Cliff Hanger
====


One day while walking through the wilderness a man stumbled
upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a
high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a
vine and dangled over the fatal precipice. As he hung there,
two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing
on the vine. Suddenly, he noticed on the vine a plump wild
strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. It was
incredibly delicious!

(One reader claimed that Thomas Cleary once told him that
the original ending of this story was quite different.
According to Cleary, D.T. Suzuki changed the ending because
he thought the original would not appeal to Westerners. The
story was then picked up by others, such as Paul Reps. In
the original version, the strawberry turns out to be, in
fact, deadly poison)