Problem solving story: Sometimes you just need to let it be for a moment

Once a monk was walking from one town to another with a few of his brothers. While they were traveling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped there and the monk told one of his brothers, “I am thirsty. Please get me some water from that lake there”.

The brother walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that some people were washing clothes in the water and, right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing the lake right at the edge of it. As a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. The brother thought, “How can I give this muddy water to the monk to drink?!” So he came back and told the monk, “The water in there is very muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink.”

So, the monk said, let us take a little rest here by the tree. After about half an hour, again the monk asked the same brother to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The brother obediently went back to the lake. This time he found that the lake had absolutely clear water in it. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit to be had. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to the monk.

The monk looked at the water, and then he looked up at the brother and said, “See, You let the water be and the mud settled down on its own. All you need to do sometimes is to take a moment and you get clear water. It didn’t require any effort”.