The Zen of Gen 1

One day there was a young little boy playing beside the seashore. He had finished all his homework, and now he was wading in the water. The sun was now setting. the water was warm. he smiled his tiny gap-tooth smile into the sky. His eyes widened at the site of all the colors blending harmoniously in the heavens. In it were his friends the colors blue, yellow, orange, gold, gray and pink. The colors danced with each other, and their glow invited the boy to fly. His face was filled with their invitation. the little boy was happy.

In the water he found a tiny starfish. He took it and looked at it (because he was an odd little boy he smelled it) he tried to taste it. He held it in his hand, and he smiled. He loved to hold the strange creature in his hand. It moved in a slow pace. The boy loved to watch it move. it had life, and this fact, he thought was beautiful.

The boy thought long and hard whether he should bring the starfish home to show his family, his schoolmates, his friends. He could take a little bit of this happy afternoon with him, and everytime hed hold it in his hand, he'd smile and remember.

But the boy saw how the starfish struggled on his palm. He saw how it suffered for its home. He connected suffering with death. If this starfish suffers too much, then it would no longer have life. That made the boy sad.

So the boy put the starfish back to where he found it. He stared up into the sky, darker now. He needed to go home, So he said "goodbye, i love you!" to the starfish and went home.

The starfish sat slow and silent in the water. silent, yet full of life.

As the boy ran on the way home, his friends, the colors blue, yellow, orange, gold, gray, red, violet and pink danced and glowed at him from the sky. They thanked him for his act of kindness. "youre welcome!", the boy shouted. and the boy felt happy again, knowing that somewhere out there his heart, the starfish, was alive.