“There was a very interesting dinner party once where a Zen master was present and there was a geisha girl who served so beautifully and had such style that he suspected she must have some Zen training. And after a while, when she paused to fill his sake cup, he bowed to her and said,’ I’d like to give you a present.’
And she said, ‘I would be most honored.’ And he took the iron chopsticks that are used for the hibachi, the charcoal brazier, moving the charcoal around, he picked up a piece of red hot charcoal and gave it to her. Well, she instantly, she had very long sleeves on her kimono. She whirled the sleeves around her hands and took the hot charcoal, withdrew to the kitchen, dumped it, and changed her kimono because it was burnt through.
Then she came back into the room and after a suitable interval she stopped before the Zen master and bowed to him and said, ‘I would like to give you, sir, a present.’ And he said, ‘I would be very much honored.’ Of course, he was wearing a kimono, something like this. And so she picked up a piece of coal and said, I’d offered it to him. He immediately produced a cigarette and said, ‘Thank you, that’s just what I needed.’”
— Alan Watts, The World as Just So
