The Compassionate and Wise Hen

Source: The internet

In Europe, within an organisation that specialises in animal research, there is a professor who is responsible for the research of ‘chickens’. With great attention, he observes the daily life styles of various types of chickens.

One day in the forest, upon discovering a pheasant that had laid a lot of eggs, the professor quietly took a few of these eggs away with him. Coincidentally, there was a hen that also had just laid some eggs; he took her eggs away and swapped them for the pheasant’s eggs. The hen, noticing that the eggs were not the same, hesitated for a while, but still quickly hatched these eggs with the same tenderness and care as if they were her very own eggs.

After a period of time, the baby pheasants hatched out of the shells. In order to search for worms within the soil and roots, the hen took them to a wood, and used her claws to dig the soil. Then, she clucked at the baby pheasants to come over and eat.

The professor saw this and was surprised!  In the past, when the hen hatched chicks, she fed them with artificial feed; this time, unexpectedly, the hen knew that the baby pheasants did not eat artificial feed, and so took them outside in search of natural food.

The professor then got some ducks eggs for the hen to hatch. The hen also patiently hatched these ducks eggs to become ducklings, and then took them to the edge of the pond so that they could swim in the water.

These two events made the professor understand an important principle: People think that chickens are stupid and have no feelings; in fact, they have both compassion and wisdom! 
Different people have different personalities, habits and views; in vast majority of the misunderstandings and conflicts amongst people are originated from this reason.

Whether an organisation can operate under harmony and stability or not, crucially depends upon the individuals of that organisation: whether they can mutually show respect and acceptance, and support each other with open kindness, as opposed to mutual bicker and laying blame; and whether they can resolve conflicts with pure wisdom and prevent the spread of ignorance.

A hen is able to look after those that are different in appearance and have different lifestyles from her, with both compassion and wisdom. As mankind ourselves, as long as we are willing to commit, surely, we can also mutually treat each other with ‘contentment, gratitude, understanding and acceptance’.