How Mindfulness Can Help You Become More Humble

There's an old story about a sage who lived in a lofty  mountain hermitage. It was attached to a cave where he often meditated, but his  followers and benefactors had also built him a lovely little building that  housed all his books and provided him with a very comfortable place to sleep  and a dining area with a sweeping view of many valleys below and peaks in the  distance. Also attached to the building was a closet-like dwelling for his  faithful attendant.

One morning the sage declared that he would like to go down  to the village to exchange some of his tattered books for new ones and see what  newly minted works of philosophy he could get his hands on. Reaching the  village required crossing a rope bridge strung high above a gorge. As they  approached the entry to the bridge, the attendant hesitated. He rarely  interrupted his master, who loathed having his contemplative silence broken,  but this time he felt he must speak up, knowing that his master's eyesight had  been weakened by so much reading. "Master," he broke in, "I fear the bridge  needs to be repaired. The rope looks very frayed to me." Perturbed, and eager  to get to the village, the sage responded brusquely, "How would you know? It  seems perfectly fine to me."
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