A Drop Of Water

Written by ‘dhammacaro

Everything has its value, even the very tiniest thing does. We need to learn to know the value of everything and make use of this knowledge. We should not waste anything, or destroy anything unprofitably. In living a Buddhist way of life, the Buddha taught his ordained monks to have a simple life and to learn how to make use of things profitably; for example, how to use the four requisites. So in Buddhism, all monks must learn how to make use of things profitably. There is a Zen story, which provides us with a good example of this. Here is the story:

There was once a Zen Master, who was about to take a bath. His student had prepared the water for him. The water was so cold that the Master told his student to change it for him, "Fetch me warm water!" The student threw the cold water away and fetched warm water for his teacher. When the Master saw his student throw the cold water away, he said to him, "Why do you throw water away unprofitably? Everything has its value, even a drop of water has its value. If you water a flower, it will nurture the flower. And it is not only the flower that profits from this, for the water also feels useful and helpful to the flower and the flower will decorate the earth beautifully."

When the student heard this, he understood it and to remind himself of this teaching, he nicknamed himself, ‘A Drop of Water’. Later on he became a senior monk. One day he was asked to give a Dhamma talk, which he did. After the class, he was asked, "In this worldly existence what has the most value?" He answered, "A drop of water." When he was asked about what has emptiness, he also answered, "A drop of water." When asked for the meaning of his answer, he told them about the value of water, which he had learned from his Master. Then they understood what he meant.

It is true that everything has its own meaning and value. We should learn to appreciate this, lest we waste things. To waste things seems to be an easy choice for people. The world has a big problem because they don’t know how to use, or recycle things. That’s why there is a lot of rubbish on this planet Earth right now. Believe it or not, if we learn how to use, or recycle things, we will stop having problems about waste.