One day Buddha was walking with his students through a village, where the opponents of Buddhism lived. The people of the village surrounded Buddha and his students and started insulting them. In respond, the students got angry and wanted to retort, but the presence of Buddha calmed them down. The words of Buddha confused not only the students but also the villagers.

He turned to his students and said: –

You disappointed me. These people are doing their thing. They are angry. They think that I am an enemy of their religion and their moral belief. These people are insulting me and it’s obvious. But why are you angry? Why did you let these people manipulate you? Now you depend on them, therefore you’re not free.

The people from the village were completely confused and asked: –

But we were insulting you, why aren’t you mad at us?

Buddha smiled: –

You are free people, and what you did – is your business. I am also a free person and a master of my own actions. That is why I have my own right not to react to manipulation and be free from anger.

One man was travelling and suddenly he go to the paradise.He sat down under
the desire tree (there is such tree in the paradise, sitting under which you can
immediately fulfil any your desire, you just need to think about it) and thought: “I
am hungry, so it would be nice to have a bite right now.” And when he just thought
about this, a table full of different dishes that he was thinking about appeared right
before him.
Wow! – The man was surprised, – but it can’t be! – He thought so, and the table
with dishes disappeared immediately. “It would be nice to get it back!” – And
dishes appeared again.
He ate a plenty of dishes – he has never eaten such tasty food before. After
satisfying hunger he thought: it would be nice to drink something – and a perfect
wine appeared immediately, because there are no restrictions in the paradise.
Lying in the shadow of the tree and drinking wine, he started wondering: Why
these miracles do happen? It just can’t be that everything would be so good –
probably some ghosts played a joke on me.
Suddenly the ghosts appeared. They were terrible and looked like he imagined
them.
The man became scared and thought: now they will kill me!
And they killed him.
Everyone lives in the world that he deserves.

“A gentleman once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God.

Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised, he asked the sculptor, “Do you need two statues of the same idol?”

“No,” said the sculptor without looking up, “We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage.”

The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. “Where is the damage?” he asked.

“There is a scratch on the nose of the idol.” said the sculptor, still busy with his work.

“Where are you going to install the idol?”

The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high.

“If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?” the gentleman asked.

The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said,

“I know it and God knows it!”

Moral – The desire to excel should be exclusive of the fact whether someone appreciates it or not. Excellence is a drive from inside, not outside. Excel at a task today – not necessarily for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction.

Musk is a kind of valuable, extremely fragrant salve found in the navel of the musk deer, a habitant of the highest Himalayan Hills of India. At a certain age, the ravishing odor of musk secretly oozes out of the navel of the musk deer. The deer becomes excited at the attractive odor of musk and frisks about, sniffing under trees, and searching everywhere for many weeks to find the source of the fragrance. Finally he grows angry and very restless when he is unable to find the source of the musk perfume, and jumps from the high cliffs into the valley, trying to reach the source of the rare fragrance, and thus plunges to death. It is then that the hunters get hold of him and tear out the pouch of musk.

A divine Bard once sang: “O you foolish musk deer, you sought for the fragrance everywhere but in your own body. That is why you did not find it. If you only had touched your nostrils to your own navel, you would have found the cherished musk and would have saved yourself from suicide on the rocks below.”

Don’t you think that most people act like the musk deer? As they grow, they seek the ever-fragrant happiness everywhere outside of themselves – in play, temptation, human love, and on the slippery path of wealth, until finally they jump from the cliff of high hope onto the rocks of disillusionment when they cannot find the real happiness which lies hidden within the secret recesses of their own Souls.

If only you would turn your mind inward, in deep daily meditation, you would find the source of all true, lasting happiness existing right within the innermost silence of your own Soul. Don’t be like the musk deer and perish seeking false happiness in the wrong place. Beloved seekers of happiness awake and try to find your happiness within the cave of deep contemplation.

A CLERK, COMING OUT OF HIS OFFICE, GLANCED AT THE EMPEROR PALACE
A clerk, coming out of his office, glanced at the Emperor palace with its shining domes and thought: “What a shame that I wasn’t born in the royal family. Life would have been so easy then”. The clerk went in the direction of the town centre, were the rhythmical banging of the hammers and loud shouts were heard.

The workers were building a new building right in the middle of the square. One of them saw the clerk with his papers and thought: “Why didn’t I go to study, like my father told me. Now I would be doing easy jobs, writing texts the whole day, and life would be so easy then.”

At that time the Emperor came to the giant window in his palace and glanced into the square. He saw the workers, clerks, salesmen, buyers, children and adults, and thought how it must be good to be in the fresh air all day, doing physical work, or working for someone, or just being a street vagrant, not thinking at all about politics and other difficult questions. “What a simple life these simple people must have” – he whispered.

A tourist was walking through an elephant camp when she spotted gigantic elephants nearby.
Wanting to catch a glimpse of them from up close, she moved towards the elephants. As she
got closer, she noticed that the only thing restraining the elephants were tiny pieces of rope tied
to their legs. She was surprised by how such mammoth beings were being restrained by small
pieces of rope.
Noticing a trainer nearby, she went and asked him why the elephants didn’t escape when they
could easily break away from the rope. The trainer said, “When the elephants were young, they
were restrained using the same rope. Since they were much smaller then, they couldn’t escape.
As they grew up, they continued to believe that the rope was much stronger than them. That’s
why even now they do not try to break free.”
The tourist was amazed. The elephants could break away from the rope anytime and escape.
But just because they believed they couldn’t, they stayed as captives.
Moral of the story: Always believe in your capabilities and be determined to fight anything life
throws at you.

There once was a farmer who discovered that he had lost his watch in the barn. It
was no ordinary watch because it had sentimental value for him.
After searching high and low among the hay for a long while; he gave up and
enlisted the help of a group of children playing outside the barn.
He promised them that the person who found it would be rewarded.
Hearing this, the children hurried inside the barn, went through and around the
entire stack of hay but still could not find the watch. Just when the farmer was
about to give up looking for his watch, a little boy went up to him and asked to be
given another chance.
The farmer looked at him and thought, “Why not? After all, this kid looks sincere
enough.”
So the farmer sent the little boy back in the barn. After a while the little boy came
out with the watch in his hand! The farmer was both happy and surprised and so
he asked the boy how he succeeded where the rest had failed.
The boy replied, “I did nothing but sit on the ground and listen. In the silence, I
heard the ticking of the watch and just looked for it in that direction.”
MORAL :
A peaceful mind can think better than a worked up mind. Allow a few
minutes of silence to your mind every day, and see, how sharply it helps you
to set your life the way you expect it to be!

The Generous Student.

Lin Piao used to absent himself from classes very often and one day the principal of the college made up his mind to expel him. So he sent for the young man.

Lin arrived just as the principal was about to go for lunch.

“Is this the time to come!” said the principal, sternly.

“Forgive me, Sir,” said Lin, “but I got to college very late today. You see, I found a lump of gold in our field.”

“A lump of gold!” said the principal, his eyes popping out. “Oh, my, what are you going to do with it?”

“I decided to build a palatial house, buy several acres of land and several head of cattle,” said the student. “I also decided to give you a small sum for the trouble you have taken in educating me.”

The principal was pleased and invited Lin to eat with him. The young man ate ravenously but the principal hardly touched his food. He was wondering how much Lin would give him and if it would be enough to buy that small paddy field he had always wanted.

“I hope you’ve kept the gold in a safe place,” he said, suddenly coming out of his reverie.

“I never got a chance to do that,” said Lin. “It disappeared the moment my mother shook me awake.”

“What!” screamed the principal. “You mean it was all a dream?!”

The young man nodded.

The principal controlled himself with a great effort of will.

“I’m happy you remembered me in your dream,” he said, finally. “I hope you remember me when you really get some gold. Now please leave.”

It was only when the young man had left that the principal remembered why he had sent for him.

Once a young man was passing by a street where he saw an old man sitting on
road side begging for money.
That old man was sitting there with an empty bowl in kept in front of him and a
card board sign was kept beside that empty bowl.
On card board cut out it was written: “Blind – Please Help…!”
Young man noticed that despite it was rush hour and many people were passing
by that old man yet no one was giving him any money.
Young man felt very bad that no one was helping that old man or giving him any
money.
So he went to that old man and took his card board in his hand. He then took out a
thick marker pen out of his pocket and turned the cardboard sheet back-to-front
and re-wrote the sign then went on her way.
Old man noticed that someone was there writing something on the board but
didn’t said anything.
Just in few minutes, that empty bowl was now filled with money. Old man noticed
that and stopped a stranger and asked him what was written on that card board.
Stranger replied, “It says.. – It’s a beautiful day. You can see it. I cannot..”
MORAL:
Our Choice of Words and Language can create Positive or Negative effect on
other. If we Choose right words then we can truly connect with people and
Change their Views.

One day the Zen master wanted to show his students a new technique of shooting an arrow. He told his students to cover his eyes with a cloth and then he shot his arrow. When he opened his eyes, he saw the target with no arrow in it and when he looked at his students, they looked sad because their teacher had missed.
The Zen master asked them, “What lesson do you think I intend to teach you all today?” They answered, “We thought you would show us how to shoot at the target without looking.” The Zen master said, “No, I taught you that if you want to be successful in life, don’t forget the target. You have to keep an eye on the target, otherwise you may miss a good opportunity in life.” They looked at each other, impressed with the lesson.
The moral of the story is we need to consistently focus on what we want and we need to realize that :
What thoughts we focus on we FEEL, therefore our thoughts have a direct effect on our emotions
What we focus on and feel we attract in our lives. Our destiny is consistently shaped by our thoughts.