Stay Calm

Once Buddha was walking from one town to another town with a few of his followers. While they were traveling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped there and Buddha told one of his disciples, “I am thirsty. Please get me some water from that lake there”.

The disciple walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that some people were washing clothes in the water and, right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing the lake right at the edge of it. As a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. The disciple thought, “How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink?!” So he came back and told the Buddha, “The water in there is very muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink”.

So, the Buddha said, let us take a little rest here by the tree. After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The disciple obediently went back to the lake. This time he found that the lake had absolutely clear water in it. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit to be had. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to the Buddha.

Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said, “See, You let the water be and the mud settled down on its own. You got clear water. It didn’t require any effort”.

Your mind is also like that. When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in  effort to calm it down. We can judge and take the best decisions of our life when we stay calm.

Take care

A cobbler lived in a large village, he was the only cobbler in town, so he was responsible for repairing everyone’s boots.

However, he didn’t have time to repair his own boots. This wasn’t a problem at first, but over time, his boots began to deteriorate and fall apart. While he worked feverishly on everyone’s boots, his feet got blisters and he started to limp. His customers started to worry about him, but he reassured them that everything was fine. However, after a few years, the cobbler’s feet were so injured that he could no longer work and no-one’s boots got repaired. 

As a consequence, soon the entire town started to limp in pain, all because the cobbler never took the time to repair his own boots.

This simple principle is so often disregarded. If you are in a responsible position and are one of the important links in the groups survival chain and if you  do not look after yourself, after a while you’ll be no good to anyone else either. Your best intentions will mean nothing and you’ll be unable to do what you’re meant to do.

This goes for leaders, social workers, teachers, even parents, breadwinners and homemakers!

If you don’t take the time to care for yourself, no-one else will. Are you taking care of yourself?

Karma

One day, Buddha was sitting with his disciples. One of them asked him "What is Karma?"

Buddha said, "Let me tell you a story..."

A king was touring his kingdom on his elephant. Suddenly he stopped in front of a shop in the market and said to his minister, "I don't know why, but I want to hang the owner of this shop." The minister was shocked. But before he could ask the king why, the king had moved on.

The next day, the minister went to that shop dressed as one of the locals to see the shopkeeper. He casually asked him how his business was faring. The shopkeeper, a sandalwood merchant, reported sadly that he had hardly any customer. People would come to his shop, smell the sandalwood and then go away. They would even praise the quality of the sandalwood but rarely buy anything. His only hope was that the king would die soon. Then there would be a huge demand for sandalwood for performing his last rites. As he was the only sandalwood merchant around, he was sure the king's death would mean a windfall.

The minister now understood why the king had stopped in front of this shop and expressed a desire to kill the shopkeeper. Perhaps, the shopkeeper's negative thoughts had subtly affected the king, who had, in turn, felt the same negative thoughts arising within.

The minister; a nobleman, pondered over the matter for a while. Without revealing who he was or what had happened the day before, he expressed a desire to buy some sandalwood. The shopkeeper was pleased. He wrapped the sandalwood and handed it over to the minister.

When the minister returned to the palace, he went straight to the court where the king was seated and reported that the sandalwood merchant had a gift for him. The king was surprised. When he opened the package, he was pleasantly surprised by the fine golden color of the sandalwood and its agreeable fragrance. Pleased, he sent some gold coins to the sandalwood merchant. The king also felt sorry in his heart that he had harbored unbecoming thoughts of killing the shopkeeper.

When the shopkeeper received the gold coins from the king, he was astounded. He began to proclaim the virtues of the king who had, through the gold coins, saved him from the brink of poverty. After some time, he recalled the morbid thoughts he had felt towards the king and repented for having entertained such negative thoughts for his own personal goal.

If we have a good and kind thought for another person, that positive thought will come back to us in a favorable way. But if we harbor evil thoughts, those thoughts will come back to us as retribution.

"What is Karma?" asked Buddha

Many replied, "our words, our deeds, our feelings, our actions......"

Buddha shook his head and said "Your thoughts are your Karma!"

The donkey and the farmer

One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and begin to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that fell on his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!

Life doesn’t stop with a challenge, it actually starts when we overcome it!