Making a Difference

Once there lived a Zen teacher. He was unknown far and wide for his wisdom. His name was Ryokan.

One day it rained heavily. There were intense cyclonic winds and thundershowers.  It rained all night, until the morning and continued until evening.

The evening sky was clear. So Ryokan set out for a walk along the shore. The storms had washed thousands of starfish on the shore. They laid on the beach without water, beginning to loose breadth, dry up and die. Ryokan had been picking the starfish and throwing them back into the sea water. 

A fisherman who was gathering his net nearby, had been watching Ryokan. He said, "Everytime this storm hits the coast, it throws these starfishes mercilessly on the shore to die. There are thousands of such fish around here, breathing momentarily and breathing their last. Surely, no matter how hard you may try, you cannot throw all these fish back in water and save their beneath. Your efforts will make no difference". 

Ryokan kept listening, uninterrupted in his work. He took one after the other, preserving breadth to those who had it. While he threw the fish back, he replied to the fisherman who had been still watching him, "The difference will come to all of them, but to the one who survives....like this one", he saud throwing anorher into the sea.

The fisherman was enlightened. Without a blink, he joined Ryokan and they both kept throwing the starfishes back into the sea, until it became dark and until the sea receded far.