Spoken
By Supreme Master Ching Hai,
Yangmingshan, Taipei, Formosa October 31, 1992 (Originally In Chinese)
A
high-ranking official was once invited to dinner at a man's home.
He sat at the dinner table eating the same dish [bamboo shoots, for
example] throughout the meal. Later, the host said to the official's
wife, "I know what food his Excellency likes most." "How do you know?"
the wife asked. "Because he had just that one dish for dinner at my
home last time," he replied. "You don't know him!" the wife exclaimed.
"He loves other things, like noodles." The host was not convinced.
"Let's have a bet," he suggested. "I'll bet his Excellency loves only
bamboo shoots." "Nonsense!" the wife retorted. "We've been married
for many years. How could I not know what he likes? I know he likes
one thing today, something else tomorrow, and another thing the day
after that. If you don't believe me, I'll prove it to you!"
Together,
the host and the wife prepared a feast. The host cooked only bamboo
shoots, while the official's wife prepared a different dish. As the
wife had predicted, the official ate just the one dish that she set
before him, and of course, she won the bet! The next day, she said
to the host, "You prepare several dishes today and set them all on
the table." However, the wife prepared only a bowl of noodles in soup
and placed it before her husband. And that was all the official ate.
Then the wife said, "Now you have seen that he ate nothing else, not
even the bamboo shoots!" The following day, she set a different dish
before her husband, and again, as she had predicted, that was the
only dish he touched.
Finally,
the wife proclaimed triumphantly, "Did you see?" The host was bewildered.
"Three days ago, he ate only bamboo shoots. But later he took to other
foods and completely ignored the bamboo shoots. Why is that so?" The
wife smiled and said, "What you don't know is that his Excellency
is extremely lazy; he eats only what is placed right before him, because
he is too lazy to stretch out his hands!"
Master Tells Jokes 
