Fables That Fix Lives: Ancient Code for Modern Problems

 We join spokes in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being but non-being is what we use.

Once a detachment of soldiers was marching through a wood to avoid meeting a larger detachment of the enemy in the neighborhood. The drummer kept beating his drum, through not loudly. The sound, however, attracted the attention of the enemy, and they surrounded the party. The captain bade the drummer beat with all his energy to inspire his men with courage. So he did. They fought like lions, and won the day. The captain said, "Good and evil often flow from the same source."

  A Man once stood up at a marketplace in the East and said, "I have been ordered by the king to collect all the well-born and well-bred and bring them before him, since he wishes to reward them." Everybody that heard him joined him, and he went towards the palace surrounded by the whole town. Then he suddenly turned round and said, "The king has just sent me word that he means to help only those that have been ill-born and ill-bred to make up for their misfortunes." The crowd lingered behind for a while, and then one after another joined the man as ill-born and ill-bred to merit the king's gifts. The man said, "The world goes as the wind blows!"

A Razor once said to a sword, "How is it that men always speak of you with respect, while they hardly make any mention of me?" "Because," said the sword, "you skim over the surface, while I go deeper." "Just so,"said the razor, "and thereby do them more harm than ever I can." "You are quite right, " said the strop, who was of course an ally of the razor; "men always call those great that do them the largest amount of harm.  The greater the evil, the greater the glory!"

  In a grocery store there was a very clever parrot.   In another store there was a myna that could talk. One day the owners of the two stores brought their birds together and decided to have a singing contest. The parrot first sang a poem. The myna followed in a clear, high-pitched voice, almost like that of the parrot’s. When the parrot stopped singing, the myna teased it and tried to talk with it, but the parrot kept silent. The onlookers thought that strange and asked the parrot why it didn’t say anything to the myna. “Its voice is not so good as mine,” answered the parrot, “but it is more cunning than I. If I open my mouth again, it will learn to imitate me.”

A parrot left its own home and flew to another mountain. The birds and animals living there all loved it very much. “This is a nice place,” thought the parrot, “but it’s not my home.” A few days later it said good-bye to them. Several months after its return the mountain caught fire. Seeing this, the parrot loaded its feathers with water, flew to the top of the mountain, and flapped its wings to sprinkle water on the fire. When the Heavenly God saw this, he asked the parrot, “How can you possibly put out the fire with so little water?” “I know,” the parrot answered, “but I once lived here and everyone treated me like a brother. It breaks my heart to see this mountain on fire. I’ll do all that I can to help them put out the fire.” Moved by what the parrot said, the Heavenly God helped it put out the fire.