Once Buddha came to a lecture holding a flower in his hand. He remained silent for a long time until someone dared to ask him why he was silent. Buddha smiled and said: “This flower I hold in my hand speaks more than I could ever tell you, more than can be expressed in words. Listen, today the flower will speak to you instead of me. Later, you will tell me what the flower said to you.”
When he later asked them to tell him what they thought they had heard, he received various responses.
Most of the answers tried to give the flower some complex and highly educated explanation, but then one man stood up and said: “I could not hear the message of the flower because I am not worthy to hear it. All I can do is kneel before the mystery that surpasses me.” Buddha then called him to him, gave him the flower, and said: “What could be given in words, I have given to all of you. And what cannot be put into words, I give to you.”
Selected by Nataša Žaja