UN-COVER THE BURIED TREASURE WITHIN YOURSELF By Dr. Mimi D. Johnson
In 1957, a monastery was being relocated to make room for a highway through Bangkok. The group of monks needed to relocate a giant clay Buddha statue from their temple to its new location. When the crane lifted the massive idol, the weight of it was so tremendous that it began to crack. The head monk, who was concerned about damaging the sacred Buddha, decided to lower the statue back to the ground and cover it with a large canvas tarp to protect it from the coming rain. Later that evening the monk went to check on the Buddha statue. He shined his flashlight under the tarp to see if the Buddha was staying dry and noticed a gleam of light shining through the crack in the clay. As he took a closer look, he wondered if there might be something underneath the clay. He ran to wake the other monks. With a chisel and hammer in hand, the monks began to carefully chip away the thick clay from the Buddha. As they knocked off shards of clay, the little gleam grew brighter and bigger. After ho...