It happened once that a sage was passing through a town, and he came to a house where a man sat on his verandah working a grindstone to make flour. The man had recently suffered many difficulties in his life, and as he turned the grindstone he thought that he was just like the grains of rice, being ground to powder by all the hardships. Feeling deeply saddened by his state, he began to cry.

The sage saw the man crying, and stopped. “What is it, brother? Why are you crying?”

The man sighed deeply, and explained that he felt that he was like the grains of rice, being ground down by the heavy stones that held him.

The sage said, “Brother, lift up the top grindstone and look.”

The man moved aside the top stone.

“Do you see?” the sage said. “The rice grains near the centre peg are whole. It is the ones that have moved away from the centre that have been broken to pieces by the stones. And so it is with us. God is the centre of our life. If we stay near Him and cling tp His mercy and compassion, we will not be broken, but if we stray from Him, if we leave His refuge, we will be broken by the stones of life.”