The Man Born Blind
There was a man born blind, and he said: "I do not believe in the
world of light and appearance. There are no colors, bright or
sombre. There is no sun, no moon, no stars. No one has witnessed
these things."
His friends remonstrated with him, but he clung to his opinion:
"What you say that you see," he objected, "are illusions. If
colors existed I should
be able to touch them. They have no
substance and are not real. Everything real has weight, but I
feel no weight where you see colors."
In those days there was a physician who was called to see the
blind man. He mixed four simples, and when he applied them to the
cataract of the blind man the gray film melted, and his eyes
acquired the faculty of sight.
The Tathagata is the physician, the cataract is the illusion of
the thought "I am," and the four simples are the four noble
truths.