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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3 | Previous Next | |
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body. It is such a beautiful servant, it is such a good house to live in -- he takes care but he remains aloof.
Even when the body is dying a buddha goes on watching that the body is dying. His watchfulness remains to the very last. The body dies and the buddha goes on watching that the body has died. If one can watch to such an extent, one goes beyond death.
DO NOT ASK FOR FAMILY OR POWER OR WEALTH,
EITHER FOR YOURSELF OR FOR ANOTHER.
CAN A WISE MAN WISH TO RISE UNJUSTLY?
The things of the world do not matter -- the wealth, the power, the prestige, they don't matter. The buddha cannot ask for them for himself or for another. That distinction has to be remembered. Ordinarily it is thought that a buddha will not ask for himself, but he can ask for others. No, he will not ask for others either. That's where Christianity and Buddhism have diametrically opposite visions.
There is a story:
A woman came to Buddha crying, weeping, carrying the dead body of her only son. People had told her that if she goes to the Buddha, he is such a compassionate man, he may do some miracle. Buddha asked the woman, "You do one thing: you go into town -- bring some mustard seeds. One condition has to be fulfilled: they should be brought from a house where nobody has ever died."
The woman was very happy; this was not a problem because their whole village was growing mustard seeds. So every house was full of mustard seeds. She rushed from one house to another, but in her excitement that her son is going to be revived again she forgot completely that the condition is impossible, it cannot be fulfilled.
By the evening she had knocked on all the doors, and everybody said, "We can give you as many mustard seeds as you want, but they will not help because we cannot fulfill the condition: somebody has died in our family -- not only one but many persons really. My father died, my father's father died... and thousands of others before." Somebody's wife has died, somebody's mother, somebody's brother, sister, somebody's son.... She could not find a single family where nobody had ever died.
By the evening when she came she was a
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