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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 1:31:31 GMT
Nikela found herself at a fare with many entertaining things to do. As she was there, she listened to the story of a comedian and wrote it down since it was a meaningful one.
There once was a poor man who led his donkey every day across the border from one kingdom to another. The border guards suspected that he was smuggling something, so each day as the man passed the border they carefully searched the man and the donkey’s saddlebags, but they never did find anything.
After a while the man starts to wear more expensive clothing and buys a large house. The border guards redouble their efforts to inspect the man and his donkey closely because they now are certain the man is smuggling something. But in their daily searches of the man and the saddlebags they never come up with anything but straw.
After 30 years of this daily routine, one of the border guards retires. One day when the retired border guard is walking across the street, he runs into the man and says “Listen, I am no longer a border guard and I can no longer hurt you. I promise I will never tell anyone, but just for my peace of mind, please tell me what you have been smuggling all those years.” The man replies “Because I know that you can no longer arrest me, I will tell you. I was smuggling donkeys.”
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 1:50:43 GMT
Nikela was now with her companions on her way back to the temple of Sarenrae. Since the way was long she managed to write down a few stories before going home.
A hermit was meditating by a river when a young man interrupted him. “Master, I wish to become your disciple,” said the man. “Why?” replied the hermit. The young man thought for a moment. “Because I want to understand.”
The master jumped up, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, dragged him into the river, and plunged his head under water. After holding him there for a minute, with him kicking and struggling to free himself, the master finally pulled him up out of the river. The young man coughed up water and gasped to get his breath. When he eventually quieted down, the master spoke. “Tell me, what did you want most of all when you were under water.”
“Air!” answered the man.
“Very well,” said the master. “Go home and come back to me when you want to understand as much as you just wanted air.”
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 1:51:58 GMT
Word spread across the countryside about the wise Holy Man who lived in a small house atop the mountain. A man from the village decided to make the long and difficult journey to visit him. When he arrived at the house, he saw an old servant inside who greeted him at the door. “I would like to see the wise Holy Man,” he said to the servant. The servant smiled and led him inside. As they walked through the house, the man from the village looked eagerly around the house, anticipating his encounter with the Holy Man. Before he knew it, he had been led to the back door and escorted outside. He stopped and turned to the servant, “But I want to see the Holy Man!”
“You already have,” said the old man. “Everyone you may meet in life, even if they appear plain and insignificant… see each of them as a wise Holy Man. If you do this, then whatever problem you brought here today will be solved.”
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 1:55:48 GMT
During a momentous battle, a Calidorian general decided to attack even though his army was greatly outnumbered. He was confident they would win, but his men were filled with doubt. On the way to the battle, they stopped at a religious shrine. After praying with the men, the general took out a coin and said, “I shall now toss this coin. If it is heads, we shall win. If tails, we shall lose. Destiny will now reveal itself.”
He threw the coin into the air and all watched intently as it landed. It was heads. The soldiers were so overjoyed and filled with confidence that they vigorously attacked the enemy and were victorious. After the battle, a lieutenant remarked to the general, “No one can change destiny.”
“Quite right,” the general replied as he showed the lieutenant the coin, which had heads on both sides.
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 2:09:40 GMT
A peasant came running up to a holy man, who was resting under a tree. “The stone! The stone! Give me the precious stone!”
“What stone?” asked the holy man.
“Last night I dreamed that I would find a holy man who would give me a precious stone that would make me rich forever,” replied the peasant.
The holy man rummaged through his bag and pulled out a stone. “He probably meant this one,” he said as he handed it to the peasant. “I found it on a forest path a few days ago. You can certainly have it.”
The man looked at the stone in wonder. It was a diamond, probably the largest diamond in the whole world; he took it and walked away. All night he tossed about in bed, unable to sleep. Next day at the crack of dawn he woke the holy man and said, “Give me the wealth that makes it possible for you to give this diamond away so easily.”
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 2:12:33 GMT
A young disciple asked his master, "Master, what is compassion?"
The Master explained: "An old man was begging at the corner of a busy street. First an old lady passed by him and taking pity on the beggar, gave him a gold coin. Then a merchant, noticing that a small group of men were looking at him, gave him five gold coins, and walked on with a sense of self-satisfaction. Finally, a boy who went to collect some flowers for his mom, passed by the beggar; smiled at him and gave him a flower. "
The master asked his disciple: "Which one of them do you think felt the most compassion towards the beggar?" "The merchant did," replied the boy.
The master, smiling, continued, "The merchant acted out of pride, the old lady acted out of pity; however, the boy felt real compassion. Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity. “Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.” - Joseph Campbell Pity has its roots in fear, and a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of ‘I'm glad it's not me’. When your fear touches someone's pain, it becomes pity. When your love touches someone's pain, it becomes compassion. Feeling compassion is more essential than showing compassion.
“To train in compassion, then, is to know all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honour all those who suffer, and to know you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone."
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 2:21:59 GMT
I am a thief. And I cannot leave it, so please don't make it a condition. I will do whatever you say, but I cannot stop being a thief."
The teacher said, "Why are you afraid? Who is going to talk about you being a thief?
The thief replied, "But whenever I go to a monk, priest or a religious saint, they always say, “First stop stealing.’”
The teacher laughed and said, “Then you must have gone to thieves, otherwise, why should they be concerned? I am not concerned!”
The thief was very happy. He said, “Then it is okay. It seems that now I can become a disciple. You are the right master.”
The teacher accepted him and said, “Now you can go and do whatever you like. Simply follow one condition. Be aware! Break into houses, pilfer, steal; do whatever you want, but do it with complete awareness.”
The thief agreed and said, “Then everything is okay. I will try.”
After three weeks he came back and said, “You are tricky—when I become aware, I cannot steal. If I steal, awareness disappears. I am in a fix.”
The teacher said, “I am not a thief
therefore I shall not talk about stealing. If you want awareness, then you decide. If you don't want it, then too you decide.”
The man said, “I have tasted awareness, and it is so beautiful — I will leave anything for it. The other night I broke into the king’s palace. I opened the treasure. I could have become the richest man in the world – but when I became aware, diamonds looked just like ordinary stones. When I lost awareness, the treasure was there. And I did it many times, but could not even touch it because the whole thing looked foolish, stupid — just stones. I thought, “What am I doing? Losing myself over stones? Finally I decided that they were not worth it."
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 2:35:56 GMT
In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the kirig's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.
Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been.
The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 2:41:03 GMT
As Nikela returned to the church the priests and her mother welcomed her with a lot of happiness.
After a few days, and when Vael learned that Nikela and the monk were married, she could not resist but remember Iel. Vael spent a good time the following days with a painting of Iel. She also asked her daughter if she could write down another story that she remembered, and Nikela, of course, agreed.
A rich man asked a Zen master to write something down that could encourage the prosperity of his family for years to come. It would be something that the family could cherish for generations. On a large piece of paper, the master wrote, "Father dies, son dies, grandson dies."
The rich man became angry when he saw the master's work. "I asked you to write something down that could bring happiness and prosperity to my family. Why do you give me something depressing like this?"
"If your son should die before you," the master answered, "this would bring unbearable grief to your family. If your grandson should die before your son, this also would bring great sorrow. If your family, generation after generation, disappears in the order I have described, it will be the natural course of life. This is true happiness and prosperity.
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 2:49:42 GMT
One sunny and beautiful day, Dalon dissapeared, as if he never existed. There were no items from him and no one saw him leaving.
Nikela felt mixed emotions of curiosity and dissapointment. But, as her mother and the wise parables she was writing told her, she needed to move on.
Strolling along the edge of the sea, a man catches sight of a young woman who appears to be engaged in a ritual dance. She stoops down, then straightens to her full height, casting her arm out in an arc.
Drawing closer, he sees that the beach around her is littered with starfish, and she is throwing them one by one into the sea.
He lightly mocks her: "There are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see, for miles up the beach. What difference can saving a few of them possibly make?” Smiling, she bends down and once more tosses a starfish out over the water, saying serenely "It certainly makes a difference to this one."
Not many months have passed when she met a young paladin by the name of Ardos. She and Ardos stayed together and married.
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 2:57:33 GMT
Nikela and Ardos had a child, An-Ei, together. All went well until a woman with a hooded robe came to the church at a night.
The priests of the church detected undeath coming from her, but Nikela felt a weird sympathy for her. The weird woman looked towards Nikela and tossed the head of Dalon to her along with a message before dissapearing.
The message informed Nikela tha Dalon actually was dead a few years now and that a doppelganger has taken his place, trying to get close to Nikela so that he would use her for it's vile plans.
Indeed, the head of Ardos seemed rather disfigured. Nikela though was now stuck at trying t othink why she felt sympathy for that woman.
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 3:02:44 GMT
The time of death for Vael was coming. Nikela could not do anything other than write down a story about it, to forget her sadness.
A farmer got so old that he couldn't work the fields anymore. So he would spend the day just sitting on the porch. His son, still working the farm, would look up from time to time and see his father sitting there. "He's of no use any more," the son thought to himself, "he doesn't do anything!"
One day the son got so frustrated by this, that he built a wooden coffin, dragged it over to the porch, and told his father to get in. Without saying anything, the father climbed inside.
After closing the lid, the son dragged the coffin to the edge of the farm where there was a high cliff. As he approached the drop, he heard a light tapping on the lid from inside the coffin. He opened it up. Still lying there peacefully, the father looked up at his son. "I know you are going to throw me over the cliff, but before you do, may I suggest something?" "What is it?" replied the son. "Throw me over the cliff, if you like," said the father, "but save this good wooden coffin. Your children might need to use it."
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 3:08:39 GMT
Nikela stopped writing in the book for a long time. It was actually given to one of her brothers, who now owned an inn, to offer entertainment and wisdom to some passers by from the inn.
Vael died one day, when An-Ei was still young. Nikela felt sad and stopped speaking for a long time, more than a year. She would silently attend her chores and then she dissapeared in the forest.
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 3:18:12 GMT
A few years passed and An-Ei grew. Nikela was fine by now and cheerful as she was before she started traveling. Ardos announced that he was going to join the Holy Order, which were good news for the church and the family, though it meant that An-Ei would see her father only once or twice per year.
An-Ei found out about the book at the inn and decided to take it and keep it. After reading it a few times she begun adding her stories.
A farmer who had a quarrelsome family called his sons and told them to lay a bunch of sticks before him.
Then, after laying the sticks parallel to one another and binding them, he challenged his sons, one after one, to pick up the bundle and break it.
They all tried, but in vain.
Then, untying the bundle, he gave them the sticks to break one by one. This they did with the greatest ease.
Then said the father, "Thus, my sons, as long as you remain united, you are a match for anything, but differ and separate, and you are undone."
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Post by SigniferLux on Aug 21, 2013 3:25:03 GMT
A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, when two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep it was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.
The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. She fell down and died.
The other frog continued to jump as hard as she could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at her to stop the pain and just die. She began jumping even harder and finally made it out. When she got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that she was deaf - she thought they were encouraging her to jump out of the hole the entire time.
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