The Parable of Me and Mine
(From the Buddhist Yogacara Bhumi Sutra)

One afternoon a group of children were building sand castles along the side of a river.

When they finished, they each guarded their own castle, shouting at the other children to stay away.

“This one is mine!” they shouted. “Don’t touch it!”

Then one child kicked over another’s castle, and they all started fighting.

They hurt each other. They cried. Some of them banded together against the others so they could destroy what the others had made.

Eventually it grew dark, and the children had to return to their homes. Suddenly, they no longer cared what happened to their castles. They knew that overnight the weather would destroy what they’d built. One girl pushed hers over; another stamped on his. Then they all went home.

Discuss:

• What led the kids to be unkind after they built their castles?
• What’s the moral of this story? (Possible answer: What seems so important that we act unkindly sometimes later turns out not to matter so much.)