Parable: The Musician
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Hundred Parables Sutra
Parable: The Musician
Once there was a musician. He played music before a king who promised to pay him a thousand coins. Afterwards he asked the king for the money, but the king refused to give it to him and said, “Just as the music you played only served to please me momentarily, so too, the money I planned to give to you would only serve to please you for a little while.”
Worldly rewards are the same way. Although one may enjoy a small amount of pleasure in the human or heavenly realms, this pleasure is not true and actual. Impermanent and subject to destruction, it is like the music that gives only temporary pleasure and cannot last long.
