Thanks, But No Thanks For This

The story goes that when Seisetsu was the master of Engaku he required larger quarters, since those in which he was teaching were overcrowded.Umezu, a wealthy merchant, decided to donate 500 pieces of gold called ryo toward the construction of a more commodious school. He brought it to the teacher and Seisetsu agreed to accept it. But Umezu was dissatisfied with this attitude. After all 500 ryo was 500 ryo and he felt he should at least be thanked for it. “Even if I am a wealthy merchant, that’s worth a lot of money there,” he reminded Seisetsu gently. “So do you want me to thank you for it?" asked Seisetsu. “You ought to,” replied Umezu. “But why should I?” inquired Seisetsu. “The giver should be thankful.” 

Should the master have thanked his benefactor? Take an extreme example of giving which lies at the opposite end of the spectrum : a bribe. Normally, the person who gives the bribe is thankful and, whether he says it or not in so many words, it’s taken for granted to be inherent in his attitude . The bribe taker, on the other hand, is usually never thankful for receiving it. At the most, if he’s feeling ashamed or bashful for accepting it he may mutter something like, “Oh where was the need for this,” or “You shouldn’t have.” There’s a reason for this; the person genuinely thinks he deserves the money for the services he’s offering in return. Illegal or immoral; it’s fair enough.

Or take a more acceptable and legal form of financial transaction like salaries which are generally given after the services have been rendered. Again, no employer ever thanks the employee for receiving payment at the end of the month. Because, again, he thinks he deserves it. If anything , the employee is thankful because by investing in that human resource , his business could proper with more profits coming in.

To assign the best motive to Umezu, we could say he parted with his gold because he probably believed in the spiritual service the school was doing for the community and wanted it to grow more commodious and expand . In which case he must have been already thankful for its existence. Of course he should not have asked the master to thank him but by the same logic given earlier, we would also have to assume that Seisetsu didn’t thank the merchant to begin with because he believed he deserved it for rendering those same services . How masterly is that?

MUKUL SHARMA