Today's story brings us back to Miyamoto Musashi, about midway through his career. He is already a swordsman of major repute, and he has taken several important steps in The Way.

Once day he was wandering the mountains, learning The Way and polishing his swordsmanship in isolation, when he stopped into a restaurant for a bite to eat. Remember, this was medieval Japan, not Toledo, Ohio, so you should understand that restaurants didn't look exactly like we expect them to now. This one was divided into rooms by shoji screens, which are basically made of paper. You would rent a room, be served a simple meal, and eat it sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Musashi's greatest failing, if it could be said to be a failing, was that he was a scuzzball. He was, as was his custom, dressed in an old tattered kimono, unwashed, and uncouth. He didn't have much money, so he ordered just a bowl of rice.

Well, in the next room was a raucous bunch of samurai carousing and drinking sake. There were about half a dozen of them, dressed in the latest fashion, impeccably groomed. But, in spite of all that, these were real samurai, not people to tangle with lightly.

Musashi was annoyed by the noise, but he was not the person he was in the last story. Where he would have once rushed in with attitude blazing and hand on sword hilt, he now instead politely entered their room and requested that they be quieter.

This was fine, until the samurai had had a few more bowls of sake. Then they began to get a little bit offended. The largest and loudest eventually worked himself up to go to Musashi's room. There, hand on sword hilt, he pompously upbraided Musashi, an obvious scuzzball, for criticizing his betters.

Musashi did not answer. The samurai noticed finally that Musashi appeared to be picking raisins out of his rice with his chopsticks and flicking them into the corner of the room. He looked a little closer and blanched. He apologized gravely to Musashi, then backed out of the room as fast as he could.

You see, he realized that Musashi was catching live flies with his chopsticks, not raisins. He knew that the man who could do that would be a formidable adversary with the sword.

There are many messages in this story, hidden, as with the other stories, at different levels of understanding of the Way. The first is that Real Samurai don't eat raisins. The second is that you can often tell the future by noticing little things that others miss. The third is that you don't need to be a Drama Queen to get results. The last one is probably the one that is most relevant to people with MS.