Truth is truly colossal. It is a courageous effort to encompass it within words. Can anyone reach Truth without first destroying the armour of pertinacity? All those have fled away from Truth who have tried to see subjectively through their personal viewpoint, all those have got close to Truth who have tried to see it factually and objectively.

A housewife was once trying to pull a bo-tree by tying a rope round it. Her hands were profusely bleeding. Her body was trembling. Tears were rolling down her cheeks incessantly. Even then the obstinate bo-tree was simply refusing to budge an inch. A traveller passed by that place and saw everything that was going on. Gently he said, 'Sister! what are you doing?' She replied, 'Brother! My mother-in-law  asked for the bo-tree and, therefore, I am trying to take it home. But it is very obstinate. It simply refuses to oblige me.' 

 The traveller said, 'Sister! The bo-tree will not go like this.' He climbed the tree, broke a branch and giving it to the housewife said, 'Take this bo-tree and give it to your mother-in-law.'  Acharya Bhikshu has described pertinacity born of ignorance through the above tale. 

There is also another type born of ownership. Once a man was sitting and drinking water out of a small pond. The pond was almost dry because of the intense heat of the month of jeth (May-June). What ever was left was muddy. Just then a passer-by came there. He said, 'A little distance from here there is a big pond full of clean water. You should drink that. Why do you drink this muddy water?' The man said, 'This small pond belongs to my father and I will drink only its water.'

Pertinacity born of illusion is even more horrible. Once a dog lived with a washerman. His name was Sataba. The washerman had two wives. They used to quarrel too much with each other. One of the abusive expressions they used for each other while quarrelling was 'You the wife of Sataba.' The dog became a victim of this illusion. They stopped feeding the dog and he became famished. A neighbour's dog said to him. 'Come on, we will wander about and find something to eat.' The first dog replied, 'How can I go out leaving my two wives behind?'