CHAPTER XVIII
Thus have I heard.
Yet another thing, and heed it well for it was a day precious as clean gold.
As the Lord went with his disciples, they came to the river by the fields of Dhaniya the herdsman, a rich man who trusted in his goods, but kindly and simple, such as the Blessed One loved. And here he stayed his feet, smiling a little as at a thought of his own; and his disciples stood about him, and he said this:
“Here we see great riches of beasts and pasture; surely the man owning these good things is well content!”
And Dhaniya seeing the Holy One, drew near in his peasant’s pride and addressed him:
“I have boiled my rice, I have milked my cows,” so said the herdsman Dhaniya. “I dwell near the banks of the Mahi, my house is roofed, my fire kindled. Therefore, if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
For believing his riches a strong shield he feared nothing.
“I am free from anger, free from stubbornness,” said the Blessed One, “For one night I abide by the Mahi river. My house is unroofed, the fire of passion is extinguished. Therefore, if thou wilt, rain, O sky!” And he smiled.
“Gadflies are not found with me,” said the herdsman Dhaniya. “In meadows rich with grass my cows are roaming, and well can they endure rain when it falls. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
“I have made a raft, I have passed over to the shore of the Peace,” so said the Blessed One. “Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
“My wife is obedient!” boasted the herdsman Dhaniya. “Winning she is, and I hear no ill of her. Therefore, if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
“My mind is obedient, delivered from all worldly matters,” so said the Blessed One. “And in me there is no ill. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
“I support myself by my own riches!” so said the herdsman Dhaniya, “and my children are healthy about me. I hear nothing wicked of them. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
“I am no one’s servant,” so said the Perfect One, “with what I have gained I wander through the world. For me there is no need to serve. Therefore, if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
“I have cows, I have calves!” so said the herdsman Dhaniya. “I have also a bull as lord over the herds. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
“I have no cows, I have no calves!” so said the Happy One, “—And I have no bull as lord over the herds. Therefore, if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
“The stakes are driven in and cannot be shaken,” so said the herdsman Dhaniya. “The ropes are new and well made: the cows cannot break them. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
“Having, like a bull, rent the ropes: having like an elephant broken through the tangle,” so said the Blessed One, “I shall no more be born to death. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!”
And he smiled as one at rest, enthroned above pain or change.
Then all at once, from a full-wombed cloud, a shower poured down, filling both land and water. And the eyes of Dhaniya were enlightened, and seeing the true riches of the empty hand and freed soul, the herdsman spoke thus, bowing at the feet of the Perfect One.
“No small gain has indeed accrued to us since we have seen the Blessed One. We take refuge in thee, O Wisest. Be thou our Master.”
“He who has cows has care with his cows,” so said the Blessed One, concluding the matter. “But he who is free of these things has not care.” So Dhaniya entered the Way of Peace, and taking the vow of the householder was at rest.
And now in this of Dhaniya is a thing much to be pondered. For it is observable that the Holy One said these words to him:
“I have passed over to Nirvana—to the Peace.” How could this be and he yet living in the world of form? What then is the Nirvana? For, since the departing of Him who has thus Attained, the ignorant have taught the heresy which Sariputta the Great rebuked in the monk Yamaka,—even that the true Nirvana is extinction, is dispersal of all that once was the man, the ego known to himself and others, he being annihilated in death as a flame blown out in vast darkness. Yet no, and again, not so, though not in words may the Truth be fully told. Yet—if a man may attempt to throw a stone at a star, this that follows may be told of the Nirvana.
They who talk of existence and non-existence are ignorant, for these are words only. There is no existence or non-existence, but in their stead reality and unreality, and in this world of form is unreality and in That World, reality. So that the unreal ego which we here believe to be the man is nothing and whether here or there has no reality but is a compound of causes which dissolve at death, while the reality of the man abides whether here or There. True it is that after death no longer can it be perceived, no longer can it be guessed by the bodily senses—the liars, the deceived, the slaves; yet in a profundity beyond all depths of all oceans it abides. The rest is silence.
Thus, the Blessed One and they who with him attained, were in life delivered from the illusion of the world of forms and seeing all as it is were glad. For the true Nirvana is an extinction—not of the eternal—but of craving, the lust of the flesh, the lust of life, and the pride of life. And when the inward fires of lust, and hatred and pride are extinguished, then that man has entered into the Nirvana whether here or there. And surely this was the Lesson of Lessons, and many a parable, many a teaching did the World-Honoured utter in all solemnity that we might know it is the self—the individual self lurking in a man like an ape in the boughs, clutching, greedy, foul, foolish, that is the cause of all evil and sorrow and of his separation from the universe of life and light that lies about him. And he must learn that this foul and foolish chatterer is dream and illusion of the senses and consciousness, for when this teaching is mastered we lift the true eyes of wisdom and look about us seeing at last that the world is wholly fair. Know this, for it is the very kernel of the nut. This is the Way of Peace, this is the Gate of the Ten Perfections whereby we also are perfect being One; this is the Nirvana, absolute in joy and bliss immortal.
Be not misled. If this false belief of annihilation be accepted the belief in the Karma and its awful justice falls to the ground, and the Blessed One is made to utter words unreal and deceptive. It is not well to traduce the teaching of the Blessed One, for what he taught he knew, and where he was silent it was from knowledge too great to be uttered save to his high initiates, and they too, knowing, were content. For a man can but receive as he is able, and the Truth needs two servants—the one to speak and the other to hear.
True is it that the Lord before he passed away from the world of the senses said to the beloved Ananda, this:
“I have preached the truth, Ananda, and in respect of the Truth He who has thus Attained had no such thing as the closed fist of the Teacher who holds back his knowledge.”
Yes, but a man can but take what he can, and where the great saints of the Lord knew and were content, the lesser men guessed and stumbled blindly by excess of light and this was unavoidable for they were not prepared, and in future lives they have learned, will learn, and they too be content in wisdom.
Therefore when men ask the disciple of the Nirvana, and say:
“Is it annihilation? Is it the end of all, for so many teach?” reply thus:
“It is the annihilation of ignorance and passion and all their brood. It is the annihilation of conditioned being and of all the illusion that fettered us. It is the rending of the painted veil of life that hides from us the light. It is the end of all turning of the wheel of the long pilgrimage through self-shaped dream-worlds of deception. It is the end of grief and self-deceit. It is awakening from the dream of life, from the crippling of the ego-self, into freedom. It is beyond all that we call life, and death is unknown to it. It is All and One and above right and wrong and in it are all things reconciled.
“And it is us and in us and we in it for ever.”
Open the eyes of understanding and see and know, as he the Awakened, has taught.
And now must the story turn to the Princess Yashodara, released from grief and grown strong in wisdom.
Musing night and day on these thoughts and this blessedness the Princess excelled in knowledge and in her true eyes the light shone brighter and more bright in the deep contemplation of her heart, and when in the passing of the years the wealth of the Maharaja fell into her hands she valued it nothing, placing it where most good and least harm could flow from it. And with attendant princesses she walked nearly five hundred miles, refusing all offers of assistance, that she might be near the World-Honoured, breathing the same air, sometimes attendant upon his teaching, sometimes sending dutifully to enquire after the health of the monk Rahula, her son.
So, having grown old, but still eminent in the nobility of her beauty and its calm, as she sat alone one day she remembered many of her friends who through the Peace here to be attained had departed to that Other. And she thought this:
“I was born on the same day as my lord, the Awakened One, and in the regular order of things I should on the same day enter the Great Peace. But this is an honour too great for me and far beyond my deserts, nor can it be. I am now seventy eight years in this world of illusion, and in two years from now, he, the Blessed One, will enter that which cannot be named. I will therefore request permission to precede him, as the lower should precede the great.”
So, accompanied by her attendants, the Princess went to the Vihara, the monastery, where the Lord sat at the time with a company of disciples, and presenting herself before him humbly asked forgiveness for any faults she might have committed. And he replied:
“You are the most virtuous of women. But from the time you received the Light, you have done no marvels, so that many have not known the power that is in you, doubting whether you were indeed an Arhat. There is a company assembled about us, who know not the Powers. Show them.”
But the Princess, doubting in her humility that this should be, doubting whether a woman should display the beauty of her person to onlookers, was not assured that this was well. Yet, with the insight to which time is nothing, she spoke, rehearsing the mystery and marvel of all her former lives, for now having vanquished rebirth she was as the traveller who nearing the mountain top and the eternal purities sees the way by which he has come, rejoicing in perils escaped and rest unending. And all sat entranced, listening to the music of her voice and the marvels she—to whom time was no more than a child’s toy cast aside—unfolded before them. And suddenly, as she ended, the air upbore her light feet and a marvel was done before them, for in the air she prostrated herself before Him who has thus Attained, attributing to him the knowledge that had guided her into bliss. And those who saw hid their faces.
And when all was concluded she retired to her own dwelling and there, that same night, rising from contemplation to contemplation, she beheld the Peace, being delivered for ever from all illusion, and so passed into That which is to come.
And of her son—the monk Rahula—this also must be told:
At one time the Lord, with robe and bowl, went to Savatthi in search of alms, and his son Rahula followed step for step, and the Blessed One, turning, said this:
“Whatever form one bears, monk, is to be viewed with perfect wisdom and the understanding—‘This is not mine; it is not I. This is not my true self.’ ”
And Rahula answered:
“And only form, O Lord, and only form, O Happy One?”
“Form, Rahula, and sensation and perception and the tendencies and consciousness. These also are not the true self.”
And Rahula, being thus addressed with an Instruction, would not go to roam and beg among the people, but set aside his bowl, and sat beneath a tree to meditate upon the Instruction. And in the evening, having ended his calm contemplation, he sought the Blessed One and saluting him reverently seated himself respectfully beside him and besought him to instruct him on the discipline of meditation and training, and the Blessed One instructed him in all the processes, even to the ruling of the breath in inspiration and expiration so that the false senses may be lulled and the true eye of wisdom opened, and pleased and gladdened was the venerable Rahula with that high instruction.
And thus Rahula in time became first a great warrior for the Truth and then a great Arhat: a perfected saint. And in what way did he become a warrior? Even as a monk asked of the Awakened One:
“Warriors, warriors, we call ourselves, O Happy One, and in what way are we warriors?”, and had this reply:
“We make war, monk. Therefore are we warriors?”
“And for what do we make war, O Leader?”
“For perfect virtue, for high endeavour, for sublime wisdom. To see in a world of blindness, to be free in a world of slaves,—therefore, do we make war.”
And when is the victory gained?—When the dark night of I-ness is enlightened,—when the man is no longer a swimmer struggling for life in agony against the waves, but the grey gull borne on the winds in bliss or floating at peace on the billows of eternity.
This is the victory of the monk Rahula and of the wise.