The Endless Further Buddhist Blog – David Riley

David’s writing’s were instrumental in my decision to leave the SGI and look for a quieter, more contemplative path in Zen.

David was the real deal – or as close as a layman can get to leading an enlightened life. In particular, as he experienced the slow battle of attrition going on in his body, his mind remained as sharp and creative as ever. While he was often in great pain, he continued to write articles to encourage reflection on the nature of being right up to the end (although sadly, I have been unable to recover his most recent writings)

Here is his obituary in the Whidbey News-Times:

David M. Riley was born in Wichita, Kan. to Russell R. and Lulu E. Riley. His childhood was spent following his father’s career with Kiewit Corporation from Wichita to Omaha, Neb. and graduating high school in New Orleans, La. David is preceded in death by his parents; his stepmother Hazel M. Riley; and his brother Brian. He is survived by his nephew Russell S. Riley and sister-in-law Susan Aschinger, Omaha, Neb.; his stepbrothers Bill Frost (Suzie), Oak Harbor; Ronald Frost, Camas; and David Frost (Pam), Tacoma; and stepsister Sue Hizon (Ron), Lacey, Wash.; and many nieces and nephews.

David lived a curious life going in many directions, always looking to fill his creative nature. He began his professional life in Omaha as a rock DJ, known as “Dirty Dave Riley.” He moved to Los Angeles in the early 80s, working in hotels, but to pursue his more creative side, he began work in a greeting card company; and also became a website developer; he was a published poet and story writer and a talented musician.

He was very involved with Soka Gakkai International World Peace Buddhist Organization. He received certification as a Buddhist teacher and meditation instructor. As his health issues took their toll, he became home bound but kept busy with his web blogs, The Endless Further, listening to music and watching classic movies. He tried to make every day a journey, and the journey itself was his home. David was fortunate to have the care and support of his parents, stepbrothers and hospice caregivers in making his remaining life journey comfortable.

David’s journey in this life ended Sept. 7, 2018. He will be interred with his parents in Sunnyside Cemetery, Coupeville. As David requested, there will be no memorial service.

Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond, Gone Far Beyond, Be Set Upon Awakening

Anyway, this particular Tibetan incense was eye watering stuff and I had been avoiding it. I decided it was time for a little outdoor sitting so I could set fire to it and enjoy it’s aroma with plenty of fresh air. After struggling a bit with a lighter to get the whole bunch of incense sticks going I blew out the flames to let it smoulder in the usual way.

It was, to be fair, producing a prodigious and unholy amount of smoke. I stuck it upright into some sand in front of me and started some silent sitting. A gentle breeze was blowing, and as my eyes started to close I became aware that the incense had burst back into flames.

I watched it for a few moments, and bent forward to blow it out – only to find it soon burst into flames again. The collective heat of the sticks had created enough energy to ignite the vapours being given off. I spread the sticks apart a bit to prevent them re-igniting, and tried to clear my mind (my mistake) only to find the same thought popping up again and again.

Before I had this experience I had been listening to a news story about the latest atrocities committed in the name of God by religious extremists.

I kept visualising the incense sticks as angry extremists. The heat within each incense stick was like their prejudice, and the fuming smoke was like their acrid words. It kept making me think of the teaching of the Four Nutriments, first mentioned (I believe) in the Pali Puttamansa Sutta – which in English this means A Son’s Flesh. It is a somewhat grizzly sutra, but is intended to make a very strong point. In essence, you are what you eat, drink, see, hear, touch, smell, taste, think, say and do – and if you do any of these things in a forgetful way, you are more likely to create the conditions for suffering to arise.

When we surround ourselves with people who are prejudiced, for example, then we consume their words and actions. If we have a strong seed of prejudice in us then it will be watered by the others, and will grow into our conscious mind. We become aware of our views and soon find they have transformed into speech. When we are surrounded by prejudiced people like this it is likely that our views become so strong that we will act.

This is like the incense sticks that alone might smoulder and give off smoke, but when wrapped tightly together create enough heat and smoke to burst into flames – action and transformation!

It then reminded me of the importance of Sangha, one of the three refuges of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. In the Sangha we support each other, watering our beneficial seeds and those in others to help create a peaceful community. For most lay practitioners (myself included) practicing alone can often be difficult, and can lead to sporadic meditation or giving up the precepts altogether.

Like the combined heat of the incense sticks, or in this case the combined loving kindness of the Sangha, it helps to nurture our desire to end suffering. Encouraging each other, and offering support we are more likely to transform our ignorance, bringing about transformation and healing.

Why didn’t I originally see the incense sticks as an analogue of Sangha? Perhaps because immediately before meditating my mind was still troubled from the radio broadcast. Or perhaps I still have a lot of prejudice in me. I like to think its not the latter, but then that’s my ego talking, and you know what you should think of anything your ego tells you!

This happened a few years ago before I wrote the Anxious Buddhist. More recently I came across a series of videos by the Venerable Guan Cheng at the International Buddhist Temple, British Columbia, on the Diamond Sutra, and the introductory video reminded me of a question I once heard someone ask of Thich Nhat Hanh – it was something like, “don’t you find it difficult to follow the precepts?”

Ven. Guan Cheng begins by placing Prajna (Wisdom) into context as one of three foundations of Buddhism, namely Sila (Morality or precepts), Samadhi (Meditation) and Prajna (Wisdom).

You can watch the video, but he draws an analogy for the three foundations as might be applied to a country or state.

He describes Sila like a country’s armed forces, protecting us at the borders. It prevents us from committing physical transgressions – from planting seeds of suffering to later manifest – and from watering existing seeds which are already latent in our sub conscious. Sila, our morality and the precepts are what generally protect us from the grossest causes. They are designed to work most clearly at the conscious level in our day to day lives – to form part of our habitual behaviour.

In the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, these are the Five Mindfulness Trainings, namely

• Reverence for life
• True Happiness
• True Love
• Loving Speech and Deep Listening
• Nourishment and Healing

So, even without any further teaching, by following these 5 precepts (not like commandments – i.e. don’t spend your time finding fault in others), you can avoid a lot of trouble!

Ven. Guan Cheng then goes on to explain meditation, or Samadhi, as being like a country’s internal police force. If all we have are our armed forces at the borders (Sila – morality or precepts), then while we may be safe from gross transgressions, our internal state of affairs is still a mess. Crime and vice can still run rampant inside the country – that is to say, our mind will be all over the place! This will make the act of maintaining the armed forces (our precepts) seem like a painful austerity.

By practicing Samadhi (meditation) we calm and control our internal population. We come to recognise the more troublesome characters and show them compassion and understanding – or Maitri (loving kindness). By meditating, we aim to bring harmony to our internal population. By removing internal tensions, giving attention to and accepting who we are, we naturally start to experience less anxiety, anger and fear. By learning to recognise the bad characters that are in our internal population we are able to deal with them and prevent them from developing and taking control – we become less reliant on the precepts (Sila) to prevent our gross transgressions because our practice of Samadhi already reveals to us when damaging thoughts and views are arising.

Finally the topic of Prajna is discussed, and in the context of our pretend country, Prajna is represented as the central government, universities and education. This is the core of our wisdom. It has the ability to eliminate our bad characters at the very source by eliminating ignorance. It is the ability to recognise not just the harmful characters in our internal population, but to also understand the causes and conditions that led to their manifestation. Prajna is the ability to intuit the very seeds of our suffering at the most subtle level.

Thich Nhat Hanh was once asked “don’t you find it difficult to follow the precepts?” His answer was, predictably, “No”. He went on to explain that through meditation, and mindful living that one develops a way of life that is very much in harmony with the Precepts. This doesn’t mean that the precepts are not important – or that Samadhi and Prajna are all you need – it simply means that our daily life, and our morality, naturally begin to reflect the precepts without any conscious effort.

The greatest personal victories are those that do not require the defeat or suffering of another

For example, fame is not a victory because it diminishes the importance of others. Personal wealth and material gain are not victories because they deprive others. Religious victory is an oxymoron of obscene proportions.

The only real victories in life are courage in the face of one’s challenges and encouraging others to overcome theirs

For over two decades this was the way. I would watch the subtle decay of summer’s beauty into autumn’s golden tones, and the subsequent shortening of the days as autumn relinquished the green king to the icy grip of winter. For the longest time this experience was akin to standing on the shore watching a tsunami approach. Completely helpless to defend against the swell of depression and anxiety that accompanies this time of year.

Conventional medicine always indicated pills and therapies aimed at building coping strategies and fighting, rather than understanding the condition at its deepest level. It was a case of pressing my tongue against the palette of my mouth and persevering. My previous practice in the Nichiren tradition did little other than lower the blast shield and allow me to run headlong at my challenges while still completely out of control internally. Clearly, I was practicing wrongly – or so it was intimated by others. As long as I kept chanting, taking the pills and denying my difficulty, it just grew inside of me like a canker, hardening and solidifying into a black impenetrable seed of unhappiness.

I’m glad to say that silent meditation, more than any other practice, has allowed me to accept depression as a part of my life. This isn’t acquiescence in the sense of hopeless defeat, though. It is an acceptance that there is a problem, and that it is real, and it needs to be taken care of non-violently. While depression is never a welcome guest, I also don’t slam the door on it either by denying its existence.

Instead of seeing the onset of winter like a tsunami, I now imagine myself as the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote, seeing the Road Runner approaching, trying to work out how I might apprehend it. I might fail, but then I’ll have much more fun along the way, and most importantly, I improve my understanding. When we are able to understanding our depression and take care of it mindfully and gently we inevitably become less fearful of it.

I now see this time of year as an opportunity to practice acceptance and patience with myself. Whereas before I would simply put up the shutters and hide from the storm, I now walk in the rain – it has helped me to understand and accept the nature of my internal weather. I feel better than I have in as long as I can remember at this time of year. My energy suffers and I feel physically fatigued, but I don’t hate myself for it any longer.

The forestry commission have set about decimating the woods where I walk daily with my dog. This would normally have been the kind of thing to plunge me into a downward spiral, yet I can still smile. I know they won’t replant the beautiful Douglas Furs, and it will take a long time for the habitat to recover, but it will – and the money that the owners made from the sale of the timber will be gone soon enough.

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In some ways, my fatigue and depression has been a useful restraint – had I the energy I may well have taken a day off to disrupt the logging in some non-violent way – but for what? My own attachment to the woods, basically.

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Amongst the torn branches, tree stumps and mud, I know that impermanence is the only constant. Nothing remains for long. My depressive episode is impermanent – the loggers are impermanent – the crows that accompany me around the walk and call to be fed dog biscuits are also impermanent. The trick is to enjoy the company of the crows while not getting too upset with the loggers.

The trick is to enjoy what there is in each moment without trying to control and influence too much – because everything is always changing. I know that in a few years, the woods will grow back, and the wildlife will return. In a few years there will have been other outrages, catastrophes and ecological disasters, as well as celebrations, accomplishments and acts of loving kindness. In the big scheme of things, whatever it is that seems so bad today is simply insignificant compared to what might happen a year, a month, or a few seconds from now.

So surviving depression is about understanding how to experience the here and now, without becoming too distracted with the past or future. It is the distraction by past and future that drives anxiety, and that is by far the worst aspect of depression. The Buddha was an excellent psychologist, and we each have the capacity for self understanding if only we allow ourselves to take his head and find some quiet time to get to know ourselves.

It’s hard to isolate yourself from the affairs of the world for very long, and no matter how mindfully you consume negative journalism, you do (well, I do) sometimes have to work at maintaining your composure. Indeed, a friend of mine recently commented that the seemingly endless stream of stupidity that humanity engages in leads him to sometimes scream in silence. The statement reminded me of a scene from the incredibly moving film (which I can’t recommend highly enough), Baraka, a frame from which is shown above. I’ll review this film another time, but watch it if you can! I digress.

Following the dreadful murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich by islamic extremists, there have been a number of anti-islamic incidents the the UK involving white racists, the EDL (English Defence League). Today, another suspicious package has been found in a mosque, and the bomb squad are on their way to deal with it. I pray that nobody else will have to lose their lives today because of the actions of a few thugs.

China looks set to see how far it can wind up America over the Edward Snowden affair. The US government is pissed because it got caught with it’s pants down, and the Chinese are projecting themselves as the wounded party. It’s insane. My wife asked me today if China will become the new Russia, and I couldn’t answer her – in a world that seems dominated by leaders who are driven by fear, uncertainty and doubt, it would seem to be quite possible. But unlike Russia, the co-dependancy between the US and China will make for a far more bitter divorce should it come.

All around the world there are people who believe they are acting on behalf of others, when in fact they are only acting on their own desires. The older I get, and the longer I practice Buddhism, the the more aware I have become that so much suffering is caused by dualistic thinking. Like matter and anti-matter, those who are ignorant enough to see the world in black and white collide creating devastation and suffering on an enormous scale.

I think I have come to appreciate the thinking behind the ultimate protest, the ultimate screaming in silence – self immolation. Writing blogs and waving banners is all well and good, but westerners are so materially comfortable it takes a lot to make make them sit up and think about how they live. I’m not about to set myself on fire to make my point, but when everything else has been taken, and you want to prevent your oppressors from making any further bad causes by hurting you, then the most compassionate act is to remove yourself from the equation. It is a sacrifice that is impossible for the modern materialistic mind to understand, because you are not there (afterwards) to accept any praise for your action. Sacrifices on this scale can only be understand by many in the West when undertaken for the sake of their own children, but never when they are undertaken for the benefit of those outside of their immediate family unit, or for humanity as a whole.

I suspect many of the 306 who were shot in the first world war for “lack of moral fibre” or cowardice were actually of the same mind. Rather to be shot and killed than to take up arms and kill, and thereby further contribute to their enemy’s hatred. Some were probably just terrified, and that’s understandable too.

The self immolating monks do not sacrifice themselves to save others, or to heal their enemy. They see beyond these discriminations. There is no self. There is no other, and there is no enemy. I’m sure it was Shantideva who said that developing the desire to help others is one thing, but to to do so without any notion of “I” or “other” is quite another. They do what they do because they have come to see themselves as a link in a chain of suffering, and they wish to break it. I confess it’s beyond my understanding of selflessness, but it’s the path we all try to walk as Buddhists.

When it all gets too much, it’s time to turn inward and seek refuge. Murray Head once sang…

My back’s against the wall, my feeling’s on show
Silence is the only reply that I know

What non-duality is to communism? If one views capitalism as inherently selfish, and communism as a social utopia, then perhaps this relationship could seem true. But the communism of Stalin or that which led to the Chinese Cultural Revolution were closer to dictatorship or tyranny than anything else. Likewise the rampant, predatory capitalism we live in today is a far cry from the freedom and liberty our ancestor fought for in too many civil wars to mention.

I recently asked someone what wealth meant to them. Their reply was, “it means I don’t have to live in poverty, I can do what I want”. And there it was… “I” in centre stage, adorned in all its vulgar bling. I believe this is the same “I” that led to the communism of Stalin and Mao, and is the same “I” that has led the utter failure of capitalism to end human suffering.

Capitalism and Communism are merely signs – labels we assign to a set of ideas and concepts of the mind. In the west, particularly in the US, the aversion to the ‘sign’ of communism (fuelled by those with a vested interest in power) has led to the worst kinds of excess and over-consumption. Neither system is inherently good or evil, and neither can claim the moral high ground in terms of freedom and liberty for all. Those attributes can only be assigned to the personalities who lead those regimes, and not the philosophies themselves.

It might be argued that communism at least owns up to humanity’s tendency for greed and selfishness, but in its attempt to redress our selfish behaviour through state control it is seen as morally repugnant – the nanny-state gone mad, so to speak.

In the end, there is no capitalism or communism – there are only human beings. If “I” takes action to avoid living in material poverty, then “I” will create poverty somewhere else. If “We” take action to avoid living in material poverty, then “We” will end material poverty. When “We” means all living beings, then it’s really as simple as that, and holds true whether one is a communist, capitalist, or Munchkin. The American Dream – that we can all as free (selfish) individuals pursue and obtain the kind of wealth and lifestyle to which we have been taught to aspire – is a dualistic lie responsible for incredible suffering on a global scale.

I recently listened to a lecture by Thich Nhat Hanh, in which he recounted a meeting with a delegation from the Chinese communist party. After he explained to them how the Plum Village community lived and mindfully shared their resources, he joked that it was the Buddhist monastics who were the real communists. He didn’t recount the reaction of the delegation, but I imagine the temperature dropped.

Education of our children, therefore, should concern itself primarily with ethics, and particularly the view that we are part of a greater whole. That whatever we do has an effect, and that those causes we create will revisit us. But the first is the most important, because when we begin to believe that we can fix the problems in our lives, neighbourhoods, towns, countries whatever, without having to worry about what effect this has on the rest of the world, then we find ourselves in the deep doo-doo that we are now in.

To anyone who is unfamiliar with Buddhism this statement can be either wildly misunderstood (due to a shallow, dualistic understanding of Buddhism), or can appear completely incomprehensible to the reader. After all, how can a void/nothingness/annihilation be a womb for anything, let alone compassion?

The voidness to which Nagarjuna refers is Sunyata – also called emptiness in English – the understanding or comprehension of which leads one to complete freedom from the suffering caused by ignorance of reality, or Nirvana’s, true nature.

As Obi Wan Kenobi says to the young Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga, “only the Sith see things in absolutes”. Good and bad, up and down, left and right, fast and slow, these are all relativistic due to one’s point of view, and one’s point of view is completely without immutable and independent foundation – they are all merely formations of the mind. Likewise, all form and phenomena are void (empty) of their own truly independent existence. Like our thoughts, there is nothing in the world that does not rely on an infinite network of causes and conditions in order to manifest.

There is no “Force” or “Mystic Law” with which we can hope to manipulate the world or live in harmony with – at least not as an independent external power. The Buddha’s core teachings did not include magic or parlour tricks. The only Mystic Law which can bring an end to our suffering is the Dharma of Sunyata – the understanding at the deepest level that nothing exists independently. From this wellspring of wisdom alone comes forth all of the 84’000 so called dharma doors. When, through concentration and insight, we are lucky enough to realise the equality of self and other, or even the practice of exchange of self and other, then we radiate the compassion of the bodhisattva. These practices all grow from an understanding of emptiness.

When the Dalai Lama was 35, he reflected on a passage by Tsongkhapa about how “I” does not exist within or separate from the mind-body complex, and is merely a mental concept. The passage reads:

A coiled rope’s speckled color and coiling are similar to those of a snake, and when the rope is perceived in a dim area, the thought arises, “This is a snake.” As for the rope, at that time when it is seen to be a snake, the collection and parts of the rope are not even in the slightest way a snake. Therefore, that snake is merely set up by conceptuality.

In the same way, when the thought “I” arises in dependence upon mind and body, nothing within mind and body—neither the collection which is a continuum of earlier and later moments, nor the collection of the parts at one time, nor the separate parts, nor the continuum of any of the separate parts—is in even the slightest way the “I.” Also there is not even the slightest something that is a different entity from mind and body that is apprehendable as the “I.” Consequently, the “I” is merely set up by conceptuality in dependence upon mind and body; it is not established by way of its own entity.

His Holiness goes on to describe how “Suddenly, it was as if lightning moved through my chest.” Powerful stuff, and while I suspect he understands emptiness better than many of us, many years later he still admits that he “cannot claim full understanding of emptiness”.

For myself, I’m still a long way from truly understanding emptiness. When I overcome my long term limitations then I’ll know I’m a step closer

Anyway, the point of this little article is not to try and convince SGI Buddhists they are doing anything wrong, but simply to report on my experience of the SGI since I left. So here it is…

… that’s it. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Nobody has hassled me to come back to the collective lest I fall into the Avici Hell. No ominous visits from district leaders, or threats regarding the Gohonzon I still have in my possession. In fact nobody has contacted me at all apart from a good friend who I help in a work related capacity – and he has never pressured me or even made the slightest suggestion regarding my practice. In fact things have remained as cordial as ever since I left.

So, regardless of the history of SGI USA and how things may or may not be over there right now, over here in the UK I see no evidence of cult behaviour in the membership itself. Yes, I’m sure that the Art of Living is still a monthly journal of Ikeda worship, but that’s to be expected as the SGI’s brand of Buddhism is evangelical and personality led, but I just felt it was right to report to the world that the SGI in the UK is pretty harmless in a conventional sense, and certainly not the dangerous organisation it has been cracked up to be by some.

I suspect if I had stuck around for much longer, then I might have begun to “feel” more locked in, but then that would have been a fabrication of my own mind. When I left, I felt nothing more than the mild disappointment that any friend might feel when a member of a group decides to leave.

I’m currently practicing a mixture of silent meditation and chanting of various mantras depending on what life is like at the time. The more I have read, the more I have come to realise how ridiculous it is to think I am any authority on the subject. While I enjoy writing about Buddhism I’m unsure what I can contribute as the Internet is already full to bursting with more academically (and spiritually in a lot of cases) competent commentary.

The book I wrote has just gone past 700 downloads, but I’ve yet to receive a single comment, which perhaps says more than I need to know about any value it has added to it’s reader’s lives.

The good thing to come out of all this is that I am happy to accept my place, for now, simply as a guy who is handy with WordPress, who likes to blather on about his spiritual beliefs in the hope that he might reach out and encourage even one person to transform their suffering. I have come to realise that I can only write with any authority on my own experience – if I try to teach people Buddhism I will probably fail, but if I write about how it’s helped me, then that may help someone, so that’s what I’ll do from here on in. As my friend David at theendlessfurther.com says “Practice is everything” – without daily practice, you’re basically not connecting with yourself at all.

I’ll write about this another time, but for now, after some considerable family difficulties, I would like to share this short story, or fable. It will probably mean most to those who have found themselves in the role of the horse or the pond. It is essentially a story about what buddhists call idiot compassion (a term coined by Tibetan Lama, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche), selfishness, and the wisdom we can gain from experiencing either.

The horse and the pond

Once upon a time there was a young foal. The foal lived in a large field with a large hill in the middle. Where the foal lived there was a deep cool pond that was inhabited by a kindly spirit. The waters of the pond quenched the young horse’s thirst perfectly. The horse always played near the pond because he loved the cool water, and would often talk with the spirit. The spirit was happy because it meant she could always provide the young foal with water.

Then, one day, the spirit realised the foal had grown into a fine stallion, and so the next time he drank from the pond she placed the desire in his mind to go and find a mate. After a few days, the horse went exploring to see what was on the other side of the hill.

The spirit remained in the pond, happy that the horse had become strong and independent.

Some hours later, the horse returned to the pond. He said to the pond, “I have found a mate, and I am going to start a family of my own.”

The spirit replied, “That’s wonderful, I will always be here to listen to you, and provide you with enough water to live.”

The horse replied, “That’s not enough! I want my family to be able to drink from this pond no matter where we live in this field. Can you meet us half way?”

The spirit, not wanting to believe the horse to be selfish or lazy, agreed to try and help him. It took her some extra effort, but she made the pond spread halfway around the hillside. It was difficult for her, because now the pond was more shallow, and the water became warmer in the mid-day sun.

The horse began to complain that the water was warm in the daytime, and so he only drank from the pond at dawn, then the waters were coolest. The spirit struggled to maintain the pond. The water became more shallow as summer approached.

The horse didn’t consider this however, and thinking only of his own family he then asked the spirit, “I want you to spread the pond right around the hillside. Otherwise my family and I will die of thirst.”

The spirit didn’t know what to do – she didn’t want to believe the horse was selfish, and she knew it would probably mean the end of her, but one night she tried to spread around the whole hillside.

The next morning the horse awoke expecting to find the spirit had met his wishes, but she was nowhere to be seen. “Spirit, where are you? Where is my cool water?”, he called.

He heard the spirit’s voice, “I’m all around you. I am spread so thinly, I am like the morning dew. You will have to lick the grass”.

The horse and his family struggled to lick the grass, but they could not quench their thirst. Then, as the sun rose in the morning sky, the remaining dew evaporated. The grass became dry. The horse called to the spirit, but she was no longer there. The horse and his family became thirsty and suffered as a result. The horse became angry with the spirit for letting him down. He called to the spirit, accusing her of abandoned him and his family. This made the spirit very sad.

Later that day a great cloud gathered over the hillside. It became darker and darker. The pond that had evaporated had become the cloud in the sky. The cloud called to the horse, “I did not want to let you down, but you spread me so thinly I was unable to help”. But the horse and his family were so thirsty, they were busy looking for water in the field and refused to answer her.

Eventually the spirit could bear it no longer, and she burst into tears. The horse and his family watched as a great storm erupted and rain poured down onto the hillside. The water gathered into streams, and flowed back to the place where the pond had originally been.

The horse saw the cloud crying, but he also knew that he needed to drink. So, he gathered his family and together they set off over the hillside to find water. As they crossed over the hillside, they could see the small pond in the distance. It looked full once more.

As they approached the pond, the horse felt awkward. He called to the pond, “Spirit, are you there?” She replied, “I will always be here to provide you with enough water to live, but you must come here to drink in future”.

The horse realised that he had been selfish. By forcing the spirit to satisfy his wants and needs, by asking her to spread herself too thinly, she was ultimately unable to help him at all. He said to her, “I am so sorry for causing you to cry. In future I will always come to you for water, and will not ask you to come to me”.

From then on, the horse would visit the pond with his family to drink the cool water, knowing that it would always be there for them. The spirit had learnt that by remaining as a small pond, she would always be able to offer water. The horse, on the other hand, had learnt to love the pond for what it was, and not expect it to change to suit him. The sun shone in the sky, and life was good.