Dear Y.E.S.S.,

Dear Anonymous,

There is a story, AThrowing down body to feed tiger@ In Horyu Temple in the city of Nara, Japan, there is a small altar that is a national treasurer. According to the temple legend, the Empress Suiko worshiped the Buddha enshrined in that altar. To the left of that altar, as you face it, is the well-known painting called, Shashinshi Kozu (Throwing Down Body to feed Tiger).

This painting is based on the Konkomyo-kyo (Sutra of Golden Brilliance), which is based on the life of Shakyamuni Buddha when he was known as Prince Satsuta. Prince Satsuta was the youngest of three sons of a king. One day he went with his two older brothers to play in the royal park where they found a weakening mother tiger.

The tiger had given birth to cubs seven days previously. It was so weak from hunger that it could not produce milk, and so its cubs were also weakening. If this situation was left as is, the mother tiger would probably have ended up eating her own young to stay alive.

Seeing this sad plight, Prince Satsuta determined to offer his own body to the tiger as food. He placed his body next to the tiger so the tiger could eat him. But the tiger was so emaciated that she could not eat a living human being. So the prince took a piece of bamboo and cut himself to draw blood. He then climbed up to a high place and threw himself in front of the tiger, killing himself. The tiger licked the prince=s blood, and then ate his flesh. When the others arrived, all that remained was Prince Satsuta=s bones.

In this story, a prince sacrifices himself to feed a starving mother tiger so that she may live to raise her cubs. As I read this story, I thought of many reasons how this prince could have avoided sacrificing himself to save the tigers; he could have gotten meat from somewhere else; he could have killed another animal to feed the tiger; what about his family; what about his mother and father; they would miss him and he could have done so much more if he stayed alive...and don=t tigers kill people in the village?

Well I quickly realized that because we are human, it is very, very difficult to be selfless. We have many attachments and we make many excuses to save ourselves or our egos. Even if we think we did something in our life that was selfless, if we really think about it and be really honest with ourselves, we will realize that there were certain reasons why we did that so cold Aselfless@ thing.

I think that Buddhism teaches us that because we are Aonly human@, we must try extra hard to be selfless. That when we realize how hard it is to give without thought of self is when we begin to scratch the surface of enlightenment.