LITMIR.BIZ

      A boy of twelve in Japan lost his father, to whom he was much attached. The shock and desolation turned his mind to Buddhism, and he asked his uncle, now looking after the family and himself a devout Buddhist, whether he could enter a temple. The uncle believed that the change in the heart was permanent, and took him to a training temple where the famous teacher accepted him.

      The boy was very keen, and when the uncle made one of his monthly visits to see how he was getting on, the teacher remarked, ‘He is trying with everything he has: he is making good progress.’

      In this temple there happened to be at the time a monk of about nineteen, whose family owned a rich temple, for which he was destined to become the priest for life. As can happen, his initial interest in Buddhism had become secondary to his anticipation of the easy life he would have once he got through the four or five years of the training. Naturally he did not like the assiduous studying and service of the little boy, because it reminded him obscurely of what he himself might have done. One day in the winter he shouted to him to bring some water for the kettle. In a traditional temple this hung on a big chain above the charcoal fire, which is stoked by means of a pair of iron rods, rather like long chop-sticks.

      As the boy was putting the water down he was shouted at again, and gave a start which spilled a little of the water. ‘Clumsy idiot!’ yelled the senior boy, and picking up the iron rods, hit him hard on the arm just above the wrist. Perhaps he hit harder than intended, or perhaps not, but in any case it was quite a severe blow. The small boy kept back his tears till he was dismissed, but then rushed out of the temple into a bamboo grove to cry.

      It so happened that the uncle was making his visit that day, and he saw his nephew running into the trees. He went quickly after him and asked, ‘What’s happened – why are you crying?’

      ‘It’s nothing.’

      ‘No, it’s something. And what’s that on your arm?’ An ugly mark was beginning to come up.

      ‘Oh, I knocked it.’

      ‘That’s not the mark of a knock. Someone’s hit you.’

      He dragged the boy with him into the temple and pushed in to see the teacher. ‘Look at this! He’s been hit, and you said yourself that he was keen and trying his very best. This is supposed to be a centre of spiritual training, and look what happens!’

      The teacher got up and fetched a book of sermons of the Buddha, found a particular place, and handed it to the boy saying, ‘Read from here.’ The uncle sat fuming while his nephew read in a choked voice. When the sentence came: ‘One who practises endurance will be a spiritual hero’, the teacher said, ‘Read that sentence again slowly, and we’ll meditate on it together.’

      The uncle shouted, ‘It’s easy to meditate when you haven’t been hit!’

      ‘Yes,’ said the teacher, ‘it’s easier to meditate when you haven’t been hit.’

      He picked up the iron rods from the charcoal fire in his own room, and hit with all his force on his own arm. ‘Now,’ he said gently, ‘let’s meditate together: One who practises endurance will be a spiritual hero.’

      THE PREACHER

      A famous preacher of Vedanta had a pupil of sixteen years who, under his instruction, acquired a very fine knowledge of the philosophy. He did not teach him rhetoric, as he did not consider that the boy would make a good speaker.

      One day however the master suddenly became ill just before he had to address a gathering. On an impulse, he sent the boy to speak in his place, telling him to explain the circumstances, and then try to give a plain exposition of the fundamentals, as he had been taught.

      To his surprise, it was reported to him that the speech by his pupil had been a great success. A little later, kindly friends hinted that it had even been said that the pupil was a better speaker than his master. (‘Absurd, of course, but we felt you ought to know.’)

      The preacher pondered for a little while, and then set the pupil to re-make the garden of the house and build a shed in it, telling him that he should know about ordinary life as the layman lived it, and not only about abstractions. On another occasion when the master was again ill, he simply sent an excuse by the hand of the boy, who passed it on and returned at once.

      After three months of this, the preacher noticed that his pupil, who had seemed rather downcast, had recovered his serenity and cheerfulness.

      ‘It has been a test for him,’ he confided to a close friend, a man of spiritual discernment. ‘He must have been very disappointed, but he has overcome that now. He has done well in this test.’

      ‘And how do you think you have done?’ asked the friend.

      THE WINE POT

      The final word of Mahayana Buddhism, as expressed in the Garland Sutra of China, is that Samsara, this world of suffering, is Nirvana, and the passions are enlightenment, bodhi. It is only illusion that causes us to see differences between them. ‘Samsara is Nirvana, the passions are enlightenment.’ This formula has sometimes been taken as a sort of slogan, in isolation from the spirituality of the rest of the Sutra, like the remark of St Paul, ‘To the pure, all things are pure.’

      A man who set himself up as a Buddhist teacher began preaching the slogan that passions are enlightenment, claiming to exemplify it by himself drinking heavily and frequenting brothels.

      This was reported to a real saint who remarked briefly, ‘No one who is a slave to passions can claim to see them as enlightenment.’

      The teacher came storming round to the home of the saint and shouted, ‘You people claim to teach the doctrine that Samsara is Nirvana and the passions are enlightenment, but you are afraid to live it. You cower behind the little wall of your petty prohibitions and commandments. “Do this, don’t do that!” all the time. By giving all these silly rules, you are denying what you teach. Now I actually live it; perhaps you can see my life as passions, but I see it as enlightenment, following the flow of change which is the Buddha-nature. That’s the difference between us. I am a real teacher because I live it; you are not, because you don’t.’

      The saint said, ‘This kind of teaching will be of no use to the people.’

      ‘Why not, why not?’ cried the teacher.

      ‘We won’t argue about it,’ the saint told him, ‘but there is something else. We don’t drink here, but we do keep some wine for guests who may come. Now some time back I was given a little of a very rare

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