There is an incident in the life of Buddha. One day a young man came to him, very upset.‘What happened?’ asked the Buddha.
The young man said:
‘Sir, yesterday my father died. I have come to you with a special request. Please do something for my dead father. When ordinary priests perform some rites or rituals, he gains access to heaven. Sir, if a great man like you performs any rites or rituals for my father, he will gain not only entry but a permanent residence in heaven. Please sir, do something for my father!’
He was so unbalanced, so emotional. The Buddha knew that any kind of rational argument would have no effect at this stage but he had his own way of explaining things. He asked the young man to go to the market and buy two earthen pots.
The young man happily went and bought them, thinking that this was to prepare for some ritual. The Buddha asked him to fill one with butter and the other with stones and pebbles. He did all this. The Buddha told him to close and seal them properly, and put them both in a nearby pond. He did so and both the pots sank to the bottom. The Buddha now told him to bring a stout stick, strike at them, and break them open. He did so, thinking that now the Buddha would perform a wonderful ritual for his father.
India is a vast and ancient land, full of diversities and extremes. There are people who have attained full enlightenment like the Buddha, and on the other hand, there are people in deep ignorance, immersed in blind faiths, beliefs, and dogmas. One belief is that when a parent dies, the son must take the corpse, put it on the funeral pyre and burn it; when it is half burned, he must take a strong stick, and break open the skull. The belief is that, as the skull is broken on earth, so the gateway of heaven is broken above, and the parent enters heaven.
The young man thought that, as his father was already dead and cremated yesterday, the Buddha was asking him to break open these earthen pots as a substitute. As he did so, the butter escaped from the first and floated to the surface; the pebbles escaped
from the second pot and settled at the bottom.
‘Now,’ said the Buddha, ‘this much I have done. Now call all your priests. Let them come here and pray: ‘Oh pebbles, rise to the surface! Oh butter, sink
to the bottom!’’
‘Are you joking, sir? How is this possible? It is against the law of nature, sir. The pebbles are heavier than water; they are bound to stay down, they can’t float. Butter is lighter than water, it is bound to float; it cannot go down.’
‘Young man, you know so much about the law of nature, and yet you do not want to understand the law that is applicable to one and all. If your father kept performing actions like pebbles and stones, he was bound to go down. Who can pull him up? If he kept performing actions which are light like butter, he is bound to go up. Who can push him down?’
Our difficulty is that we think that some invisible power will somehow favour us, even though we do nothing to change our own behaviour pattern, our own actions. When we understand this eternal law of nature—that the fruits depend on our actions—we will
be careful about our actions.
This discourse was given by the Buddha to Mahanama the Sakyan. This interesting story came to me in the Vipassana newsletter.
When the Blessed One had passed away, simultaneously with his Parinibbana,
All must depart — all beings that have life
Must shed their compound forms. Yea, even one,
A Master such as he, a peerless being,
Powerful in wisdom, the Enlightened One, has passed away.
Sakka (the king of the gods in the Tavatimsa heaven) spoke:
Transient are all compounded things,
Subject to arise and vanish;
Having come into existence they pass away;
Good is the peace when they forever cease.
The Venerable Anuruddha spoke:
No movement of the breath, but with steadfast heart,
Free from desires and tranquil — so the sage
Comes to his end. By mortal pangs unshaken,
His mind, like a flame extinguished, finds release.
The Venerable Ananda spoke this stanza:
Then there was terror, and the hair stood up, when he,
The All-accomplished One, the Buddha, passed away.
Some bhikkhus, not yet freed from passion wept:
"Too soon has the Blessed One come to his Parinibbana! Too soon has the Happy One come to his Parinibbana! Too soon has the Eye of the World vanished from sight!"
But the bhikkhus who were freed from passion, mindful and clearly comprehending, reflected in this way:
"Impermanent are all compounded things. How could this be otherwise?"
The Venerable Anuruddha then addressed the bhikkhus, saying:
"Enough, friends! Do not grieve, do not lament! For has not the Blessed One declared that with all that is dear and beloved there must be change, separation, and severance? Of that which is born, come into being, compounded and subject to decay, how can one say: 'May it not come to dissolution!'? The deities, friends, are aggrieved."
Please also see the plight of Ananda
