Once a king fell sick. He was so sick that the physicians said he was not going to live, there was no hope. So his ministers and the people who loved him became very worried and anxious. Just then a Zen monk entered the village, and somebody said, “People say that if you call the Zen monk and he gives his blessings, sick people are cured.”
They went to get the Zen monk and he came. The moment he came in he said to the king, “Are you crazy? Is this what you call a disease? It is not a disease. There is a very simple treatment for it.”
The king, who had been lying in bed for months, sat up and said, “What treatment? I thought I was finished. I don’t have any hope of getting better.” The Zen monk said, “It is a very easy treatment. Bring the coat of a man of the village who is both prosperous and peaceful, and this the king should wear. He will become healthy and well.”
The ministers ran. There were many prosperous people in the village. They went from house to house saying, “We want the coat of a man who is both prosperous and peaceful.” And the prosperous people said, “But we are unhappy. A coat! – we can give our lives, what to say of a coat. If the king can be saved, we are prepared to give everything. But our coats won’t work because we are prosperous, but we are not peaceful.”
They went to each and every man in the village. They searched the whole day, and by the evening they had lost all hope. They realized that it was going to be difficult to save the king – a cure was beyond reach. In the morning they had thought, “The cure will be very easy to find,” but by the evening they realized, “The cure is very difficult, in fact, impossible to find.” They had been to all the rich people.
In the evening they returned, tired and sad. The sun was setting. Outside the village, near the river and sitting next to a rock, someone was playing a flute. Its sound was so musical and there were such waves of bliss arising from it that one of the ministers said, “Let’s ask this last person.. .maybe he is peaceful.”
They went to him and asked, “The sound of your flute, your song sounds so full of bliss and peace that we would like to ask you something. The king is sick and we need the coat of a man who is both peaceful and prosperous.”
The man said, “I am willing to give my life, but just look closely.. .1 don’t have a coat.” They looked closely, it was dark the man who was playing the flute was naked.
