Keep Your Gifts

 

Buddha was seated alone one day, and later, some men gathered around him. One among them who did not like his teachings and the effect it had on the people, got up and started a tirade in very vulgar terms against him. 

Buddha sat smiling listening to all that calumny, without a single gesture of disapproval. The man got frothy in the mouth through rage, his vocabulary was getting exhausted fast, his tongue began to show signs of overwork, but, Buddha only asked him with a smile: "Brother, have you finished"? 

The man said: "You have no sense of shame; you do not even react when I abuse you. You are thick skinned; you are a log of wood."

Buddha asked him: "If a person does not accept a gift, what happens to it?" 

The man said: "It remains with the giver."

Buddha replied: "Well, keep these gifts of abusive words with you, brother! I do not accept and react."

With Metta,

Da