Here's one beautiful jewish wisdom folktale I came across recently. This story reminds us of impermanence in life and hands us most powerful sentence which can change our perspective forever.
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One day, king who rules over his vast kingdom decided to ask his most trusted minister. He said to him, "Minister, there is a ring that I want you to bring to me.
"If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Minister, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?"
"It has magic powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy."
King knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a test. Months and years passed, and still minister had no idea where he could find the ring. On one day, he ended up in one of the poorest towns in the kingdom. He passed by a blacksmith who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy man forget his joy and the sad man forget his sorrows?" asked minister.
He watched the blacksmith take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When minister read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile.
Minister went back to king. After looking at minister arriving, "Well, my friend," said King, "Have you found what I sent you after?"
Minister held up a small gold ring and declared, "Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as King read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three words on the gold ring: "THIS TOO SHALL PASS". At that moment King realized that all his wealth, riches, fame and power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.
The moral of story is impermanence; nothing remains forever, everything is passing, rising and decaying, appearing and vanishing in human life. The ring symbolizes the impermanence of life, it's typical understanding being death. Observing nature is a lesson in impermanence, change, life and death..
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