The Buddha, and a face full of spit.

There is a story that the Buddha was lecturing a group of interested people, and one man in the crown heckled him, asking obtuse questions, mocking, even directly insulting. Finally, the Buddha paused. “Excuse me, sir. You have asked many questions, and I have attempted to answer. I would now like to ask you a question.”

“Sure,” the guy smirked.

“Very good. If someone offers you a present, and you decline to accept it, to whom does the gift belong?”

“Why, it still belongs to the offerer,” the man replied.

“Excellent. So tell me: if you offer me abuse, and I decline to accept it, to whom then does the abuse belong?”

And the man was speechless.

##

I was standing on a corner in downtown Los Angeles. Think I might have been about nineteen. Maybe my early twenties. A city bus pulled up, and there were a bunch of white kids laughing in the back. One of the guys gestured to me, smiling. Curious, I came closer and — -

He spit in my face and briskly used the expected racial slur, then put the window up. His friends roared. I felt a flash of homicidal anger. Looked for an object to smash the glass, considered storming onto the bus and beating the crap out of him…

And some voice in my head said that objectively, there was NOTHING I could do him, at that moment, that would bring more pleasure than pain into my life. If I smashed through the glass, I would…