The Kernel of Truth

As told by Thich Nhat Hahn, in Touching Peace.
There was a patient in the mental hospital in Bien Hoa who seemed to be normal. He ate and talked like other people. But he believed that he was a kernel of corn, and every time he saw a chicken, he ran for his life… When the nurse reported this to the doctor, the doctor told him, “Sir, you are not a kernel of corn , you are a human being. You have hair, eyes, a nose, and arms.” He gave a kind of sermon like that, and ?nally he asked, “Now, sir, can you tell me what you are?” The man replied, “Doctor, I am a human being. I am not a kernel of corn.” The doctor was happy. He felt he had helped this patient a lot. But to be certain, he asked the man to repeat the sentence, I am a human being, I am not a kernel of corn,” four hundred times a day and to write it on a piece of paper three hundred more times each day. The man became devoted to doing it, and he stopped going out at all.
He just stayed in his room repeating and writing exactly what the doctor had prescribed.
A month later, the doctor came to see him, and the nurse reported, “He is doing very well. He stays inside and practices the exercises you gave him very diligently.”
The doctor asked, “Sir, how are things?’ “Very well, thank you, doctor.” “Can you tell me what you are?”
“Oh yes, doctor. I am a human being. I am not a kernel of corn”
The doctor was delighted. He said, “We will release you in a few days. Please come with me to my of?ce.” But while doctor, nurse, and patient were walking together to the of?ce, a chicken walked by, and the man ran away so quickly that the doctor couldn’t catch him. It was more than an hour later that the nurse brought him to the of?ce.
The doctor was agitated. “You said you are a human being and not a kernel of corn. So why did you run away when you saw a chicken?”
The man said, “Of course I know that I am a human being and not a kernel of corn. But how can I be sure the chicken knows?