One afternoon, a young student arrived at the master’s hut.

He looked upset.

“Master…” he said,

“I argued with my mother this morning.”

“She worries about everything I do… everywhere I go.”

He paused.

“Everyone seems worried all the time.”

Then he asked quietly, “Why does life feel this way?”

The master listened.

For a moment he said nothing.

Then he stood up.

“I was about to go for a swim in the river,” he said.

“Would you like to come?”

They walked together to the river.

The valley was wide and peaceful.

The water moved slowly under the sunlight.

They stepped in.

The current carried them gently downstream.

The boy laughed.

“This is good,” he said.

“I wish my life could always feel like this.”

The master nodded.

“Yes,” he said softly.

“This is a peaceful river.”

For a while, they simply floated.

No words.

Only the sound of the water.

Then something began to change. The river grew narrower.

The banks moved closer together. Rocks appeared in the current.

The water started moving faster. Then the boy heard something.

A deep sound in the distance. A roar.

Before he could speak, the master moved ahead…

…and disappeared between two dark rocks.

Suddenly the boy was alone.

The river grew louder.

He couldn’t see where it was going.

His chest tightened.

“What if there’s a waterfall?” he thought.

The current pulled him forward.

“Master!” he shouted.

But the river swallowed his voice.

For a moment he stopped swimming.

And he began to cry.

Then something inside him shifted.

He realized he couldn’t stay where he was.

The river was still moving.

So he gathered his courage…

…and followed the same narrow path through the rocks.

The water rushed around him.

But when he passed through the narrow place…

everything changed.

The river opened again.

The current slowed.

The roaring faded.

And there, sitting calmly on a rock…

was the master.

He looked at the boy and smiled.

“What took you so long?”

The boy climbed out of the water, still shaking.

“I thought something terrible had happened,” he said.

“I couldn’t see where the river was going.”

“I thought we might fall.”

The master listened quietly.

Then he said,

“Life flows like this river.”

“Peace is its nature.”

“But when the mind becomes narrow…”

“…and cannot see what comes next…”

“the current begins to roar.”

The boy thought about this.

Then the master added,

“If you do not want the people around you to worry…”

“do not disappear into the narrow places…”

“…without letting them see where you are going.”

The boy looked back at the river.

Now the water seemed calm again.

And suddenly he understood why his mother had been afraid.

He thanked the master for the lesson.

Then the master stood up…and walked back toward the narrow place where the water was rushing.

To the boy’s surprise… he jumped straight into the current…

and began sliding playfully through the rushing water.

The boy laughed.“Master! Isn’t it dangerous?”

The master smiled. “If the mind is clear,” he said, “even the narrow places…”

“…can become a place to play.”

Soon they were both laughing and swimming in the rushing water.

And the river carried their laughter down the valley.