"Alas! What a stupid son I have! I am worried that he will not be ableto preserve all of the property if I hand down to him. There was a wealthy man who was very astute and capable. However, he had a son who was very stupid and good-at-nothing. Hence the wealthy man had been very distressful.

One day he was again sat down in the living room and sighed. His son was sitting opposite to him and was just mindlessly giggling, "Hihi, hehe!!" "Ai", the wealthy man could not help making a sigh. Then the family old maid came in and said,

"Master, there’‘s a monk looking for you for donation."

The wealthy man had been a person who knew how to respect the Buddhists. Therefore upon hearing that, he said,

"Please invite him in immediately."

Soon an old monk who looked very compassionate came in. The wealthy man very politely requested him to sit down. The old monk did not sit down. Instead he directly walked towards the stupid son and looked at him. Then the old monk slowly touched his head for a few times and said,

"In fact,this child is very clever and is good at studying. It’‘s a pity that there’‘s too much killing in your home. And this prevent him from being clever."

He left without looking back when he finished the remarks. There left the wealthy man to think of the remarks of the old monk,

"The old monk was right. Truly our family have been consuming big fishes and much meat without stopping. Also we always throw dishes away when we cannot finish them. And every festivals we will have delicacies from land and sea. Perhaps it has been because we have been slaughtering many animals at home that resulted in having an idiotic son."

From then onwards, the wealthy man changed himself completely - The wholefamily started to become vegetarian. He banned anyone to take all liveanimals into the kitchen. In addition, he spent much money to buy animalsto release them in the wild as a work of merit. Thus he had been doing for many years.

Suddenly one day the stupid son of the wealthy man ran to the father held his stomach and shouted,

"Papa, my stomach’‘s aching and I want to vomit."

The wealthy man was very worried. He was just about to invite a doctor to treat his son when the son started to vomit some "black liquid". Everyone was astonished upon seeing it. However, the stupid son became very intelligent since then. No longer anidiot any more, he mastered anything he learnt in no time. The wealthy man was very happy so he let his son studied. Finally the son attained the best results in the government examination. This confirmed what the oldmonk had said before.

Extract of The Buddhist Children’‘s Stories, page 17-19, published by TheWhite Cloud Cultural Centre, Taipei Taiwan, Mang Gua (R.O.C. Year) 76 Oct.Translated and proof-read by Forest, Buddhist Calender 2527 1th Lunar Monththe 8th(1992/1/20), Sydney.