VALUABLE LESSONS

Once upon a time, there lived a vaidya (Indian doctor in the olden days).
And so he was well-liked by all.
One day a friend asked him -
Such wisdom, such compassion, such kindness and concern . ..from whom have you learnt all this?
Who is your teacher?
The vaidya smiled gently.
The foolish, the intolerant, the unkind, the uncultured - these have been my teachers.
The friend was astonished.
The foolish? The unkind? How is that possible?
Whenever I saw bad qualities in others -
qualities which I did not like, I thought, "If I don't like such behaviour, others wont like it either." And I worked hard to weed out such qualities.
These are the valuable lessons I have learnt from the uncouth, the unkind, the foolish, the intolerant, the bad tempered, the untruthful, the selfish.