I have traveled all around teaching the Dharma, and have received expensive gifts of various kinds, but the one that touched me the most was a small yellow flower offered by a little girl in Ladakh on India’s northern border.

 

As I was leaving Ladakh, my car began to move and part from the sea of well-wishers that had gathered to see me off, but I had already caught sight of a little girl holding a small yellow flower. She was shyly looking towards me, with the corners of her mouth pursed. She came dashing over just as the car was leaving, and stuck the yellow flower she held in her hand on the window. I hastened to tell the driver to stop, and took off the crystal prayer beads I wore on my wrist and gave them to her. She smiled sweetly, her eyes brimming with tears. Then the car began moving again, with the petals of the flower slightly quivering in the wind. I watched her in the car’s rearview mirror, holding her pose with her palms joined in the distance. I was left feeling deeply touched for a long, long time. The purity that children have is the inherent prajna of their Buddha nature, which makes them all Buddhas to be.

Flowers only blossom for a time, each human life has an end, but the life of wisdom is infinite. People often think, “I’ll wait until I have more money, and then I’ll be able to give the seven treasures,” or “I can’t possibly give fearlessness until I can stand firmly in my own intrinsic nature;’ or “I’ll wait until I am enlightened, and then I will give the Dharma:’ And yet at that moment that small yellow flower was the only thing the child had, and that was what she gave.

One who has not yet generated the aspiration for enlightenment is still an ordinary person, but once that aspiration has been made that person becomes a bodhisattva.

Do not be idle waiting for the right moment or look for other reasons and excuses not to give. Everybody can be giving, and be giving now. Give rise to the most treasured mind: that which gives without the slightest hesitation.

Source: Hsing Yun. Four Insights for Finding Fulfillment: A Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Diamond Sutra. Los Angeles: Buddha’s Light Publishing, 2012.