There was once a Prince in Old Japan. He was acclaimed for his extraordinary knowledge and his capacity to find the personality and character of a man from his looks. His uncle was short tempered. Sovereign Sushun, the Prince’s uncle was the leader of Japan.
Once the Emperor called upon the Prince and said “I’ve heard a lot about your incredible skills. Would you be able to reveal my future by looking at my face?”
The Prince was hesitant to answer yet he could not refuse the King’s demands.
The Prince analysed the Emperor’s face and stated, “Your Majesty’s outward appearance demonstrates that you will be killed.”
Emperor Sushun was stunned. “Would I be able to escape this fate? How do I escape this foretelling?”
“It is hard to avoid”, said the Prince, “you can only be saved if you act with patience, tolerance and self-control henceforth.” Emperor Sushun loyally followed the Prince’s guidance for quite a while. But being short tempered, he managed to do something foolish.
One day, one of the Emperor’s subjects given him a wild boar. Emperor Sushun pulled back his sword and wounded the pig with it, saying, “One of these days, this is what I am going to do to the person I hate.”
The Prince who happened to be around, shouted, “Ah, what a frightful act! Your loftiness will stimulate the hatred of others. These words you have spoken will become the reason for your death.”
The emperor, realising his mistake gave people expensive gifts to keep their mouths shut.
One of the courtiers, be that as it may, told the minister Umako, about the episode.
“The King detests me and needs to slaughter me. It’s me he is discussing!” trusted Umako. With this idea and conviction, he planned with another minister to have the king killed.
This story illustrates how the emperor was unable to control his anger and expressed it without giving a second thought, leading to his downfall. Often times, we dwell too much on our negative thoughts and make them the centre of our lives, letting them control us and our lives. Expressing these negative deliberations and thoughts makes them happen and could bring about negative consequences. Hence, sometimes one must focus on de-cluttering and reassessing their lives.
Had the emperor not stabbed the boar and talked about killing his enemy, he wouldn’t be murdered
Similarly, we are often unable to control our ego and our words and end up offending people. Different intonations and different incantations of the same words can hurt people. A lot of thought and deliberation to our words and actions will go a long way and will only help improve inter-personal relations in the future.
