There once lived a very kind but boastful man who had twelve children of near adult age, in a small village. The man worked as a hunter, and so the man gave meat to the poor in the market square, but often wondered why the happiness that he got ceased with the claps?
The man will each night send out the children into the adjoining forest, and with each cautioned to bring home a catch. They all brought some catch except the eldest who came home always empty handed.
No advice turned him around and so the man resorted to "no catch home, no meal for the day." But the eldest son who seemed to only care about radiating happiness still brought home no catch! "Useless child," replaced his name, and sooner the Dad exceeded the limit of his patience on him so the child left home.
After much struggling, the eldest son founded a settlement, and named the community "anigyekurom."In anigyekurom, before one was granted a place of abode, one was required to do three things; cut and park firewood and leave for an unknown fellow to use, clear a footpath one will never walk, and build a bridge on a river one will never cross, and soon everyone went about doing good except the right hand not knowing which left hand did, and the more everyone did, the mightier the sound of their reverberated joy.
The father soon heard rumors about the wonders of "Anigyekurom", and contrary to his own wretchedness, and that of other communities founded by his other children, and decided to visit and get to know the truth about the matter.
At the gate of Anigyekurom, he met a man who conditioned his entering permission on him going back to show three acts of kindness where the receiver doesn't know the giver.
He grudgingly went back and pulled a log over some portion of a river, and not seeing either the benefit or the sense of it, couldn't continue any further and so the next day went back to confront the person that he termed "useless" at the gate of Anigyekurom.
The son had heard about the father's visit the previous day, and knowing who the Dad was, the son was very sure that he would not complete the 3 acts of kindness, but will still stubbornly insist on seeing him. And so was at the gate when the Dad came.
No sooner did he come did a man all sweaty followed and knelt down before the Dad, and with heavy breathing punctuating his speech said, "for.. forgive, for.. give me," "why? " The dad asked. The man explained, "having being angered by one of your son's acts, I had planned to burn down your home as revenge but seeing you make a bridge on the very portion of the river that I planned to cross was like heaping coal on my head."
The Dad who couldn't make sense of what the man said was instantly engulfed by remorse, and so knelt down and asked that the apology should rather go to the son who in time past he had described as "useless" and if not for him will not have done "this useless act" which was an entry requirement.
The son in turn knelt down and said, "thank you Dad for helping me discover the happiness that accompanied unannounced kindness."
"Son, what did I do?" the dad asked.
"By insisting that everyone come home with a catch, and my attempts to make you and my other siblings happier, made me end up giving my catch to them, only to discover that, by keeping silent about my kindness, I became far happier. "
"Oh so you did that?"
"Dad, I wasn't going to tell you except to make you know that you helped me in my discovery of unannounced kindness."
They dispersed.
The Dad understood why despite the huge kindness that the community hails him for, he remained far less happier and less satisfied than his son who only did a little act of unannounced kindness.
He went to complete the remaining act of unannounced kindness, and having experienced trumpeting on the street and unannounced kindness, knew the euphoria of the former was deeply fake, and latter was far superior and produced real internal quality.
