Wake Up (12 page)

In the afternoon he would meet the folks from the neighboring villages or towns assembled in the lecture-hall, or in the shady grove of trees, take pity on them and advise and discourse to them according to their individual needs and thought-capacities. In this connection, for instance, when the woman Visakha sat on one side crying during one of these gatherings, because she could not bear the loss of her granddaughter who’d just died, the Blessed One asked her how many men were living in Sravasti.

“Lord, men say there are seven times ten millions.”

“If all these were like thy granddaughter, wouldst thou not love them?”

“Verily, Lord.”

“And how many die daily in Sravasti?”

“Many, Lord.”

“Then there is never a moment when thou wouldst not be grieving for someone!”

“True, Master.”

“Wouldst thou then spend thy life weeping day and night?”

“I understand, Lord; it is well said!”

“Grieve then no more.”

At the close of the day, after refreshing himself with a bath when necessary, the Buddha would explain difficulties to expound the doctrine to some of his disciples, showing them the psychological techniques suitable for making all kinds of people with all their differently hindered, wounded mentalities understand the single vehicle of the Law as made multifariously manifest. “Buddhas while manifesting skillfulness display various vehicles through, at the same time indicating the single Buddha-vehicle, the supreme place of blessed rest.

“Acquainted as they are with the conduct of all mortals, with their peculiar dispositions and previous actions, the Buddhas, using different means to rouse each according to his own character, impart their lights to them.

“Such is the might of their knowledge.”

Thus spending the first watch of the night in teaching and sometimes in discourse with other monks on the occasions when he would walk into their midst from the outer night demanding “What are you talking about now, O monks, what has risen to trouble you now, O monks?” he would spend the rest of the evening pacing up and down in front of his spot or his open verandah, meditating, shadowed by Ananda who paced ever behind him.

“If a man hold himself dear, let him watch himself carefully; during one at least out of the three watches a wise man should be watchful.”

Then he would sleep.

“
Sitting alone, lying down alone, walking alone without ceasing, and alone subduing himself, let a man be happy near the edge of a forest
,” is the saying in the
Dhammapada
, the Footsteps of the Law.

 

One day Ananda asked the Blessed One for advice about how to comport oneself in the presence of women.

“Avoid them altogether, Ananda.”

“But supposing they approach us, Blessed Lord?”

“Speak not to them, Ananda.”

“But supposing they ask us a question, Blessed Lord?”

“Then keep wide awake, Ananda.”

And the Holy One said: “When, however, you must speak to women, consider them, if they are aged, as mothers, and if they are young, treat them as sisters.”

It came to pass that a certain Lady Amra, a beautiful courtesan who had received great sums of money from wealthy merchants of Vaisali, conceived in her mind the idea of offering her stately mansion and mango grove to the Master and the Brotherhood. She was graceful, pleasant, gifted with the complexion of a young rose, well-versed in dancing, singing and lute-playing; now, despite her possession of these highest feminine prizes, she wished to offer her life to the religious law. She sent a message to the Blessed One offering the mansion and the gardens for the convenience of his followers, and he accepted graciously.

Seated in the mango grove one day, he received another message from the Lady Amra requesting an audience, to which he acceded.

“This woman,” he told the assembled followers as she was seen coming down the garden with her servants, “is indeed exceedingly beautiful, able to fascinate the minds of the religious; now then, keep your recollection straight! Let wisdom keep your mind in subjection!

“Better to fall into the fierce tiger’s mouth, or under the sharp knife of the executioner, than to dwell with a woman and excite in yourselves lustful thoughts, and thus become entangled in her net of plans, which is birth, the trap for death.

“A woman is anxious to exhibit her form and shape, whether walking, standing, sitting, or sleeping.

“Men being men are not free from their offices of lust, action bestowed by the Karma of previous cupidities and concupiscent thoughts; women being women are the innocent vessels of human rebirth incarnadined and personified, man’s own flesh-handful of lust; mutually attracted, mutually victimized by their Karmas, mutually made and then removed by their Karmas, with no ‘I’ to say Nay in the matter, men and women roll the wheel of death along for the sake of frottings, pride, and happiness.

“But what kind of happiness is this, straining in the emptiness to gratify the ungratifyable senses! There is no gratifying, no appeasing the wild heart! Your loins be rent and there is no gratifying it.

“The cup of life is a bottomless horror, like drinking and drinking in a dream to slake a thirst beyond reason and unreal.

“Look at the empty sky!—how may he grab greedy fistfuls of it, cupiditous man? How may he hack and kill the unkillable, that benumbed and haunted dreamer?

“All is empty everywhere forever, wake up! The mind is fool and limited, to take these senses, petty thwartings in a dream, as reality; as if the deeps of the ocean were moved by the wind that ripples the waves. And that wind is ignorance.

“A woman wants to give rebirth, it is in her Karma to be afraid of being barren and alone, yet the world has no more reality than if you were to say, ‘It is a barren woman’s child.’

“Even when represented as a picture, a woman desires most of all to set off the blandishments of her beauty, and thus to rob men of their steadfast heart.

“How then ought you to guard yourselves? By regarding her tears and her smiles as enemies, her stooping form, her hanging arms, and all her disentangled hair as toils designed to entrap man’s heart.

“Then how much more should you suspect her studied, amorous beauty; when she displays her dainty outline, her richly ornamented form, and chatters gayly with the foolish man!

“Ah, then, what perturbation and what evil thoughts, not seeing underneath the horrid, tainted shape, the sorrows of impermanence, the impurity, the unreality!

“Considering these as the reality, all lustful thoughts die out.

“Rightly considering these, within their several limits, not even a heavenly nymph would give you joy.

“But yet the power of lust is great with men, and is to be feared withal, take then the bow of earnest perseverance, and the sharp arrow points of wisdom, cover your head with the helmet of right-thought, and fight with fixed resolve against the five desires.

“Better far with red-hot iron pins bore out both your eyes, than encourage in yourselves lustful thoughts, or look upon a woman’s form with such desires.

“Lust beclouding a man’s heart, confused with woman’s beauty because of the maleness in his Karma, his mind is dazed; and at the end of his life, having demeaned himself with women for a few sexual feelings, evilly involved in the snare of mutual agreement which is her chief delight, that man must fall into an evil way.

“His life spent in house and home, a hole-and-corner life at best, he comes to senility jabbering multitudes of runes, religious in regret.

“Fear then the sorrow of that evil way! Fear then, and harbor not the deceits of the women!

“Let no holy man be cause of further rebirth; for as twelve equals a dozen so birth equals death.

“Refrain from looking at her form; straighten out your thoughts.

“Suppose that there is a maiden of the warrior or of the brahmin or of the householder class, in all the charm of her fifteen or sixteen summers; not too tall, not too short, not too slim, not too stout, not too dark, not too fair—is she not at this period at her very loveliest in form and feature? Whatsoever pleasure and satisfaction arises at the sight of this beauty and loveliness—that is of the delights of form.

“Suppose that, after a time, one sees this same innocent sister when she is eighty or ninety or a hundred years old, broken-down, crooked as a rooftree rafter, bowed, tottering along leaning on a stave, wasted, withered, all wrinkled and blotched, with broken teeth, grey hair, trembling head. What think you, monks? That former loveliness of form and feature—has it not disappeared and given place to wretchedness?

“Again, should one see this sister, sick, suffering, sore afflicted, lying fouled in her own filth, lifted up by others, tended by others—what think you, monks? Is not that which aforetime was beauty and loveliness wholly departed and in its place, wretchedness?

“Again, should one see this sister after the body has been lying at the burial place one, two, or three days, bloated, discolored, putrefying, picked at by crows and hawks, and vultures, gnawed by dogs and jackals, and all manner of crawling things. Or should one see the body, when it is a mere blood-bespattered skeleton, hung with rags of flesh, or when the bones are all scattered this way and that; or when, white as a sea shell, they are flung together in a heap, or when, after the lapse of a year, they are all weathered away to dust.

“What think you, monks?

“All that grace and beauty which was aforetime—is it not wholly fled, and in its place, wretchedness?

“But this is the wretchedness of form.”

The Lady Amra, clothed to fit the occasion so that her charm was not set off to excite, but simply covered, her thoughts at rest, suffered there to be made offerings of food and refreshment to the Blessed One and his retinue of tranquil men.

The Buddha addressed her. “Your heart, O lady! seems composed and quiet, your form without external ornaments; young in years and rich, you seem well-talented as you are beautiful.

“That one, so gifted, should by faith be able to receive the law of righteousness is, indeed, a rare thing in the world.

“The wisdom of a master derived from former births, enables him to accept the law with joy; this is not rare. But that a woman, weak of will, scant in wisdom, deeply immersed in love, should yet be able to delight in piety, this, indeed, is very rare.

“A man born in the world, by proper thought comes to delight in the solitude of goodness, he recognizes the impermanence of wealth and beauty, and looks upon religion as his best ornament.

“He feels that this alone can remedy the ills of life and change the fate of young and old; the evil destiny that cramps another’s life cannot affect him, living righteously.

“Relying on external help, he has sorrow; self-reliant, there is strength and joy.

“But in the case of woman, from another comes the labor, and the nurture of another’s child. Thus then should everyone consider well, and loathe and put away the form of woman.”

Lady Amra replied:- “Oh! may the lord, in deep compassion, receive from me, though ignorant, this offering, and so fulfill my earnest vow.” And she joined the Sisterhood of Bhikshunis.

From Vaisali the Blessed One went to Sravasti.

It was there in the Jetavana Meditation Hall that the Buddha delivered a discourse to twelve hundred Great Disciples which became known as the
Surangama Sutra
. It was a high teaching that solved many mental puzzles and succeeded in ridding the greatly intelligent monks of the troublesome doubts which they occasionally experienced in their meditations. Upon hearing this Great Sutra which the Blessed One interpreted with great care, many novice disciples became fully accomplished saints and entered immediately into the Ocean Of Omniscience, for it was the perfect teaching of the practices and attainments of the Tathagata’s Secret Path.

An unusual incident had occured that same day, involving Ananda, that served as an impetus to start the discussion. King Prasenajit earlier that day had invited Buddha and his chief Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas (Great Wise Beings) to a special feast at the royal palace. All the other monks young and old had been invited to another feast, so that Ananda, returning to the Jetavana Monastery from a journey to a distant district found no one around and consequently went alone into Sravasti for the begging of his daily meal. While begging from door to door in his neat yellow robe the pretty daughter of a prostitute took a liking to him and implored her mother to work some trick to induce the youthful and attractive monk to come into her room. Ananda being Ananda, warm and impressionable, he soon found himself in Pchiti’s room under the influence of the maiden’s beauty and the magic spell known as
bramanyika
as invoked by the mother.

Buddha, returning to the Meditation Hall and settling down with all his disciples for the continuation of the Summer Devotion and the
Uposath
a public confessions made by the various monks, knew all along where Ananda was and what was happening. Accordingly he sent his “other Ananda,” his other constant companion, the Great Bodhisattva of Intellectual Radiance, Manjusri, to the house of the prostitute to recite the Great Dharani (the Great Prayer) so that Ananda would not yield to temptation. As soon as Manjusri complied with his Lord’s wishes Ananda returned to self-control and saw that he was dreaming. Manjusri then encouraged both Ananda and Pchiti and they returned with him to the Buddha at the Meditation Hall.

When Ananda came into the presence of Buddha, he bowed down to the ground in great humility, blaming himself that he had not yet fully developed the potentialities of Enlightenment, and had therefore failed to lift the curtain of mortal limitations from his true and original, shining mind, because from the beginning of his previous lives he had too much devoted himself to study and learning of words and ideas. So his mind not being concentrated on its pure essence of perfect patience and undisturbed tranquillity, the universal deep ocean of bliss, he had not been able to resist the lure of the maiden Pchiti or control his own mind and his own body and had reached for external conditions thus abandoning the bright holiness of bhikshuhood for the vain inflammations of animality that belong to the ever returning cycle of deaths and rebirths. Ananda earnestly pleaded with the Buddha and prayed to all the other Tathagatas from the ten quarters of the universe, to support him in attaining perfect Enlightenment, that is, to support him by some most fundamental and expedient means in his practice of the Three Excellencies of Dhyana (Meditation), Samadhi (ecstasy in meditation), and Samapatti (transcendental powers arising from ecstasy in meditation).