I Skull YouWon Hyo was a Buddhist monk born in 7th century Korea. When he was thirty-three years old, he journeyed to China to study under a great Buddhist teacher.

While on his journey, he crossed a desert. And one night in this dessert, he began to die of thirst. He crawled on his hands and knees, groping in the pitch blackness for a miracle, for some unseen oasis he could locate with his finger-tips. And before the sun began to rise, his fingers found a small bowl of water in the darkness. He didn’t know how or why it was lying alone in the dessert but Won Hyo didn’t care. It’s existence saved his life. He put the bowl to his lips and drank deeply. Then with gratitude and exhaustion he fell asleep.

When Won Hyo awoke, he examined his surroundings. He got a better look at the bowl he had drunk from, which in fact, was not a bowl. It was an overturned human skull, filled with filthy rainwater. Insects ate and burrowed through bits of rotting flesh. Upon seeing this, Won Hyo threw up. But as he vomited, he realized something.

In the evening, when he could not see the skull, it had given him life. During the day, only when he saw the skull with his eyes, and he let the idea of the skull upset his stomach did he get sick. And from that event, Won Hyo attained enlightenment.

You could find yourself in the dessert on your hands and knees someday, dying of thirst in the broad daylight. And you might encounter a rotting skull filled with filthy rain water. Would you drink from it? Or would you choose to move on, with the expectation that something more pure will present itself over the next dune? Or would you freeze with indecision, unwilling to die, yet unable to drink?