The Director and the Beggar

On the bridge, the evening wind blew through disheveled hair. A beggar sat huddled in tattered clothes, holding a worn-out tin can. Suddenly, a refined gentleman walked past, with polished leather shoes and a finely tailored suit. The beggar quickly grabbed hold of the stranger's leg.

"Please, sir, give me a coin!" the beggar pleaded earnestly.

The man stopped short and frowned slightly. He sat down and looked straight into the beggar's eyes.

"You're asking me for a coin? Do you know who I am?"

The beggar shook his head, bewildered.

"I am the director of a company. More than one hundred employees work under me. Every month, I must pay all of their wages. To earn that money, I dare not eat by day and dare not sleep by night. Twenty-four hours a day, I am constantly tense and burdened, calculating everything just to sustain the livelihood of more than a hundred people," the man said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "Whole months pass this way, without a single moment of rest. And I must also fear the police arresting me for some violation that even I am not aware of. And I must worry about earning money to pay taxes on top of it all."

The beggar listened, his mouth hanging open.

"And you," the man continued, "you have your can and your hat. You do not fear the police. The police cannot even be bothered to arrest you. The tax office never comes asking you for taxes. As for me, the police watch me, the tax office arrives to seize what I have, and the employees cry out for their wages. There is not a single month when I can sleep in peace."

He paused and sighed deeply. "I toil away for many months and earn only five thousand yuan. Do you know how many seconds it costs me to earn a single yuan? It takes me five hundred and thirty-eight seconds to make one. And you—you only need to open your mouth and speak a word, and it is yours at once."

The beggar was suddenly moved, his eyes brimming with tears. He grasped the man's hand.

"Enough, please say no more. Hang in there! Hang in there!" Then he pulled up his shirt, drew out a handful of small change he had begged for since morning, and pressed it into the director's hand. "Take it. Hang in there!"

On the bridge, the two men looked at each other. One had everything but no peace. One had nothing, yet could offer comfort. The story ended there, leaving much to reflect upon about the true nature of wealth and freedom.

The Meaning of the Story

The story reveals a profound paradox: sometimes material wealth brings a burden of stress and anxiety even greater than what the poor carry. True happiness does not lie in possessions, but in the peace within the heart and in the ability to give love. The beggar, though destitute, possessed a freedom and a generous spirit far greater than the director's.

Compiled from a dharma talk by the Venerable Thích Chân Quang