One day, a woman repeated a bit of gossip about her neighbor. Within a few days, the entire community knew the story. And it wasn’t long before the woman responsible for spreading the rumor learned that it was completely untrue.
She was very sorry and went to a local sage to find out what she could do to repair the damage.
“Go to the marketplace,” he said, “purchase a chicken, and have it killed.”
His instructions continued, “Then on your way home, pluck its feathers, drop them one by one along the road, and return to me to morrow.”
Although surprised by this advice, the woman did what she was told. When she returned to the sage the following day, she was met with more instruction, “Now, go and collect all those feathers you dropped yesterday and bring them back to me.”
The woman returned to her route from the day before , but to her dismay the wind had blown all the feathers away. After search ing for hours, she returned with only three feathers in her hand.
“You see,” said the old sage, “It’s easy to drop them, but it is impossible to get
them back.”
…
Source : https://www.watertigertaichi.com/PDF/Feathers_in_the_Wind.pdf