I agree – “give a man a fish and he will be satisfied for a day; teach him to fish and he’ll be fed for the rest of his life.” But I am one of those beggars who “give fish.”
I am well aware that my alms won’t save the poor person, and when I open my wallet, I don’t care about the beggar himself, but about my conscience. With my modest ration, I silently say, “I see you and I support you. God forbid, I do not condemn you. You’re just unlucky. Anyone can be in your shoes if the circumstances are unfavorable.”
I often hear – “you behave irresponsibly, you waste money on homeless people who, instead of working, ask for money, then drink it or get drunk on drugs.” But is it possible to predict from the outside how a person will act with help? And do we have the right to decide whether a person is really struggling or pretending?
Eternal Kęstutis Marčiulynas-Bo Haeng Sunim, the first Lithuanian man to become a Zen Buddhist monk, once told about South Korean pretender monks who shamelessly sell bread. I was surprised: “why do they receive alms, because it is impossible to recognize pretenders”?
For the rest of my life, I have taken note of the words of K. Marčiulynas: “We don’t know what happened, for what reasons people pretend to be what they are not.” Koreans follow the attitude: if you can, help and don’t judge.”
It is foolish to think that people are what they seem at first glance. Sometimes those we labeled as losers surprise us when given a second chance.
But does everyone who stumbles deserve a second chance?
