The Clay Budha

The ‘Clay’ Buddha

With grateful acknowledgment to Jack Canfield

In the mid 1950′s, the monastery housing a clay Buddha was to be relocated, so the monks arranged for a crane to move the ‘clay’ Buddha to its new location. However, when the crane started to lift the statue, it was much heavier than expected and began to crack. Mystified the m onks lowered it back to the ground and decided to wait until the next day to bring in a more powerful crane. To add insult to injury, it started to rain so the monks covered the statue with tarp to keep it dry.

During the night, the head monk went out to make sure the Buddha was adequately covered, shining his torch across the statue. When the light of torch shone into a crack in the clay, he saw a glimmer, a reflection of something underneath the clay. He immediately started to carefully chisel away shards of clay to find that the glimmer grew brighter. Hours later, when all the clay had been removed he found himself in the presence of a Buddha made of solid gold.

Three hundred years earlier, Siamese monks heard of Burma’s plan to invade Thailand, then known as Siam. They were in possession of a beautiful statue of Buddha; made of solid gold it stood over 10 feet tall and weighed over 2 tons. To protect the precious Buddha the monks covered him with clay 12 inches thick believing, rightly, the invading soldiers would ignore it, thinking it was of little value. Sadly, all the monks who were aware of the true identity of the Buddha were killed in the invasion and the secret of stayed hidden from the world for two centuries.

Life has the same effect on many of us; we get covered up by the clay of self-doubt and the mud that people throw at us. Overtime we forget about our g olden-self hidden away under all the mud and the muck. Or we get too busy in life and fail to see the ‘true value’ of those around us.

Take time, this year, to look beneath the clay layer – let your true self shine once again. Then, look for the gold in others! We are each surrounded by numerous treasures that we often times fail to see – it is time to let friends and family know that we recognize their true value.

Thanks, WK