A priest returned to his home after a long journey and found it inhabited by demons. They climbed his walls, hung from his ceiling, emptied his cupboard with their endless hunger. They shit everywhere, and sickened the priest with their gruesome habits. The priest tried beating them with a broom, but they would not budge. He chased them around his garden with a rake. He poked them with burning embers, which only seemed to please them more.

Finally he filled his home with lotus and jasmine, until all but one packed up and left.

The one who stayed was the ugliest of them all, picking his teeth with a femur bone, wiping his snot on the walls.

“I am a priest of Lord Buddha,” the man proclaimed, but the demon heard him not. Finally the demon whispered in his ear, “I feed on your humiliation, priest.”

And the priest, finally understanding, knelt before the demon and begged him to stay. At which point the demon transformed into Lord Buddha, splendid in his saffron raiment.

“You see how easy it is,” he told the priest, “when you stop caring about yourself so much?”