93. Vissāsabhojana-Jātaka — Gerardo Santo and the Wolf in the Black Room

 

Desire, the Shadow, and Silence Beyond Possession. A story inspired by Jātaka 93, exploring Jungian psychology, the Middle Way, and inner awakening.

 

Introduction — When Desire Becomes a Prison

 

What happens when desire ceases to be a possibility and becomes an obsession? And if a solution appears to resolve a conflict, why can peace still remain out of reach?

 

The 93rd Vissāsabhojana-Jātaka becomes the starting point for a reading that brings together a Buddhist tale, depth psychology, and the apophatic dimension of silence. The story is reimagined through an imaginative narrative set in Muro Lucano, Southern Italy, in the first half of the eighteenth century: Gerardo Santo and the Wolf in the Black Room.

 

Gerardo, a twenty-three-year-old tailor, encounters Nicola, a troubled merchant. Through Nicola’s account, we discover a wolf relentlessly pursuing a doe, an old shepherd’s warning, and a decision whose consequences cannot simply be erased by solving the outward problem.

 

The story does not offer an easy opposition between good and evil. Instead, it invites us to consider how desire, fear, and even apparently good intentions may contain hidden contradictions.

 

The Cover — The Black Room as an Image of the Unconscious

 

The cover introduces us to a mysterious, enclosed space. Gerardo and Nicola stand in the dim light of an old room, illuminated by the warm glow of an oil lamp. On the wall appears an intricate drawing: pale lines resembling roots, serpents, and a labyrinth.

 

The drawing is more than a decoration. It represents the inner world, a network of pathways that intertwine without immediately revealing an exit. The room becomes the place where an external event begins to transform into a question about consciousness.

 

The silent, watchful black cat deepens the atmosphere of suspension. Beyond the window, the moonlit landscape of the Lucanian Apennines connects the human world with the instinctual dimension of nature: the wolf and the doe foreshadow the story Nicola is about to tell.

 

The composition brings three spaces into relationship: the room, where the secret is spoken; the wall, where the mystery takes visible form; and the landscape, where desire appears as impulse and pursuit.

 

The light does not completely dissolve the darkness. It reveals only certain details. This partial illumination suggests that knowing does not necessarily mean understanding everything.

 

The MP4 Video — A Journey Through Twelve Moments

 

 

Accompanied by narration and music, the video develops the story through twelve visual moments: the cover, the chapters, and the final resonance.

 

1. The Mystery Emerges and Desire Is Named

 

Gerardo enters the dark room and listens to Nicola. A disturbance that was previously difficult to name begins to take the shape of a story. The wolf and the doe become figures through which the inner conflict can be observed.

 

The drawing on the wall introduces the theme of the Shadow from the beginning: something belonging to the psyche that has not yet been fully recognized.

 

 2. Obsession Meets Its Limit and Deception

 

In the winter landscape, the wolf fixes its attention on the doe at the spring. Its desire narrows its field of awareness until everything seems to revolve around a single object.

 

The old shepherd Matteo warns Nicola about the consequences of deception. Yet the temptation to resolve the problem through bait reveals a second question: even those who seek to restrain an impulse may choose means that require moral examination.

 

The bait represents an ambiguous promise. It appears to offer a solution, but carries irreversible consequences.

 

3. Consequences Open the Encounter with the Shadow

 

The wolf is dead, the doe has survived, but Nicola does not find the peace he expected.

 

The scene does not celebrate the animal’s death as a victory. Its motionless body recalls the weight of the decision, while the doe continues quietly on its way.

 

Gerardo studies the drawing on the wall. The tangled lines become a metaphor for the contradictory motives that may accompany our actions. Encountering the Shadow does not mean condemning ourselves or rushing to absolution; it means acknowledging what we would rather not see.

 

4. Detachment, the Middle Way, and the Suspension of Certainty

 

Gerardo returns to the spring and observes the doe without attempting to approach or possess it. The path opens between the rocks and continues toward the valley.

 

The Middle Way is presented as a form of mindful vigilance: neither blindly obeying desire nor trying to erase every impulse through rejection. Detachment is not indifference; it is the possibility of allowing things to exist without claiming ownership over them.

 

The wolf’s tracks remain in the landscape, but they no longer occupy the entire scene. The past is not erased: the way it is perceived begins to change.

 

5. Silence Beyond Possession

 

The final resonance leads us to a quiet spring, a path disappearing into mist, and a landscape illuminated by the first light of dawn.

 

The doe remains free beside the water. The wolf is a distant presence, part of the same natural world. Life is not divided absolutely between what must be eliminated and what must be conquered.

 

Silence offers no definitive solution. Instead, it allows us to suspend the need to explain, control, and possess everything.

 

 A Jungian Reading — Recognizing the Shadow

 

In the perspective of Carl Gustav Jung, the Shadow includes aspects of ourselves that we tend to ignore, reject, or project onto others. It is not simply equivalent to evil: it may contain fears, impulses, needs, and contradictions that we have not yet learned to acknowledge.

 

The wolf symbolically represents a desire that has become dominant, but its story does not exhaust the problem. Nicola must also confront his own Shadow: his fear, his need to intervene, and his belief that an external outcome can restore order to his inner world.

 

Gerardo becomes a quiet witness. He does not eliminate conflict through a moral formula; he invites us to observe it. From this perspective, integrating the Shadow does not mean justifying every action. It means recognizing our motives and accepting responsibility for their consequences.

 

 The Apophatic Dimension — Not Everything Can Be Possessed by Knowledge

 

The apophatic perspective invites us to recognize the limits of definitions. It does not deny the possibility of understanding, but questions the claim that a final explanation can exhaust a mystery.

 

The drawing on the wall remains intricate. The path disappears into mist. The spring reflects the sky without holding it. These images suggest a form of knowing that opens up when it relinquishes the need to dominate completely what it encounters.

 

The expression “not this, not that” becomes a contemplative gesture: letting go of rigid identifications and certainties that turn every experience into something to be conquered.

 

Silence is not an escape from responsibility. It is a space in which we may see more clearly, without confusing the need to be right with inner freedom.

 

 The Middle Way — Desire Without Becoming Its Prisoner

 

The doe should not be understood as a reward, nor the wolf as an absolute enemy. Both belong to the landscape of life. The question is how desire takes shape and determines our actions.

 

The Middle Way suggests an alternative to both repression and compulsive surrender to impulse: acknowledging desire, observing its movement, and refusing to identify entirely with it.

 

Nicola cannot change what has happened. He can, however, begin to see his own decision differently. Gerardo, in turn, continues his journey without pretending that every contradiction has been resolved.

 

Final Resonance — The World Does Not Belong to Us

 

The journey concludes with a simple image: water, the doe, the distant wolf, and a path opening toward dawn.

 

Nothing is conquered. Nothing is erased. The landscape continues to exist beyond the desires of the characters.

 

Perhaps freedom begins when we no longer need to turn every mystery into an answer, every encounter into possession, or every conflict into victory.

 

The wolf in the black room does not merely ask us to recognize obsession. It also invites us to examine our need to dominate it, because even liberation can become another prison.

 

Silence beyond possession means seeing without grasping, understanding without claiming to exhaust the mystery, and walking without needing to own the destination.

 

A video essay inspired by the 93rd Vissāsabhojana-Jātaka, exploring symbolic storytelling, Jungian psychology, the Middle Way, and the apophatic dimension.

 

Project author: Giuseppe Gugliotta