A young boy once wandered deep into the woods. By chance—or by the careful humor of life —he arrived at a clearing where a vast stone rose from the earth. From its crown, a waterfall descended endlessly. Near it, boys and girls stood in gentle reverence, offering flowers with calm faces.
“I would like to look like that,” he thought, “Peaceful. Composed. Respectable.”
Nearby he saw a monk was sitting. For sure this is the teacher - the boy thought and then he approached him and asked, “Can you teach me devotion?”
“No,” the monk replied.
The boy cleared his throat.
“But you taught them,” he said, gesturing toward the others. “They appear… very devoted.”
The monk glanced at the group and after a pause, he spoke:
“Return tomorrow at this hour. Follow the forest path that opens to the northeast. Bring a single flower, and lay it before the stone.”
The boy thanked him deeply. At last, clear instructions.
The next day, he returned with one flower. He followed the path precisely. He arrived on time. He placed the flower before the stone.
Nothing happened.
The stone did not glow. His heart remained stubbornly ordinary.
Still, he returned. And returned. And returned...
One flower. Same path. Same hour.
After many days, he began to notice something.
Some students offered two flowers. Some offered three...
The boy narrowed his eyes and calculated.
“So this is the problem,” he concluded with relief. “I lack quantity.”
Satisfied, he resolved to bring two flowers the next day.
That morning, he went early to collect the second.
But when his fingers reached for it, his hand stopped.
The flower was just opening.
Dew rested on its petals like a held breath. Light touched it so gently that the boy felt almost embarrassed to interrupt.
He stared.
“Ah,” he murmured, “so you refuse to be counted.”
He could not take it.
He returned with only one.
That day, as he placed the flower before the stone, his thoughts returned again and again to the one he had spared—its insistence on being alive. Tomorrow, he thought, I will pluck it anyway.
I must not let a flower stand in the way of devotion.
The next morning, he returned to the place where it grew.
It was still there and he smiled without noticing it.
He stood there looking at it and even forgot why he had come at all.
Then when others tried to reach for it, he gently stopped them and said - “No, not this one, you can pluck another one." He even made a small fence around it so no one would take it.
When bees arrived, he felt gratitude that its sweetness could travel beyond itself.
Then he started to feel reverence for the soil that held it, the sun that warmed it...
When the rain came, he remained there, drenched and smiling, grateful for the water that fed the flower, his own cold and hunger unnoticed.
When the flower finally faded, the boy stood with tears in his eyes.
The monk came and sat beside him.
“I cannot teach you devotion,” he said softly. “Only love can.”
The boy bowed—not because he was instructed, but because gratitude had made his body light.
Then they both went to the rock and the boy placed the fallen flower upon the stone, not as an offering, but as a thank-you. And the stone received it in silence. The next day a new bloom appeared on the top of the rock.
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