Week 11 Story: Destrier the Horse

Seven Horses (image source from Wikipedia)

In every life, the Buddha comes in different life forms. It can be an elephant, pig, or a monkey. But in this life, it was a horse. The horse was named Destrier owned by the King of Benares. The horse was the King's most prized possession. The horse food was fed in gold dishes that was worth thousand pieces of money. The stalls the horse lived in was perfumed with different special odors. His stalls were hung crimson curtains with canopy studded gold stars. Walls were surrounded by fragrant flowers with a lamp burning scented oil. 

All the kings greatly envied the kingdom of Benares. The seven kings that gathered up against the kingdom, threatened the King saying, "Either yield up your kingdom to us or give battle."

King of Benares gathered his ministers and said, "You better not go out there and fight them head one. Notify to the Knight to fight the kings, if he fails, we will decide what to do,"

The King sent the Knight on the battle and the Knight had one request, "I need Destrier to defeat the seven kings. He will bring us glory." The King agreed and sent Destrier out with the Knight into the battle. 

Out in the battle field, the Knight and Destrier were both armored from head to toe. The Knight was on the horse, gripping his sword tightly and ready to battle. As Destrier charged into the field, they kidnapped one king. They brought one of the king back into the kingdom's prisoner and kept him into custody. Next, they kidnapped the second king and bringing him back to prison. And it happened continuously until the sixth king. They kidnapped the sixth king back to prison, but Destrier was heavily injured. 

The horse was streaming with blood and wounds, which caused him great injuries. The Knight made the horse rest and to forfeit since he was in severe pain. The horse did not want to give up. Destrier said, "We are almost winning. We just need to get the seventh king and they will lose. I do not want to waste everything I had accomplished. Let me finish this." The Knight did not want to put him into more pain but he cannot refuse the horses's dying wish. 

They both got onto their feet and captured the seventh king. Once the seventh king was captured and into prison, the Knight took the horse to the King's gate. The horse told the king, "Lead with justice, truth, and honor. Continue on to do charity work and rule the kingdom in righteousness." The horse passed away. And the King honored the horse by burying his body with great honors.

The King released the seven kings and said, "You will be making an oath to never come back to my Kingdom and threaten us." 

Author's note:

I did not change anything up in the original story, I told the story again in my own words. The characters, plot, and setting is the same. 

Marie L. Shedlock, The Horse That Held Out to the End, Link

Reading Notes: PDE The Wise Physician - Part D

Herbs (image source from Wikipedia)

Kisagotami was married to a wealthy man. She had one son and when the beautiful boy ran, he died. The young girl carried her dead child in her bosom and went house to house asking for medicine for him. The Buddhist mendicant thought she did not understand. He said, there is no such thing as good mood she asked for, but there is one Buddha that could give you medicine.

She went to Gautama and show her respect then said, "Lord and Master, do you know any medicine that will be good for my child?"

He responded he knows of some. It was custom that the patient had to provide herbs for the doctor. He asked for mustard-seed herbs that must come from houses that has no son, or husband, or parent, or slave has died. She went on carrying her dead child around the neighborhood and asking her friends if anyone sons or husband or parent or slave died in there. They all yelled at her saying how could she ask such a foul thing.

Finally, not a single household where no one had died and began to clear her mind. She left her child'd dead body in the forrest and returned to the Buddha for homage. He asked if she found her mustard seed and she said no. She explains how the people living are a few but the dead are many. The Buddha explained how the essential part of his system is the impermanency of all things until all her thoughts were cleared away. Then she would accept herself and become a disciple and enter the first Path.

Marie L. Shedlock, The Wise Physician, Link

Reading notes: PDE How the Antelope Was Caught - Part C

Antelope (Image source from Wikipedia)

King of Benares had a gardener named Sanjaya, who plucked various fruits and flowers for the King. One day, an antelope came to the garden and ran away as soon as it saw Sanjaya. Later on, it came back and started walking through the garden.

The next day, the King asked the gardener if he saw anything strange that happened recenetly. The gardener said he only saw an antelope wandering around occasionally. So, the King asked if the gardener could catch it and bring it inside the palace.

The gardener requested honey to lure the antelope to get inside the palace, so the king gave the gardener honey. The gardener spread the honey around the grass where the antelope hides itself and runs around. When the antelope came, it ate the honey-smeared grass. Every time the antelope saw the gardener, it ran away. Eventually, the antelope kept coming back to eat the honey and grew confidence around Sanjaya. When Sanjaya figured out the antelope grew confidence around him, he made a path that led to the palace surrounding it with thick branches then covering it. It hung a gourdfuls of honey over his shoulder, carried a bunch of grass at his waist, then kept sprinkling honey-smeared grass in front of the antelope until they were at the palace.

Once the deer got inside, the doors were slammed shut. The antelope saw the men and began to panic and ran around the halls. The King came down and saw what was happening and knew he could not keep the antelope. It has become accustomed to the outside world where it runs around and becomes easily frightened.

The King released the antelope to go back in the forrest.

Marie L. Shedlock, How the Antelope Was Caught, Link

Learning Challenge: Reading Out Loud

Image source from Wikipedia

Reading out loud makes a huge difference in your reading than silent reading. I know when I am reading silently in my brain, it goes by really quick. Mostly because I read really fast. I do not realize the small errors in my writing unless I read it out loud usually. I know when I am writing, I usually get in the zone and just pour out all my thoughts. It keeps going and going-just like how rain keeps raining until it’s time to stop. Also, when writing, I tend to write redundantly because of my fast thinking and writing. I would keep repeating words in my head then it pours out onto my writing. Reading out loud also helps me catch grammatical errors. There are things you cannot catch silently unless you read it out loud. Not only it has to look grammatically correct, but also sounding grammatically correct.