Once, high on a mountaintop in the Lotris province of ancient Japan, there lived an old man deeply learned in the mystical ways of the world. His name has been lost to the ages, but in his time he was known as one of the wisest of sages, someone who could give deceptively simple answers to the most complex problems.

He embracing death with all his heart and by doing so grew wiser every day. When people came to seek his advice, he would sit and meditate until he was as still as stone, and then an answer would come from the depths of his being. Always, this was something that had never occurred to those seeking his advice, but which was still easily understood, and even more easily acted upon.