Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse number 118, which goes as follows, Which means,
It's the opposite of last night.
So it goes, if a person should do a good deed, they should perform it again and again.
They should cultivate contentment.
intention in regards to that deed.
The accumulation of goodness is happiness.
So here we have a story which is actually quite interesting.
It has two aspects to it.
It's the story of Mahakasapa, one of the Buddha's great disciples, who was also quite known for his austerity.
And the disciples of the Buddha were not all the same, not in the way that Buddhas are all the same.
The tradition says that Buddhas have many things about them that are the same.
They've entered into a state of such purity and absolute enlightenment that it's somehow on a higher level and they become pure in a sense.
So they all do away with any what is called vasana, which are idiosyncrasies, things that they've come into this life with, either from genetics or from past lives or so on.
But Arahants aren't like that.
Arahants have different qualities.
Some of them are well-spoken, some of them are of coarse speech.
Some are inclined to teach, some are not inclined to teach.
Some are outgoing, some are not, and so on.
Some are inclined towards spiritual powers, some are not.
Many different kinds.
Mahakasabha was
he distinct in terms of his austerity so he lived up on the mountain above Rajgaha and they were always trying to get him to come and live in the city and he refused even though it was very difficult to climb up every day he patiently made the climb
out of compassion and in the sense that out of an interest that he set an example for his fellow monks and also just as a part of his nature.
It seems that he was set on living a strict life that would be a good example and that was just a part of his character.
At the same time, he was also very keen to support people and to encourage them in a spiritual life.
And so one of the ways that monks support people is encouraging them to give.
I mean, even going for alms through the village is for food.
Really, the point of it is to survive.
But the point of making it like that is to continue a beautiful tradition and to encourage people in things like giving, which is a wholesome spiritual practice.
He considered this woman who was very poor, but she had been hired to
She was a keeper of a rice field, and she was frying some of the rice, it seems, or doing something to the rice.
It's not quite clear.
Cooking it in some way, I think.
There was some way of frying, maybe.
that she had gathered.
So she gathered up some of this rice and was cooking it.
And so the elder sort of considered to himself whether she would be someone who would benefit, would really have, you know, kind of a keenness to do good things.
And he thought she's probably a good
This is the sort of thing that they would do is they would consider who would be a good a Person who would take it the right way you know if you go to their house for alms And and who would really benefit from it really feel good about it because you don't want to go where people feel obligated or feel Maybe turned off by it for example Though that can be interesting as well So he went to this woman's house
and she was she was excited actually and she said wait just wait a moment and she so she fried up some of this rice and she put it in his bowl and said and made a wish she poured the rice into his bowl bowed down to him and made a wish reverend sir may i partake of the truth that you have seen so this is common thing as well when people do good deeds
There's an understanding that there's a power behind them.
We do this in meditation as well.
After a meditation round, we might make a determination, make a wish.
Through the power of the goodness of this practice, may I be free from suffering, or whatever.
And so, in giving this gift, she made a wish.
Through the power of my goodness, may I realize the truth that you have seen.
And the elder said, may it be thus.
This was a common blessing to give.
So now for those people who are accustomed to monks giving long blessings, in the Buddha's time it was often, the lay person would wish for something and the monk would say, may it be so.
And that was it.
And so this woman spent the rest of her days, or right after that, went back in reflection.
And so she entered into this sort of reflection and this ecstasy kind of, like really feeling very happy about what she had done.
And it so happens that there was a snake living right by the rice field, a poisonous snake, and it had been disturbed or it had come out maybe to sun itself.
And so the elder went by, but he had, because of the thick robes that he was wearing, the snake didn't bite him because it couldn't get through the, or it wouldn't get through the robes or whatever.
It didn't bother biting him.
But when the woman went by, she had shorter skirt or whatever and it bit her and she died.
But because her mind was so full of peace, so at peace and so full of this joy of the goodness that she had done and so intent on goodness, when she died she was born in heaven.
And it says she was born as a great angel of great stature.
And she woke up kind of as an angel.
It was as though she'd fallen asleep and woke up.
And she tried to think, what is it?
Why am I here?
I was a poor woman tending a rice field.
And she realized, it's simply because I gave some fried rice to this elder.
And she said to herself at that moment, she realized, as I guess some angels do, how important it was for her to do.
Actually, honestly, it seems quite rare.
It seems that most angels, when they reach heaven, they forget all about doing good deeds.
They're like, ooh, look at all the goodies.
Look at how wonderful this is, how pleasant this is.
So it's actually probably a testament to her goodness and as to why the Mahakasapa chose her.
or was really intent and really singled her out as someone who he would be right to go to alms for.
And she decided, she said, I'm going, this really was just based on that one good deed.
Imagine if I were to constantly do good deeds, if I were to dedicate myself to doing good deeds.
And so she couldn't really very well give him alms or give a gift because giving angel food is not really a...
I don't know.
Anyway, she changed her method.
And instead of giving him gifts, what she decided is that she would go to Mahakasapaskuti and sweep it out and maybe make it beautiful, beautify the place, maybe do some landscaping or something.
Set out cold water for drinking and just made it nice, cleaned it and so on.
And the elder came back from alms and saw what she had done and he said, Oh, someone must have done this.
And he said, oh, it must have been a novice or something that did this.
And I didn't think anything of it.
But then the second day, she did the same thing.
And he came and he thought, oh, well, someone, you know, must be some novice.
It was some one of our order doing it for me.
But on the third day, he came back early and she was still sweeping.
And so he called out, who is that sweeping?
And she said, it is I, Reverend Sir, your female disciple, the goddess Lajja.
And Lajja means fried rice, I think.
I'm actually not sure.
I think so.
And he said, I don't have any female disciple by that name.
And he said, oh, Reverend Sir, I was the young woman who tended this rice field, and I gave you parched rice.
And on the way back, a snake bit me, and so I died.
And then I was born as an angel.
And when I realized that, I said to myself, I'm going to make sure that I progress in spiritual life.
And so I determined from then on I was going to do this for you, sweep for you and do all these duties for you.
And that's why I came here.
And then he said, so it was you that swept this place out yesterday and put water to drink out?
And she said, yes, Venerable Sir.
And what did Maha Kasapa do?
The English says, pray depart hence, goddess.
Never mind about the duties you have rendered, but henceforth come no more hither.
That's the old English translation.
Get out of here, basically.
And she was shocked, and reasonably so.
She said, but I have this good intention.
Please don't destroy my good intention.
Don't ruin me.
allow me to do this.
All I want to do is do these minor duties for you.
And he said, if I let you do this, what are people going to say about me, that a goddess takes care of me, that a goddess does all these things for me, and Maha Kasapa has a goddess looking after him.
She said, no way, get out of here.
And again, she said, please, please, please.
And finally, he couldn't get rid of her, and so he snapped his fingers.
What's in India at the time of the Buddha, I don't know about now, but if you snap your fingers at someone, it's a real insult.
I mean, it's a bit rude anyway.
I think even here, if someone snapped their finger, you boy kind of thing.
not a very uh it was it was a fairly rude gesture actually but he was thinking to himself she's not listening to me i can't get through to her and with that he got through to her and she flew up into the air and weeping and crying and quite distraught actually and i know how this is i've been there actually um
But let me tell the rest of the story, and then I'm going to comment on that because it's a bit interesting.
So the Buddha came.
This was kind of a conflict, really, because here you have this goddess who was just trying to do, she was really actually quite selfless in this.
And it's the kind of thing,
A part of the problem is it is kind of the thing that anyone would want to have done to them.
It's the kind of thing that is really allowing someone to be your servant in that way.
The only people that were allowed to do that are people like novices and younger monks who are doing it
out of a sense of duty.
And there are duties that are to be performed for that reason.
Kind of like a military organization, sort of.
But to allow a goddess to do it, big problem.
Just for the way it looks.
and the example it sets, which Kasipa was big on setting an example for the monks that they should live in austerity and so on.
So Buddha had this problem that he had to pacify this woman.
So he came and he said to her, you know, this is the way, he was right to do that.
He has to tell you to go away.
But then he did what he often did and it's kind of typical of the Buddha to still remark on how great the intentions of the goddess were by telling this verse.
He said,
Doing, this is how it should be.
If one does a good deed, one should do it again and again.
One should cultivate contentment or zeal, you could say.
Chanda is a desire.
It can even be translated as one should be set upon that good deed for happiness is the accumulation of goodness.
But there is the idea of too much of a good thing in goodness.
People can become obsessed and even a little bit unwise about it.
I've been in this situation where you can't really fault the giver, but it ends up with quite a quandary.
I remember going on alms round
And on New Year's Day, going on alms round.
And up until that day, I'd been having quite a bit of trouble getting alms.
So maybe some days I wouldn't have enough food to eat.
So I would have to find sort of an elaborate path and walk quite a ways through the village.
But this day I walked and found that I was getting something.
So I went on this elaborate route that was sort of out of the way.
And then I started coming back.
and or even on the way there I found myself with lots and lots of food and quite full so I turned around and suddenly there were people coming from everywhere and I had so I had a full bowl and then people started putting food on the on on top of it so I turned the lid over and people started filling up this lid until it was full and then more people came
And at this time, at this point, I'm trying to quickly get back to the monastery.
And I was trying to find, you know, sort of side routes and trying to think quickly, how can I find a way that I won't meet anyone?
And more people coming, so I started putting these plastic bags, because they brought food in plastic bags, on my fingers.
And I remember that day, I had plastic bags on every finger.
of both hands and trying to carry my bowl and people were still coming and they took no heed of the fact that I was completely overburdened.
until finally I think I said no but probably I should have said no quite a bit early but it was kind of a thing and it is kind of a thing in Thailand not to refuse and I was a young monk this was many years ago it got even a little bit worse in Sri Lanka because there's not much of an alms round in Sri Lanka most monks don't go on alms round some do but very few
And so when we started going on alms round, there was a Sri Lankan monk there who had started it and I went after him.
Even before that, near Colombo, I went on alms round.
I remember the first day I went out and there was a woman just coming out of her driveway and she said, Where are you going?
Where are you going?
And I said, And she was, wait, wait, wait.
And she ran back and she got me some bananas.
And so then, and I walked around and I walked for quite a ways and there was this old couple and they invited me, they saw me and they said, I think the first day everyone was just looking at me, but by the second and the third day they asked me, what are you doing?
And this old couple invited me into their house, sat me down, asked me if I wanted tea, brought me a cup of tea and some jaggery, and had me sit there and wait while they prepared the food, and then they brought the food out.
It was just so heartwarming.
And so I went back to them a few days, but by about the third day going to this old couple, everybody along the way started to find out about me, and they told everyone.
And so like after the third day, by the time I got to their house, I was overburdened and I had to have a plastic bag.
And so the next day I couldn't even make it to their house.
I got about halfway to their house and I had to turn around and they started complaining.
They started asking people and saying, where did he go?
Why didn't he come?
What happened to this monk?
People got quite upset, you know, what is this?
Why isn't he coming to our house?
Not really thinking that, you know, I can't physically get there.
And eventually I couldn't, I got to the front of the monastery and I had to go around the edge of the monastery and then come back.
It was just too much by that point.
People were saying, Hamdur, down here, down here.
No, I can't.
I see you, I know.
So there is a conflict there and
there is something to be said for tempering enthusiasm, or there's something that has to be said here.
How do you resolve this conflict?
I mean, many monks try not to.
They try to accept everything, knowing that people are giving out of goodness.
But there are limits, and this is a limit that Maha Kasupa rightly made, I think.
And it's a good example, you know, he rightly made for not just the reason that it would be wrong but also that it was right and it was a great example of not being overly cared for, you know.
And so this is an example for meditators who come to meditate to try and be self-reliant and to not require too much.
to be able to live in simple a simple setting certainly a great example for us as monks not to just ignorantly accept all support I've had people support me like this when I was in many stories like this when I was in California I had 22 mothers
And they all said, oh, we're all like his mother.
And yeah, they were really mothering until finally I quoted the Buddha.
I said, the Buddha said, because you have no mother.
And he used it, the Buddha used it as a teaching.
The context was he was explaining that the monks should take care of each other.
Monks should care for each other, not lay people.
You shouldn't rely on the lay people.
And it's important not to have too close association with
with lay people for many reasons.
It makes people complacent and they see the monks as friends and they want to joke with them and they want to spend time with them.
And the monks begin to lose their sincerity in the practice and they become more like lay people.
So it loses that spiritual guide or spiritual example at least that the monks are supposed to be.
There are many reasons for that.
So the verse itself here is specifically about doing good deeds, and we should all be keen on those.
But another thing the verse could, within the context of the story, could tell us is that there are many ways to do good deeds.
you have to say that Maha Kassapa as well was very much concerned with good deeds and the Buddha was pointing out or reaffirming that Maha Kassapa's actions were positive because of the, even now 2,500 years ago we have this example of being
what we call subaro, not being a burden on others, not requiring such things and being clear that these sorts of things are not the proper way for a monk to live.
A monk should be self-reliant and a meditator should be self-reliant and should be of few wishes, apicca.
So it's kind of important to maintain this sort of a life and Mahakaspa was the sort of person who set that example that many of us can't strive, can't even live up to.
He apparently never laid down for many years and that kind of thing.
So he was a fairly strict example of what a monk can be.
And so yeah, on the side of keeping to a moral code, an ethical code or staying strict with yourself, that's sort of a goodness.
Practicing meditation is goodness.
And even just wishing to do good deeds is a goodness.
So another thing that this verse says is that it's easy to want to do good deeds, but just because you want to do good deeds doesn't mean it's easy to actually do them.
I think if a monk has a full bowl of food and you keep putting food on top, it's questionable as to how wholesome that deed is because you're basically ignoring the terrible suffering that you're imposing upon this other person.
It's a sign that perhaps there's a lack of wisdom and giving gifts without wisdom is obviously inferior to giving gifts with wisdom.
It's very much more difficult to give a gift that is going to be useful, giving a gift that is circumspect, that you know will be of benefit and be of great benefit to the world and bring great things and great fruit.
Whereas if you just offer things as a token, not of great fruit.
But it also says something about how important the mind is, which we've learned in many of these verses, because she didn't give anything of great value, just some simple rice.
But you have to say that for her it was of great value.
It was a very significant act.
But more importantly, her mind.
She had this great intention.
I think the Buddha was trying to sort of
comfort her in that that her good intentions were her intentions were on the right track she just had to be more clever about how she was going to do good deeds and perhaps take it to the next level her intention was to become an arahant and so right she wanted to realize the truth that mahakasupa
attained and the story, the commentary says that at the end of the Buddha's teaching she became a Sotapanna.
So she was able to go beyond her obsession with being a servant to this monk and actually apply herself to insight and very quickly standing there listening to the Buddha's teaching was able to become a Sotapanna.
So how this relates to us?
Well, good deeds are a good thing.
First of all, the verse tells us that.
It's one of my favorite verses, one of the most well-known Buddhist verses.
I've taught this verse many times in Thailand and abroad.
All the different kinds of goodness that you can perform through charity, through morality, through meditation, through helping other people, through being humble.
through sharing the merit of good deeds, so dedicating your good deeds to others, through appreciating the good deeds of others, through listening to the Dhamma, through teaching the Dhamma, even through setting your mind straight, setting your view straight.
That's a special one that the Buddha gave special attention to.
Titu-jukamma is a good deed.
And that's what we get in Vipassana meditation.
And then, as I said, how we should be content with little.
We should not be complacent and give in to luxury.
Sometimes monks say, oh well, people are giving us good things, we should accept them.
It's good to live a more austere life.
Many monks take up the rule of only keeping rag robes or of only eating once a day, of only eating alms food, so not accepting meals.
There's lots of ways by which you can cultivate goodness.
It just speaks to the importance of being somewhat strict with yourself so that you don't fall into complacency, laziness, luxury, opulence, those kind of things that can have detrimental effect on your practice.
So we have to think about these things, we have to contemplate
Are we living a simple life?
Are we strict with ourselves or have we become lazy?
Have we fallen into luxury?
And we can adjust.
So there are many ways we can adjust our life.
Anyway, so that's the teaching of the Dhammapada tonight is in doing good deeds, doing them again and again so they become habitual and becoming, as I talked about last night, for evil deeds we want to not become complacent or content with evil deeds, but with good deeds we want to be content.
We want to cultivate them as a habit and we want to feel happy and feel good about our good deeds.
When you do a good deed you should be happy about it.
It's important.
Like this woman, after she did the deed she felt very sure and had chanda, we call sort of a contentment for it.
She was pleased in a sense by the good deed and so that's good because it encourages you to do more good deeds and to become a better person.
This is how we should cultivate ourselves because goodness is really the name of the game.
All of the Buddha's teaching is about cultivating goodness, abstaining from evil, and purifying our minds, which is the greatest goodness.
Because happiness is the accumulation of goodness, or the accumulation of goodness is happiness.
That's the Dhammapada for tonight.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Wishing you all the best.