“Once there was a wealthy but foolish man. When he saw the beautiful three-storied house of another man, he envied it and made up his mind to have one built just like it, thinking he himself was just as wealthy. He called a carpenter and ordered him to build it. The carpenter consented and immediately began to construct the foundation, the first story, the second story, and then the third story. The wealthy man noticed this with irritation and said: ‘I don’t want a foundation or a first story or a second story; I just want the beautiful third story. Build it quickly.'”
“A foolish man always thinks only of the results, and is impatient without the effort that is necessary to get good results. No good can be attained without proper effort, just as there can be no third story without the foundation and the first and the second stories.”
The Teaching of the Buddha (Tokyo, 1962), 141.
Posted from Honolulu, Hawaii
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