– Mas­ter, may I ask some­thing? – said the young­est dis­ciple respect­fully, and when the mas­ter nod­ded, he went on. – What I would like to know is this: if you could choose, what would you take with you into the next life? I know that sal­va­tion awaits you, but still: what are your treas­ures?

A tense silence fell and every­one froze. They found the ques­tion exceed­ingly pro­voc­at­ive, and no one would have dared to level such a thing at the mas­ter. He too was vis­ibly sur­prised, but since he was fond of this young dis­ciple of his, and sensed the sin­cere and inno­cent curi­os­ity in his ques­tion, he took no offence.

– Hm… my treas­ures! – he said in meas­ured tones, then went on more briskly. – Let me put this ques­tion to you instead! If you could choose three treas­ures to take with you, which would you choose?

Those gathered turned inward, then one by one rose to speak.

– I would take my view of the world with me, because I love to see the uni­verse as I see it, then my loved ones, and finally myself, so that who I am and what I have become may not be lost.

– I would take my faith in God – since it has come into my life, let it stay! Then I would take a read­i­ness to serve, because God keeps press­ing it on me, so it must surely mat­ter to him. Thirdly, I would take wry humour, because I can still laugh best at myself!

– I think what mat­ters is sin­cer­ity, com­pas­sion and pur­ity, pur­ity of thought, of body and of deed, and these are what I would take with me.

– The treas­ures I have yet to attain, and would gladly take with me, are self-giv­ing, which helps me keep to the right course; the pur­ity of my exist­ence, which right prac­tice leads to; and finally pur­ity of char­ac­ter, the vir­tues I still ought to acquire.

– I would take lofty ideals with me – without ideals, life is not worth liv­ing. Though I do not pos­sess it yet, I would take humil­ity too, and finally the will­ing­ness not even to see the faults of oth­ers, and to notice only their good qual­it­ies.

– What I have in mind is the cer­tainty of hope that one day we shall all reach the goal, then all the use­ful know­ledge I have man­aged to acquire, and finally the peace that springs from real­ising etern­al exist­ence.

– What I would take with me is love of my home­land, that feel­ing when I do not weigh things up, then my son's smile, because it gives me such a won­der­ful feel­ing. And the third is the image of God that lives in me. For me it is at once deeply per­son­al and uni­ver­sal…

– I would gladly take open-minded­ness with me, or rather open­ness, yes, open­ness, then the love of nature, because for me nature is God in things. And the third is my curi­os­ity, which drives me towards the Truth yet to be attained.

– My three treas­ures are my bod­ily gifts, my exper­i­ences and the Sun­light – these are what I would take with me!

– It would be hard to sum up on the spot, and yet I count pre­serving, prais­ing and cel­eb­rat­ing as treas­ures. These are three splen­did treas­ures, but if I may, I would take three more things with me: love – for God, for my mas­ter and for the com­munity – wis­dom, which for me is the sub­stance of the bond of love between God and man, and finally life, for it is the breath of God.

– I have sim­pler treas­ures in mind. I would always like to be able to tell the true from the false, I would like to become a good per­son and remain one, and I would like to treat all beings equally.

– My three sac­red treas­ures are these: sin­cer­ity, devo­tion and love – these are what I would like to take with me!

– My long­ing is that I may love God and never deny him. In the next life, too, I would like to care for oth­ers, and I would be happy if I could share my suc­cesses with oth­ers as well.

– Earn­est­ness, fidel­ity and com­mit­ment to growth – those are my three! – said the young­est, the last to speak, from whom the ques­tion had first come. They received one anoth­er's answers with sat­is­fac­tion, for each had spoken for the oth­ers too, and so not three but thirty-three treas­ures had been laid on the table. They did not expect the teach­er to answer, for they knew that with him even a non-answer had some­thing sig­ni­fic­ant to say. So they turned to him in sur­prise when he began to speak, slowly and in meas­ured tones:

– Well, let me answer the ques­tion too! What I would gladly take with me is, first of all, my mas­ter… – and here he paused a little, the corner of his mouth trembled almost imper­cept­ibly, but he went on – secondly, my dis­ciples, and thirdly, the dis­cern­ment I have reached through him, through you.