The Teacher asked him, “Is this true, O monk, what they say, that you are luxurious?”
“It is true, Lord,” said he.
“How is it you have become luxurious?” began the Teacher.
But without waiting to hear more, he flew into a rage, tore off his robe and his lower garment, and calling out, “Then I’ll go about in this way!” stood there naked before the Teacher!
The bystanders exclaimed, “Shame! shame!” and he ran off, and returned to the lower state (of a layman).
When the monks were assembled in the Lecture Hall, they began talking of his misconduct. “To think that one should behave so in the very presence of the Master!” The Teacher then came up, and asked them what they were talking about, as they sat there together.
“Lord! we were talking of the misconduct of that monk, who, in your presence, and in the midst of the disciples, stood there as naked as a village child, without caring one bit; and when the bystanders cried shame upon him, returned to the lower state, and lost the faith!”
Then said the Teacher, “Not only, O monks, has this brother now lost the jewel of the faith by immodesty; in a former birth he lost a jewel of a wife from the same cause.” And he told a tale.
Long ago, in the first age of the world, the quadrupeds chose the Lion as their king, the fishes the Leviathan, and the birds the Golden Goose.[325]