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I heard someone was drowning. I could have easily ignored his screams and walked away but instead I immediately jumped into the lake and saved the man at the risk of my own life."
The emperor said, "You did the right thing but if you had walked away without rescuing the man, wouldn't that man's death have followed you the rest of your life? Outwardly you could have ignored, but inside you his screams would have continued to echo, don't you think his ghost would have haunted you forever? It was out of this fear that you jumped in the lake and risked your life. But this should not give you the excuse to carry the misunderstanding that you did some altruistic act."
The third son narrated, "As I was once passing through a forest, I saw a man asleep on the cliff of a mountain. Just one turn on his side and he would have been finished, because there was a great abyss on the other side. I went close to him to see who he was and found that he was none other but my sworn enemy. Having recognized him, I could have quietly gone my way. Even if I had passed him slowly, mounted on my horse, perhaps my passing itself -- without my doing anything -- might have caused him to turn his side and fall into the valley. But instead, I went near him very quietly, crawled on the ground lest he might fall with my approaching sound. I knew very well he as a wicked man; that in spite of my saving his life he would go on cursing me. Nevertheless, I shook him gently and woke him up. And the very man is now blaming me all over the place. He says 'I had gone to commit suicide; this man followed me even there. He does not allow me to live peacefully, of course, but he didn't let me die either.'"
The emperor said, "You are better than the other two; but what you did was no altruism either. Why? Because you are filled with ego, as if you have accomplished something great. The glimmer in your eyes. Your whole demeanor is boastful and self-serving. And any act that creates the ego can no longer be an altruistic act. You have used very subtle means to feed that ego. You think you acted like a religious person, that you did something good. I can only say that you are simply better
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