Back in 1957 a group of monks from a monastery had to relocate a clay Buddha from their temple to a new location. The monastery was to be relocated tomake room for the development of a highway through Bangkok. When the crane begin to lift the giant idol, the weight of it was so tremendous that it began to crack. What’s more, rain began to fall. The head monk, who was concerned about damage to the sacred Buddha, decided to lower the statue back to the ground and to cover it with a large canvas tarp to protect it from the rain.
Later that evening the head monk went to check if the Buddha was staying dry. As the light reached the crack, he noticed the gleam of light, he wondered if there might be something underneath the clay, he went to fetch a chisel and hammer from the monastery and began to chip away the clay. As he knocked off shards of clay, the little gleam grew brighter and bigger. Many hours of labor went by before the monks stood face with the Extraordinary Gold Buddha.
Historians believe that several hundred years before the head monk’s discovery, the Burmese army was about to invade Thailand, the Siamese monks, realizing that their country would soon be attacked, covered their precious Buddha with an outer covering of clay to keep it form being looted by the Burmese, unfortunately the monks were all slaughtered, and the well kept secret of the golden Buddha remained intact, until that faithful day in 1957.
We are all like the clay Buddha covered with a shell of hardness created by fear, and yet underneath us is a golden Buddha a golden Christ or a golden essence, which is our real self, and much like the monk with the hammer and chisel, it’s up to us now to discover our true essence once again.
The Ten Fold Mentality 