Deep in the forest, where the tall sal trees leaned together and shut out most of the sky, there was a pool no wider than a courtyard. The water was so still that the trees stood upside-down in it, perfect, not one leaf out of place. Beside this pool sat a sage named Atri, his eyes half-closed, his back as straight as a young bamboo.

A boy from the nearby village had come looking for firewood and found the sage instead. He crept close and watched. He had never seen anyone sit so still. A green dragonfly landed on the sage's knee, rested, and flew off. The sage did not stir.

"Aren't you bored?" the boy whispered at last, unable to hold it in. "There is nothing here. No food, no friends, nothing to do."

The sage opened his eyes slowly, like someone surfacing from deep water, and smiled. "Look at the pool," he said. "What do you see?"

The boy looked. "The trees. The sky. My own face."

"And when the wind blows?"

"Then it all breaks into little pieces and wobbles," said the boy.

"That," said Atri, "is most people's minds. The wind of wanting blows across them all day long. 'I want that sweet. I want to win. I want them to look at me.' And so the mind is always wobbling, always chasing the next ripple, never able to see clearly."

He pointed at the unmoving water. "But when the wanting stops — when the wind dies down — the mind grows as still as this pool. And in that stillness something wonderful happens. You stop feeling empty. You feel full, right here, with nothing added." He pressed a hand gently to his chest. "I am not bored, little one. There is more here than in the whole busy world. The world told you to keep wanting. The pool is teaching you to rest."

The boy sat down. He did not understand all of it. But he stayed, and watched the still water, and for a few minutes his own restless heart grew quiet too — and to his surprise, he did not feel bored at all.