As the sun passed another milestone and the earth was beginning another orbit, the Buddha gathered his followers together on the side of the mountain to tell them a story. A wise village brahman was known across the country for his ability to ask the right questions. While this may seem far less important than giving the right answers, scholars and teachers and lay people alike came to him for one reason -- he had the ability to ask them questions they could answer themselves. He had no need to take a position or give his view but his questions would lead his audience to an enlightened answer, solving problems with words that others solved with money and force, the power of their office rather than that of their mind. He had begun as a teacher with little material wealth but after years of asking questions of the land's most powerful rulers, his store of gold and silver and precious stones was beginning to rival that of princes -- yet he still lived in a simple one-room dwelling on the edge of the forest. Rumors abounded that he buried his wealth between the trees but nobody had ever seen him so much as carry a shovel and even the most hardened criminal would think twice before stealing from one with such powerful friends so he could have kept the gold piled behind his hut and it would have remained safely there -- yet he didn't.
The mystery was solved unexpectedly when a elderly prince travelled several months with his closest advisors to see the brahman and tell him his troubles -- the recent death of his three children from three sudden accidents, each in a different city of his lands. The wise brahman asked him a single question. "Who gains by their deaths?", a question he had often asked himself but had been too afraid to answer. With his own health failing and his brother's eldest son in line for the throne, the clarity that ensued and coincidences that now fell led the prince to prostrate himself at the brahman's feet and offer him his own cloak of gold thread interwoven with silk. The brahman couldn't refuse, although he tried, and bowed at the prince's feet in return as he was showered with silver and gold and more precious stones than he imagined possible for one person to count in a lifetime. He left his hut the next day, that brahman, without leaving word where he was going and six months passed without his face being seen, many believing him dead and mourning his loss as someone truly wise and compassionate for the people he lived among.
His return was just as unexpected but far more welcome yet he had no gold, no silver, no gemstones and no fine cloak of gold and silk. Word began to filter through, though, with the arrival of travelers from other parts of the land of miraculous gifts appearing overnight spread among the poor from one end of the land to the other, not gold and silver but baser metals -- the meaning was the same, though. Six months of trading gold and silver for more common things of value and pressing them on the poor to ease their suffering but not so much as would give them cause to find new suffering in greed. It was the cloak the people couldn't understand, though. It was not something that could be easily turned into everyday goods or simply given to someone without attracting vibrant attention and commentary, not to mention the wrath of an incensed prince if his gift was not treasured as he imagined it should be.
The mystery was solved one morning when a traveler, on the road for many months, arrived from the far eastern reaches of the land, telling stories of a humble statue of Lakshmi who had overnight been given a beautiful cloak -- what prince could possibly object to his clothes being worn by a goddess? A sign of wisdom, avoiding the pride of keeping the cloak while not bringing wrath down on his head by offering the gift to another. The statue was rumored to be the site of much devotion and healing power since her new clothes had appeared.
So there was no gold, no silver, no gemstones, no cloak. The simple-living brahman, on his death, was found to have had the most valuable gift of all, wisdom, but had kept no other beyond what he required to live. Every handful had been offered immediately to save the lives of those in the land around him. Suspecting this to be the case, as the brahman lay dying, the same elderly prince whose cloak now enveloped the shoulders of Lakshmi's statue had made a pilgrimage to see his friend, two old men alone in the small hut baking in the late-summer sun's evening heat. Reversing the roles, the prince asked his question, "why, when even the wisest of brahmans across the land take refuge in their wealth when they have been honestly given it, as you have been, have you given it away -- not simply most, to ease the suffering of others, but all of it? Could you not have eased your own suffering somewhat and still been an honorable man?"
His answer was clear and his friend, the prince, left the next morning after the life had departed from the brahman's eyes. "If I value the robe I wear as more than simply the comfort of covering my skin, it has become a source of pride and self and I must give it up or all the wisdom I have been given has been for nothing. If I cling to a single grain of silver when it would give comfort, it is no more than dogmatic allegiance, ritual where compassion would better serve. It was either to keep all and give up a life of service or keep none and smile at death this night."
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