Earth and Fool took a trip together.

One day, they rested under a big tree.  It was a hot summer afternoon.  They unconsciously fell asleep in the waves of cool breeze.

In his dream, Earth came to a beautiful island.  He saw a magnificent mansion at a far distance.  He then walked and walked.  Finally, he arrived at a flower garden behind the mansion.  In the garden, there were numerous big and tall tea trees blooming beautifully with large red-flowers sized like bowls.  Among the red flowers, there stood a tea tree blooming all white-flowers.  Driven by curiosity, Earth came under the tea tree with white-flowers and started digging.  When he swept away the dirt, he suddenly found a large pot full of shining gold.  Earth was so thrilled that he jumped up.  The jump woke him up.

Earth told Fool all the details of how he found the gold in his dream.  Disappointedly he said that it was no more than a good dream.

Earth's good dream deeply fascinated Fool.  He asked Earth to sell the dream to him.  After selling his dream, Earth ended the travel and went back to his hometown while Fool was full of anticipation continued his journey.

One day, Fool came to a beautiful island.  Surprisingly, he also found a magnificent mansion on the island.  Following Earth's description, Fool also found the garden with numerous big and tall tea trees.  Unfortunately it was not a blossom season.  Therefore there was no way of telling which one was the tea tree with white flowers.

Fool begged the owner to hire him as gardener and patiently waited for the tea trees to blossom.

Finally in the second year that he waited, the tea trees in the garden started to blossom.  However, all the flowers were red none was white.

Year after year, all the tea flowers always turned out red, but Fool did not give up.  Instead he worked even harder to wait for the white flowers.

The blossom season came again.  Early in the morning, Fool arrived to the garden and was stunned by the scenery in front of his eyes.  Among the assembly of huge red flowers like the past years, there stood a tea tree blossom all white-flowers.  He dug under the tree and there he found a large pot of gold.

To reward Fool's hard work in the past, the owner gave him the whole pot of gold.  He brought the gold back to his hometown and generously donated to charities to benefit his community.  He then became a great benefactor who was appreciated by many.  On the other hand, Earth who sold his dream remained poor as dirt.

It was long time ago that I heard this story.  I was touched by Fool's foolish strength and his spirit to stick to the goal without giving up.  If Buddhist practitioners could have this type of hard work and perseverance, then what kind of good vows could not be achieved?  Likewise, many of us are more like Earth - we want to try all Eighty-four thousand methods and yet we cannot master a single one.  Every day, we dream of reaching Enlightenment as simple as waking up from a dream.  Driven by wondering thoughts and desires, we seek those Gurus who claim to be enlightened with supernatural power, like the blinds being led by a blind.  Let's ask ourselves: can there be harvest without cultivation?

Because of Fool's spirit, the tea flowers changed color.  If Fool can, why cannot we?