Here is the story of a little kingdom and its good king, who triumphs over a series of dark forces [kingdom.pdf]. It was sent to me by one New Mandala reader, who said it is his favourite bedtime story. Bedtime stories are popular in my house so I read it to my children. This was their favourite section. It details one of the king’s triumphs in his many travels around the kingdom.

Villagers

In a far off place, the king came across a village that had almost no one living there. “Where has everyone gone” the king asked the small group of remaining villagers.

Greed

The villagers answered their king: “A demon of the dark called “GREED” came and visited and asked the people to leave the village. Most of the villagers abandoned the village and went to live in the “City of Extravagance”. [Hey dad, look at all those silly villagers just marching off when the demon told them to. Are they populists?]

Seed

The king thought for a moment and then gave the villagers a radiant seed. The villagers took the seed and planted it and it grew into the “radiant tree” that grew large branches and spread its radiance in all directions. [Hey dad, look at those big tree roots. They help store the water.]

Sufficiency

The king told the villagers that the “radiant tree” is called “SUFFICIENCY.” The radiance of the tree shone to far off places, as far as the City of Extravagance. And many of those who saw it travelled back to return to their village. [Hey dad, why didn’t the villagers just send them an SMS?]

Of course, being a good teacher, I had to explain that this is a fairy story and no one would take it seriously in real life.

[Hey dad, that doesn’t matter. We love fairy stories. Tomorrow can we have the draft constitution?]