True Worth.

In My Garden Yesterday 

Yesterday at my bird feeder I saw such a variety of birds. Over twenty goldfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, bullfinch ,coal tits and blue tits and of course a few sparrows and other common visitors. The on I did not see who is usually there every day was a robin. Maybe a bit too busy for him.

With so many birds the feeders empty fairly quickly, but it is in my opinion many well spent the joy they all bring.

Goldfinches seem to fly in flocks but that does not seem to stop them all fighting and pushing at the feeders. Seems to be a part of nature that we all make sure we are ok. Darwin called this survival of the fittest.

I had kind of hoped that humans had to some extent grown past all of this but maybe I am a dreamer.

I have tried very hard to keep this blog from being either political or preaching so I am going to refrain from saying any more about what is making me feel that survival of the fittest seems to be fit and healthy.

There are a series of stories about monkeys in the Buddhist faith one of which I took time to read again yesterday. Let me share it with you. 

There was a jungle in which there lived a large family of Baboon Monkeys. Those are the ones who seem to have long arms and short legs.

This group of monkeys liked to adorn their long arms with bracelets of leaves and such. A Macaque Monkey on seeing this thought their was a business opportunity. His name was Mambo.

Mambo collected from various places a large collection of bracelets, very shiny and pretty. He took these to show to the Baboons telling them they were the most expensive he could find. 

All the baboon with the exception of one rushed around gathering bananas to trade with mambo for his beautiful bracelets.

Nico one of the baboons decided not to get involved. He had always wondered what purpose these trinkets served? So while all the trading and exchanging was going on he looked into the cart of the trader mambo. There he found some metal objects made of twists of old iron. 

He spoke to Mambo about this metal and he happily gave them to Nic for just a few bananas. "They are useless, " He said, "take them away."

Soon Mambo had sold out and had left happy. The Baboons were now all decorated in their bracelets and feeling very good. 

The trouble began later when because of the bracelets, which they could not now get off stopped them from eating.

Nico who had seemed such a fool buying old junk and not beautiful bracelets was the only one who could feed himself. He took on the task of feeding the others and grew in the respect of all. 

it did not take too long for Nic to discover that he had in his possession a box of tools. With these tools he was able to achieve amazing things. One of the most important being to remove the useless bracelets. 

That was how, thanks to the wisdom of Nico , that baboons realised that the price of things has nothing to do with the actual value.

We can easily get carried away with our fads and desires and become inward and selfish. We can know the price of everything and the value of nothing. 

Some of the most valuable things in life come free .

I hope you have a wonderful and love filled day.