Chapter 18 Buddha's nostrils

There is a craftsman who sculpts Buddha statues, and his craftsmanship is well-known far and wide. When the Buddha statue he carved for a Buddhist temple was completed, people from several miles nearby came to watch the ceremony, and everyone was amazed at the majesty and greatness of the Buddha statue. There was only a child in dirty clothes who picked his nostrils and said, "This Buddha statue is not well carved!" Everyone looked back at the child, and the child switched to the other nostril and said, "This statue is really not well carved." Good!" Everyone asked him strangely, "Why is the carving not good?" The child said, "The fingers of this Buddha statue are too thick, and the nostrils are too thin. The Buddha cannot pick his nostrils."

Everyone scolded the children one after another: "What do children know? The Buddha is not a child. How can he pick his nose?" "Why does the Buddha's nose itch?" The wages in the temple were not taken either. This is a story I heard from an old man in the village when I was a child. There are two versions of this story. The other version is that the escaped craftsman worked hard to become a master of Buddha statues in southern Fujian. Because the Buddha has been away from us for too long, we tend to deify the Buddha, and forget that the Buddha was also created by humans. If the Buddha can't even dig out his own nostrils, how can we talk about saving sentient beings?

It's a pity that most of the Buddhas made by artisans can't dig out their nostrils by themselves.