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Here is another nice tale/ story from the Jataka collection. Once upon a time, there lived the King of a big and affluent country. The King was quite fond of traveling. Usually, he didn’t like to visit his own country; instead he went to other countries. One day, he assembled his army to move out for a holiday to some distant country. The King and his soldiers walked for the whole morning in the forest. After this, they went into the camp to take some rest.
The horses were also tired, so they were fed with peas. One of the Monkeys, who lived in the forest, was keeping a track of the things done by the king’s men from a distance. When he saw peas offered to the horses, he jumped down from the tree at once to get some of them. He quickly gobbled some peas, also filled his mouth and hands with them. Then, he went up the tree and sat down to eat the peas.
As and when, he sat there to eat peas; one pea fell from his hand to the ground. The greedy monkey dropped all the peas he had in his hands and ran down to look for the lost pea at once. Unluckily, he could not find that one pea. He climbed up the tree again and sat at rest. He was looking very sad. He said to himself, “To get one pea, I threw away what I had”.
The King was watching the monkey from the camp and said to himself, “I would not be like this stupid monkey, who lost much to gain a little. I will go back to my own country and enjoy what I have”. Thus, the King and his army marched back to their own country.
Moral: Value the things you have.
