Once upon a time, a samurai challenged a Zen master to explain the concept of heaven and hell. But the monk replied with scorn, "You’re nothing but a lout – I can’t waste my time with the likes of you!"
His very honour attacked, the samurai flew into a rage and, pulling his sword from his scabbard yelled, "I could kill you for your impertinence."
"That," the monk calmly replied, "is hell."
Startled at seeing the truth in what the master pointed out about the fury that had him in its grip, the samurai calmed down, sheathed his sword, and bowed, thanking the monk for the insight.
Back in the 1930s, a baker suspected that a farmer who was supplying his butter was giving him short weight.
Over a period of several weeks, he checked the weight and his suspicions were confirmed. This so angered him that he had the farmer arrested.
"I assume you have weights," said the judge at the farmer’s trial.
"No, sir, I don’t," replied the farmer.
"Then how do you weigh the butter you sell?"
"Well," said the farmer, "when the baker began buying butter from me, I decided to get my bread from him. I just use the one-pound loaf he sells me as a weight for the butter I sell. If the weight of the butter is wrong, he has only himself to blame."
A senior manager briefed his boss on some major personnel changes – brought on by poor performance – that would involve several terminations.
The boss asked the manager how long he had been working with those people.
"Nine years, " came the reply.
"If you have been in charge of those people for nine years and their performance is still unsatisfactory, I think the issue is your performance," said the boss.