Buddha was sitting under a tree meditating. A few people from the town had come with a prostitute for a picnic, and they all became drunk and they took away the clothes of the prostitute, and she became afraid. They were much too drunk. Naked, she escaped. By the morning when the cool breeze started blowing, they became a little alert and they saw that the woman had escaped. So they started searching for her in the forest, and they came across Buddha sitting under a tree. So they thought, ’We should ask this man, he must have seen her – because this is the only way she can go, there is no other way.’
So they asked Buddha, ’Have you seen a beautiful woman, naked, passing by?’
Buddha said, ’You came a little late; you should have come ten years before.’
They thought this man mad. What is he talking about – ’ten years before’? They asked, ’What do you mean?’
He said, ’For ten years, I have lost all distinctions. Yes, somebody has passed – but whether she was a woman or a man… you are asking the wrong question to the wrong man. Yes, somebody has passed. I have heard somebody’s footsteps, I have seen somebody passing. But to say whether she was a man or a woman is difficult, because I was not looking for a man or a woman.
