Once to tempt Buddha, the Evil Spirit, in the guise of a vulture, pursued a dove; the dove hid in the Buddha’s bosom, and he wished to protect it, but the Spirit said, ‘By what right do you take away my prey? One of us must die, either it by my talons or I of hunger. Why are you sorry for him and not for me? If you are merciful and wish none to perish cut me a piece of flesh from your own body of the same size as the dove.’ Then he showed him two scales of a balance. The dove settled on one. Buddha cut a piece of flesh from his own body and laid it on the other scale. But it remained motionless. He threw in another piece, and another one, and hacked his whole body, so that the blood poured out and the bones showed, but the scale still did not sink. Then with a final effort he went to it and threw himself into it, and it sank, and the scale with the dove rose. We can only save others by giving, not a part of ourselves, but the whole.