This will pass - Buddhist story

[Mathan Reanagach]

In the '60's, while studying Buddhism in College, I read the story of a warlord who had laid siege to a Buddhist Temple renowned for its metallurgy.  The warlord called for a meeting with the head monk to discuss terms.  The warlord said, "I will spare your temple if you can give me a thing I can look at which will calm me when I am feeling successful and brighten me when I am feeling defeated."  Two days later, the monk delivered to the warlord a ring with the inscription "This will pass".

In the '70's I asked some exchange students at a different college what that might have been, and they gave me the answer that sounded like "Ni hue com con da" (remember that's 50 years ago), and I was happy, but then some others came up to me, said that, and sniggered.  Ergo, I ignored them.

In the '80's, I asked a mainland Chinese immigrant with a background in both hard and soft sciences.  She gave me a four character phrase that, IIRC, had something to do with an empty cupboard andor a mist (remember that was 30-40 years ago) and I did some drawings with that as well as a "Queen margaret (?) Celtic knot (deconstructed as three interlaced infinity signs).  Still have the knot drawings, but the Chinese characters have been put somewhere "safe".

 

Any assistance in restoring that bit of philosophy would be truly appreciated.

[Jim]

The classic four character expression of impermanence and mutability is 人生无常 but it doesn't seem to be the phrase or phrases you part remember. Struggling to come up with anything else though perhaps the empty cupboard is a mishearing of 空相 as in 诸法空相, but that seems a bit of a stretch.

[mungouk]

This sounds rather like the apocryphal "this too shall pass", which supposedly came from Persian sufis?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass

 

Quote

When an Eastern sage was desired by his sultan to inscribe on a ring the sentiment which, amidst the perpetual change of human affairs, was most descriptive of their real tendency, he engraved on it the words : — "And this, too, shall pass away." It is impossible to imagine a thought more truly and universally applicable to human affairs than that expressed in these memorable words, or more descriptive of that perpetual oscillation from good to evil, and from evil to good, which from the beginning of the world has been the invariable characteristic of the annals of man, and so evidently flows from the strange mixture of noble and generous with base and selfish inclinations, which is constantly found in the children of Adam.[1]

 

[艾墨本]

I have heard this story told by a Buddhist monk who cited the Sufi story. I have not heard of the variance that you have in your post. I believe @mungouk is correct.