previous This too shall pass…

There’s a fable behind the phrase, “this too shall pass” which has origins in Sufi and Hebrew folklore that feels like deep wisdom to me.

I hope this story anchors it for you too.

One day King Solomon asked Benaiah Ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister, “Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish it wear it for Sukkot in six months.”

“If it exists anywhere on earth, majesty, I will find it and bring it to you. But what makes the ring so special?” The king answered “It has magic powers. If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy.”

Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot he took a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had set out his day’s wares on a shabby carpet.

“Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted forget his sorrows?” asked Benaiah.

He watched the old man take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave somethig on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, he face broke out in a wide smile.

The next morning Solomon asked, “Have you found what I sent you after?” All the minister laughed and Solomon himself smiled.

To everyone’s surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and delared, “Here it is, your majesty!” As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words “Gam zeh ya’avor”-“This too shall pass.”

At that moment Solomon realized that all of his wisdom and weath and power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.

Live moves on. Change is all that is real.

So…

Have YOU found this to be true too?!

Some fun puns on reading…

I love puns (form of word play that suggests two or more meanings) on books, reading, libraries… Pick your favorite!                                   Aren’t words fun? funny? Share your favorite pun!                     […]

A Priceless Stone

There are people who can live their whole lives with the belief that they are worth nothing. Whether or not it is because of the message they received from their parents or friends, these people don’t know what their true value is and it makes them doubt their own skills and even the things they […]

Is there a Blue Monday?

If you wake up tomorrow morning (January 21st) feeling a little low, don’t worry. You’ve got a good excuse! Back in 2005, Life Coach Cliff Arnall at Cardiff University, said he had developed a formula that proved that the first Monday of the third week of January was the most depressing day of the year. […]

Shake it off and step up!

A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer’s well. The farmer heard the mule braying (or whatever mules do when they fall into wells). After  carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was […]

January is…

We all seem to have this collective agreement that when December 31st meets January 1st, we will increase the yearly number by one and time will march on while we keep writing the wrong date on all our correspondence for a few weeks. You know, there are much better times in nature’s cycle to mark […]

Just for fun!

  A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music […]

a mini Zen story…

An old Zen master always told this parable to “unserious” students: Late one night a blind man was about to go home after visiting a friend. “Please,” he said to his friend, “may I take your lantern with me?” “Why carry a lantern?” asked his friend. “You won’t see any better with it.” “No,” said […]

Where does the darkness go?

We celebrate this coming Friday as the Winter Solstice, the turning point in our calendar as the daylight begins to increase each day. The solstice has the shortest period of daylight and also the longest night of the year. Yet, the light begins, ever so slowly, to return. The light and the dark move to […]

Your Golden Buddha

I’ve always thought it was a beautiful parable about the fact that we’re all already perfect and that all we have to do is chip away at the plaster that’s gotten in the way. But get this: The Golden Buddha is actually REAL! (Don’t you love it when you can combine historical reality with metaphorical […]