Once Upon a Time. Back in the day of Buddha, when Buddha was alive on the planet with us, there was a simple man. He was a Shoemaker and he had a pond behind his house. One day he goes out, it’s not in season, but a beautiful blue lotus flower bloomed.
The man thought, “Oh this will make such a wonderful offering for the Buddha!”
He picks the flower and he goes out onto the road where people were passing by to go see Buddha. A very rich man comes along and the rich man sees the blue lotus flower and he says, “Oh What a Beautiful lotus flower! I want to buy it and give it to the Buddha. How much do you want?”
The Shoemaker was a simple man. He said, “I don’t know how much. You make an offer.”
The rich man says. “I’ll give you a hundred rupees for it.”
The shoemakers was blown away. He couldn’t believe it’d be worth that much! He was just about to hand it over when up comes a king. The king sees the blue lotus flower and he says, “I’ll give you 200 rupees for that blue lotus flower. It’s so gorgeous I have to be the one that gives it to Buddha.”
So the man, of course, sells it to the king. Because who’s going to argue with the King anyway?
So the king takes the lotus flower and he goes to see Buddha. Of course, you know, he goes right in. He gets right up to the front of the line… because well, privilege, power yeah. So he goes up and he sees Buddha and he hands him the blue lotus flower. He’s so proud of this gift that he had brought!
Buddha looks at him and says, “Drop it.”
The king is just amazed. But he does what he’s told. He drops the blue lotus flower.
Buddha looks at him again and says, “Drop it!”
And the King’s like… what do you mean? How crazy are you? I just dropped it?
Buddha looks at him again and says, “Drop it.”
Of course he wasn’t talking about the blue lotus flower at all. He was talking about this tremendous ego and all the greed that had been behind this bringing of the blue lotus flower.