This morning Head Monk told the monks this story:
One of the specialised clothes merchants in the county was a businessman who had a small, composite clothes factory. The factory would weave, dye and stitch clothes as per order. The businessman had a spiritual bent of mind and would execute orders exclusively for saints, monks and nuns who lived in various monasteries, churches and temples.
The magical section of the factory was its rose garden. The businessman would use only natural colours to dye his clothes. The used coloured water would flow from the factory tanks into the rose garden beds. The magic was that the roses would soak up the colours of the dyes and then bloom to exactly match the colour of the clothes that were being stitched!
When the cloth merchant supplied orange coloured robes to a monastery, identical orange coloured roses would appear in the rose garden! When the cloth merchant would pack a clothes consignment, he would also send hundreds of bouquets of similar coloured roses to the monastery and delight the monks and nuns there. This became the cloth merchant’s specialty and also claim to fame.
One season, for reasons unknown, the cloth merchant got greedy and accepted a large order of coal black clothes, meant for a guerrilla army. The cloth merchant’s factory assistants protested and hinted that they had never made clothes for men who killed people, but the cloth merchant was blinded with greed. The rumour was that he had been promised three times the usual money for the clothes; also because he had promised an unlimited supply of black roses with the consignment.
The coal black clothes began getting produced and black coloured dye water ran into the rose gardens.
Just a few days before the shipment was due, the cloth merchant glanced at the rose garden. He was shocked to see that the roses were all Blood Red in colour. There was no black rose. Instantly, the cloth merchant realised his mistake. The red roses symbolised the blood that he would have on his hands if he supplied clothes to a guerrilla army.
The merchant vowed never to make clothes for people who would use them for bad purposes. He refused to ship the black clothes and burnt the consignment instead.
Sensei clapped thrice and said, “People around you will soak your good karma, help you and even change themselves for your cause. But when you stray from the path, signs will point out that you are wrong. Don’t miss those signs.”
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