the one I get."
Now, the same thing with everything else that happens in our life; if we reflect more about these possible situations, just open up the news service on the internet, read a newspaper, get stories in your head of other people's experiences, and reflect, "That it may happen to you, also." Consider stories that your parents have told you; consider stories from movies you have seen, consider that it may happen to you, also. So, how are you going to react?
The more you reflect with death meditation, the more you reflect with Dukkha meditation, the more you reflect with Actions and the Results of Actions meditation, the more you use these, then you are going to be more prepared to walk around that elephant and actually understand, "Oh my gosh! If I grab the tail, the elephant is going to kick me in the gut; and then I'm finished. If I grab that big long trunk, the elephant isn't going to like that either. Maybe if I am on the side and stroke the elephant, it will be okay; it will like that." So even though I've never been around an elephant, even though I've never actually touched an elephant in my entire life, I can consider some of the stories that I know of people who were killed by animals, including elephants, and I can understand that you just don't go up to it and do certain things.
This is a way to be more prepared in making your decisions, whether they are real big life decisions or not, any decision.