There are many tales about the Buddha; the following is one that Pir-o-Murshid Musharaff Khan often told to mureeds and inquirers.

It happened once that the Lord Buddha was sitting in deep tranquility, talking in his divine manner with the people on the subject of wisdom. Then a man came forward, and interrupted in such a loud voice that all the conversation stopped. In an outburst of anger, the man accused the Buddha of many things, of terrible behaviour and serious shortcomings. The Buddha listened to the criticism, but remained deeply peaceful. When the man, nearly out of breath, came to the end of his scolding, the Buddha said, very calmly, “May I ask you a question?”

“Yes,” the man replied.

“Then tell me this,” The Buddha said. “If there is a man who wishes to present something to someone, perhaps a beautiful string of pearls, and he goes to that other person and says, ‘I want to offer you these pearls,’ but the other person refuses to accept the present, then please tell me, to whom do the pearls belong? To the one who wanted to give them? Or to the one who refused to accept them?”

The man frowned and said, “Well, of course to the one who offered them, since the other one refused them.”

“Yes, right, it is even so,” said the Buddha. “And therefore, as I do not accept the words and scoldings and accusations you have offered to me, you must keep them, for they belong to you.”