Flower Shower
Suharti was Buddha's disciple. He grasped the potency of Śūnyatā, or emptiness, the viewpoint that no thing exists except in its relationship to other objects - there is no self encoded there.
One day, Suharti, in a mood of sublime emptiness, was sitting under a tree. Flowers began to fall about him.
"We are praising you for your discourse on emptiness," the gods whispered to him.
"But I have not spoken of emptiness," said Suharti.
"You have not spoken of emptiness and we have not heard emptiness," responded the gods. "This is the true emptiness." And flowers rained upon Suharti.
dcj commentary: Emptiness is the English translation, but it is not intended to be nothingness or oblivion; a better translation (though wordier) is the not-self nature of form, sensation, perception, mental activity, and consciousness; self being the unchanging eternal self.