The Golden Leaves

Once a Zen master was teaching the art of gardening to the king of Japan. After years of teaching, he said, “Now I am leaving. I will come any day and see your garden. That will be the examination of what you have learnt so far.” And he added, “Whatever you have learnt, go on practising in your palace garden.”

For three years, the king had used nearly one thousand gardeners to implement everything in the minutest detail. The garden was cleaned, everything was put exactly right, as it should be, no error, no mistake…

One day, the master came. The king was very happy because whatever the master had said, had been absolutely fulfilled; it was impossible to find any fault. But the master looked at the garden and became very serious, which was not natural to the master. He was a man of laughter. He became sad.

As they moved into the garden he became more and more serious and the king started feeling a little trembling inside. Was he going to fail? What had gone wrong? The silence of the master was too heavy. Finally, the king asked, “What is the matter? I have never seen you so serious. I was thinking you would be immensely happy that your disciple had worked hard.”

The master said, “Everything is right but where are the golden leaves? I don’t see any dead leaves, yellow leaves fluttering in the wind. The garden looks dead without that. There is no song, no dance. The garden looks very artificial."

The king had removed all the dead leaves, not only from the ground but even from the plants and trees. He had never thought of it, that death is also part of life, that it is not its opposite but its complementary, that without it there would be no life. And certainly, the master was right. Yes, the garden was beautiful, but it looked as if it were a merely a painting, not alive.

Words

Malba Tahan illustrates the dangers of words: A woman said so often that her neighbour was a thief that the young man was finally arrested. Some days later, they discovered that he was innocent and set him free. Then he sued the woman.

"Comments are not so serious", she said to the judge.

"Granted", answered the magistrate. "When you go back home today, write down everything bad you said about the young man, then tear up the paper and throw the bits away as you walk along. Come back tomorrow to hear the sentence."

The woman obeyed and returned the following day.

"You are pardoned if you give me the bits of paper you spread on the street yesterday. Otherwise, you will be condemned to a year in prison", declared the magistrate.

"But that’s impossible! The wind has blown them all away!"

"In the very same way, a simple comment can be spread by the wind and destroy a man’s honour, and afterwards, it is impossible to repair the harm that has been done."

And he sent the woman off to jail.

(Source: Paulo Coelho's blog)

The True Self

Once a pregnant lion died soon after giving birth. The newborn cub started to roam around and it saw a herd of sheep. The mother sheep decided to raise the cub.

With time, that little cub grew up along with sheep and started to think and act just like a sheep. It would even eat grass like sheep.

The lion was teased by other sheep for being so different. Some of them would say, “You are so ugly. Your voice is so weird. You are a disgrace to sheep family.”

The lion felt sad that he didn’t look like them. The lion was tired of getting along with sheep herd. But it felt guilty that he had let down the sheep community by being so different.

One day, an older lion saw the herd of sheep and decided to attack it. While attacking, it saw the young lion running away along with the other sheep.

The older lion got curious and decided to pursue the younger lion. Soon it was able to pounce on the young lion and then asked, “Why are you running away with the sheep?”

The younger lion who had never seen lion, shaking in fear it said, “Please don’t eat me. I am just a young sheep, please let me go..!!”

Hearing this, the older lion growled, “What? You are not a sheep. You are a lion just like me.”

The young lion just kept on saying, “I am a sheep. please let me go.”

At that point, the older lion got an idea. It dragged the younger lion to a river nearby and asked it to look at its reflection. Upon looking at the reflection and then the older lion, the young lion realized who he really was.

The young lion felt so thrilled that it gave a mighty roar.

It is always easy to lose one's true identity and potential amidst the culture and the belief in which one is brought up.

Advice

Once there was a little boy who was obsessed with eating sweets. His mother got worried because of his excessive sweet eating habit and tried many ways to stop him from eating. However, nothing seemed to work.

Near the village lived a wise man who was respected by everyone. She decided to take her son to that wise man, in hope that her son may listen to him.

The mother went to the wise man with her son. She met him and said, “My son, eats sweets excessively. Will you please tell him that it’s bad for his health?”

After listening to her, the wise man thought for a while and asked the mother to return to him after a month. She left.

After a month, she returned and this time the wise man took the boy for a walk and after a while returned. He looked at the boy and said, “Boy, You should stop eating sugar because it’s not good for health..”

The boy nodded and promised that he will no eat sugar anymore.

Few days later, the mother returned to the wise man and said, “Thank you for your help. The boy has kept his promise and hasn’t eaten sugar since then.”

She then asked the holy man, “Why didn’t you tell my son to stop eating sugar right then when I first came to meet you? Why did you ask me to return after a month?”

The Wise man smiled and replied, “At that time, I used to eat sugar myself and I didn’t have the right to tell your kid to stop eating sugar. But I stopped taking sugar myself. Then after I was able to tell your kid to stop eating sugar."