Spiritual Masters: The Buddha - An Excerpt

A prank that I loved to play was to send visiting monks and lay people on a wild goose chase when they came to visit father. If they arrived when he was away practicing walking meditation, I gave them complicated directions to where he was. They would wander helplessly all over the monastery and I would follow them stealthily, delighting in their confusion. Then I’d narrate these escapades to the younger bhikkhus, laughing till I got a bellyache.

Father was staying at the Bamboo Forest then and one day he come to visit us. I was very excited and I ran to fetch a low stool for him to sit on. I adored him and treasured every opportunity I got to sit by him. But that day, I would have run away, had I only known what was in store!

He asked me to get some water in a basin so he could wash his feet. After he was done, he asked,

‘Can anyone drink this water now, Rahula?’

‘No Father," I replied, "it is dirty and no one can drink it.’

‘By speaking untruth, Rahula, your mind is as defiled as this water is,’ he said.

Then, pouring the water out, he asked again, ‘Can this basin now be used to fill water for drinking?’

‘No Father, it cannot. It, too, has become dirty.’

‘So it is with you, Rahula. You have taken the vows of a novice monk and you wear the robes of the Sangha, yet you have become unclean as this basin.’

My heart was filled with regret but he would not stop.

‘Now, if I were to break this basin, would it matter Rahula?’

‘No Father, it is merely an earthen basin and it really doesn’t matter to anyone if it breaks.’

‘You are as worthless as this basin Rahula, when you play your pranks on visiting monks and lay people. No one will care about you, just as no one would really care if this basin is shattered right now.’

I was overcome with remorse and hot tears scalded my cheeks, but he was not done yet!

‘Tell me, do you know why we use a mirror?’ he asked.

‘To see reflection, Father,’ I replied, my head hanging low, my voice barely audible.

‘Look upon your thoughts, words and actions, just as a person would look into a mirror, Rahula.’

That was the first scolding I received from Father. I had never heard him speak a sharp word before and I sobbed in Sariputta's arms long he was gone.

‘It is not for you to feel guilty that he spoke thus,’ my gentle Master told me. ‘Just as a young sapling needs support and pruning for it to grow up straight and tall, so it is with young boys, Rahula!’