Sometimes in our lives there are perplexing matters, which we don’t know whether to cry or to laugh at.  If we haggle and take everything seriously, then we would not only wear ourselves out but also waste our bright and transient lives.

Mr. C is a financial consultant of the bank where our temple opened an account.  Few months ago, our temple’s account got transferred from the Ohio office to Mr. C.  It takes less than three minutes’ driving from our temple to his office.  I could jog to there on a sudden impulse.  That is the reason why he was chosen to take care of our temple’s account.

For 6 months we did not receive any monthly statements of our temple’s account after the transfer.  I found a time to call him yesterday.  After few transfers, I finally got the chance to talk to this senior financial consultant.

I asked him, “How come we haven’t received any monthly statement for such a long time?”

“We had tried to send it to your temple on January 2006, but the mail had been returned to us because of the incorrect mailing address.”  This was his reply.

Then, he asked me to double check “the correct” mailing address with him.  The result is that our mailing address is correct all along.  He said: “The address seems correct, but the post office refused to deliver it to your temple.”

At the end, I asked him to send the monthly statement to us again as soon as possible.  He guaranteed that I would receive it on the same day.  If the post office still refused to deliver it, he urged me to come to his office and give him “the correct” mailing address.

I couldn’t help smiling after hanging up the phone.  He might be pleased with himself for dealing with another client cleverly that I didn’t reveal his lie during our conversation.  I could tell him easily that he just wanted to cover up his carelessness by playing with me.  Our temple had this account in that bank around three to four years.  We had always received the monthly statement on time.  If the mail was returned to the bank as what he said, he should have tried every possible means and had sufficient time to deal with this problem in half a year.  If I didn’t contact him by now, then it would be like a stone dropped into the sea – no answer.  I didn’t tell him that he shouldn’t push the responsibility to the post office and it was unbelievable either.  Over the last six years, Cresco’s post office has taken care of our temple wonderfully.  Some people had written our temple’s address wrongly, but as long as “AZBT” several letters are correct, Ms. Donna - the mail carrier - always delivers it to our temple on time.  Not to mention that the bank mail had the correct temple’s name and address, it shouldn’t be rejected by the post office for any reason.  Mr. C, as the senior financial consultant at the bank, may be dealing with many clients daily.  Perhaps for him, our temple is a very small client and it is not on his ‘ must – do‘ list.  However, if this is his way of handling things, then he will realize one day that his transient life can only be described with ONE word - “regret”.

Mr. C is only a little glitch that we may come across in our lives.  If we strived for a reason on everything, then our lives would be a succession of chaotic and inexplicable tortures.  There was a legend about leaving a loophole in the Chinese ethical culture.  In the ancient times, there were people who had to hunt to make a living.  The helpless lives didn’t wipe out their good instinct.  Whenever the hunters used their net to hunt, they wouldn’t forget to leave a loophole to give birds and beasts a chance to escape.  The time has changed and such kindhearted human nature had gradually given way unconsciously in the heartless doctrine of the academic honor!

It isn’t ethical to reveal a person’s lie right in front of him and to step heavily on his sore spot.  Sometimes, this will make the situation worse.  Because everybody has ego, when the ego is smashed, then one may turn anger into bad thoughts easily.  Revealing a person’s lie won’t change him a bit but to make a bad connection.  It will harm others and won’t benefit self.  Therefore, it is better to save his face and give him a space to think in order to inspire virtual seeds in his mind.

This kind of behavior to leave a loophole is just like the Buddhist practice of compassion.  The complex affairs in our life are tests to our charitable instinct.  If you were too pushy on everything, then you would have lost the instinct of humanity even you were right.  Sometimes you think that you have won in an argument, but contrarily you have lost a lot unwittingly.  The struggles within our minds gave us no time to taste the beauty of our lives and lost many opportunities to comprehend the splendor events in our life.  When we look back, we are old already.  Who is the winner?  Who is the loser?  Perhaps, either of us didn’t win at all.  Because either of us didn’t know that take it easy is the most enjoyable thing in our ordinary lives.