The women's blouse

This is a story repeated by Ajahn Brahm, and then paraphrased by me. Ajahn Brahm is a British-born Australian Buddhist monk I really look up to. He cuts a lot of the bullshit out of religion and gets straight to the parts about how to live a more loving life, in simple English.

Once, an American journalist was following the Dalai Lama around for a month in the Himalayas. They approached a remote village, and all the villagers came out of their houses to crowd the streets to see the Dalai Lama. 

And everyone was cheering, and touching the Dalai Lama, and he was smiling and greeting them too.

And among the crowd, there was this middle aged lady who was quite frail and quite poor, and she was in quite a rush to present the Dalai Lama a gift.

And the gift was some article of clothing like a blouse or a skirt. The Dalai Lama accepted the gift, and this made the American journalist raise his eyebrows.

And after everything was over, and the Dalai Lama and the journalist were by themselves, the journalist was quite upset and confronted the Dalai Lama.

“Why did you take that skirt from that woman?! She clearly needs that more than you. And what the hell are you going to do with a women’s skirt anyway?! You are the Dalai Lama! You already have all of the respect and material possessions you could ever need. You could have a helicopter if you asked for it. This is terrible. This is immoral. I thought you were the Dalai Lama! Where is your compassion?!”

And the Dalai Lama looked at the journalist, and said calmly,

“She needed to give it to me. That’s why I took it.”

And the journalist understood.