Purity

While on a trip to Nepal, we were touring around the ancient Five Palaces in Kathmandu, when we saw an old shaman (a wandering spiritual practitioner) who was wearing bright and beautiful robes. He allowed tourists to take his photo and even requested money.

We laughed while we criticized: This is another one who cons people out of their money. Then we saw a quite old, local woman wearing a worn sari. When she walked past the shaman, without hesitation, she took out a banana from her broken bamboo basket and piously offered it to him. The shaman gladly accepted it before the old woman hurried away.

The two of us looked at each other and simultaneously felt ashamed. Whether the shaman was genuine or not should not have had any influence on us, yet our impure hearts were very obvious. It was really quite embarrassing!