This is from Debbie Ford:
One of my favorite teaching stories, which we've just captured in my soon-to-be-released documentary If Shadows Could Talk, is the story of the Golden Buddha. It's an important story and a story we should all remember.
In 1957, a monastery in Thailand was being relocated and a group of monks was put in charge of moving a giant clay Buddha. In the midst of the move, one of the monks noticed a crack in the Buddha. Concerned about damaging the idol, the monks decided to wait for a day before continuing with their task.
During the night, one of the monks came to check on the giant statue. He shined his flashlight over the entire Buddha. When he reached the crack, he saw something reflected back at him. The monk, his curiosity aroused, got a hammer and a chisel and began chipping away at the clay Buddha.
As he knocked off piece after piece of clay, the Buddha got brighter and brighter. After hours of work, the monk looked up in amazement to see, standing before him, a huge solid gold Buddha.
Historians believe the Buddha had been covered with clay by Thai monks several hundred years earlier before an attack by the Burmese army. They covered the Buddha to protect it. In the attack, all the monks were killed, so it wasn't until 1957 that the great treasure was discovered.
Like the Buddha, our outer shell protects us from the world. Our real treasure is hidden within. We unconsciously hide our inner gold under a layer of clay. All we need to do to uncover our gold is have the courage to chip away at our outer shell, piece by piece.
