Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse 145, which reads as follows.
udakanyi nayanti netika usukara namayanti tejanam dharung namayanti tajjaka arthanam namayanti subhata Which means,
Indeed, the netika, the leaders lead water.
Netika doesn't mean leader, but it means one who leads water.
Usukara, those who make arrows, guide.
guide the shafts, so they straighten the arrow shaft.
Carpenters bend the wood, and those with good conduct, subhata, tame themselves.
Now if this sounds familiar, it should.
If you have any familiarity with the Dhammapada,
It should sound very much like one of the earlier verses.
In the Pandita Vagga, we have verse 80.
Except instead of those of good conduct tame themselves, we have the wise tame themselves.
Because that was the story of Pandita Samanera.
So here we have a verse where the Buddha says almost the same thing.
In a different chapter, though.
The story is actually quite similar to Bandita, so we're going to skip some of it or abbreviate it because it's not really important anyway.
But the important part, there's an interesting past life story involved with this one.
The story goes there was a certain man in ancient times who
The name was Ganda.
And he was the son of a rich family.
And when his parents died, he gained all the wealth of his family.
So he didn't really realize how rich his family was, but then he was brought to the treasury and shown all of his wealth.
And they said to him, all of this is yours now.
And it was just an immense amount of wealth
Then he started walking through and looking at what he had and just shaking his head because he thought to himself, these fools.
They amassed all this wealth and for what?
To leave it behind?
They couldn't take it with them.
Couldn't stop them from dying.
And they didn't ever enjoy it.
Money is, wealth is meant to be spent.
They didn't take anything with them.
When they died, they had all this unspent wealth, which is really a good point.
We amass all this wealth, and sometimes people amass great wealth more than they can ever use.
And so he thought to himself, I'm going to take this wealth with me.
Now when a Buddhist says that, of course, when you hear that as a Buddhist, you think, oh, this person's going to do good deeds, they're going to do something good with it, use it for a good cause.
No, not this guy.
This man, Gandha, he thought, how will I take it with me?
He said, I will eat up all this wealth before I go.
And he became determined at that time to spend all of his money before he died, even though it was an incredible amount.
It's the equivalent of a billionaire today trying to use up all their wealth, something like that.
And so he spent a hundred thousand
gold coins, kahapana probably, building a bathhouse out of crystal, and a hundred thousand coins making a bath seat out of crystal to sit while he bathed.
And he spent a hundred thousand coins on a couch to sit, a hundred thousand coins on a bowl out of which to eat.
100,000 coins on a copper-plated receptacle for the bull, so a place to sit the bull on, just a stand for the bull.
Spent 100,000 coins on a window, a big magnificent window, and this is important, this window actually plays a part in the story.
He spent a hundred thousand on the food itself.
He spent a hundred thousand on breakfast, a hundred thousand on supper, and a hundred thousand on lunch.
And when it came time to eat his food, he may not have done this every day, not quite sure, but on the full moon day,
On the full moon day, he would spend a hundred thousand coins decorating the city, cause the drum to be beaten, and made a proclamation, let all come and behold the manner in which the rich man Ganda eats his meals.
so no he wasn't beating a drum to get people to come and eat with him come and watch me eat and that's what the window was for so he would sit on his chair and place his bowl in front of him and having bathed in his crystal bath house and
He would open the window and display himself to the whole city so they could see how a true rich person ate.
And probably even the king, well certainly the king didn't even eat so well because the king was in no hurry surely to get rid of all of his wealth.
And so his servants would place the bowl on the copper-plated receptacle and serve him with the food.
It was great splendor.
And it was interesting, so people would come and watch.
And it was just a real spectacle to watch him eat.
And he would be surrounded by dancers as well.
So it was a real festival on, I think, on the full moon.
Right, on the, yeah, midday meal on the full moon.
It happened that at around this time, there was a couple of friends.
There was a man from a village and a man from the city.
And the man from the village went to visit his friend in the city where this rich man lived.
And he heard this drum, and the city man said, hey, you know, you want to come and see something interesting?
Come and see this spectacle, this rich man who eats in front of the whole city.
It happened to be the full moon.
He said, have you ever seen it?
And he said, no, I've never seen it.
Oh, well, come.
You've got to see this.
And so they went together.
And when they got there, he had opened it up.
He opened up this window and he was sitting there and eating.
And this man from the village, from the countryside, smelt the food.
And there arose in him an intense craving for that food.
It's the kind of craving that is most likely something beyond just a craving.
because of course he probably would have never, he had never tasted such food, but there must be something about his character that unlike everyone else, beyond what everyone else, because certainly there was many people in the audience who wished they could eat such food, but he went beyond that.
He said, I want that rice.
And his friend from the city said, forget about it.
There's no way you're getting any of that.
Each bite is like a hundred gold coins.
And he says, look, if I don't get some of that food, I'm going to die.
I shall not be able to live any longer in the city.
He wasn't able to stop him, so he shrugged his shoulders and he stood up.
And he said to the rich man, shouted out, I bow down before you, master.
And the treasurer heard this shout and he said, who is that?
He said, this is me over here.
What do you want?
He said, well, my friend here is from the countryside, and he really wants some of your rice.
Please give him just a little bite.
And the rich man said, he can't have my rice.
So the city guy turns to his friend, did you hear what he said?
The rich man said, yeah, I heard.
And he shook his head, he said, if I can have some of that rice, I can live.
If I can't have that rice, I shall surely die.
And so the city man, who is quite perturbed, moved by this poor village man's plight, stood up again and said, Master, my friend here from the countryside says that if he can't have this rice, he will surely die.
Please spare his life, I pray you.
The rich man said, Sarah, Sarah is I guess what, well it's actually an English, I don't know what they said in friend maybe.
Every mouthful of rice in my bowl is worth 100 gold coins or 200 gold coins.
If I give rice to everyone who asks for it, what shall I have to eat myself?
He repeated, he said, Master,
Please, if he doesn't get this rice, he says he will die, please spare his life.
He can't have it.
He shook his head and said, Look, if it be really true that he's going to die without it, then let him come work for me.
If he comes and works for me for three years,
after three years of working for me every day, I will give him the entire bowl of rice."
And when the villager heard that, he said, so be it, let it be so.
And he left his family, he left his sons and his wife, told them he was going to work for this rich man, and he actually did it.
He spent three years working for this rich guy just to get a bowl of rice.
And every day he worked hard.
But it changed him, you know.
This is the thing about cravings, addictions.
Over time you start to, many people start to, the goodness in them begins to buzz in your ear.
You start to get this nagging feeling that something's wrong.
And it becomes greater and greater until you... For some people, they do something about it.
He didn't do anything about it.
Spent three years single-mindedly thinking about this, right?
But perhaps over those three years, some nagging feeling came to him.
Perhaps what he was doing was not entirely sane.
Perhaps there was a better way.
Nonetheless, after three years,
It came the day and the rich man said, well, you've done what you set out to do and it's quite impressive, your determination.
For today you will live as I do.
Instead of me going to the bathhouse, you will go to this crystal bathhouse, bathe in this crystal seat and yada yada yada, you will sit and you will eat.
You will live as I do for this day.
So he got up on this seat and
Yeah, they placed the bowl down in front of him.
And he was just getting ready to eat.
As he was getting ready to eat, there suddenly came, he suddenly spied in the crowd.
Or was it in the crowd?
He suddenly saw somehow.
He was watching his hands.
Yes, he came and stood before him.
He came out of the crowd, not off in the crowd.
He came to the front of the crowd and he stood before this man and he was just getting ready to put a bite in his mouth or he was just getting ready to put his hand in the bowl maybe.
And he saw this Pacheco Buddha, which would be an enlightened being, a person who's become enlightened for themselves.
Even in the time when there is no Buddha to teach the way to become free from suffering, there are beings who are able to find it for themselves, but not really able to explain it to others.
But they have found upon, hit upon the way themselves, and then they
They normally stay off in the hills and the mountains and the forests.
But sometimes, sometimes they come and they do great things.
So here was this Pachayka Buddha, private Buddha, doing a great thing.
Because clearly this guy was on the wrong path, clearly he was not doing anything good for himself.
In fact both of these guys were a bunch of, or a couple of, they were a real pair.
The rich guy who had all this money and decided he was just going to waste it all, in the most frivolous way possible.
and this poor country fellow, who instead of working for any real benefit, was working for some silly meal that was in the end only going to last in the morning.
And it came to a head when he saw this Pacheco Buddha.
He looked at him and he said, it just hit him, he said, what am I doing here?
He said, oh, like,
What good is this meal to me?
It struck him that here was someone who had no food to eat and was perhaps even truly worthy of such a great meal.
And he himself had done nothing really special to deserve it, impressive perhaps.
So he thought to himself, I've never done anything good.
Here's this monk, this ascetic, who's looking for food, and I've never done anything really great like that.
I've never given anything.
And of course, the belief in karma, he said, that's probably why I'm so poor.
Because I've never really done anything good to deserve being rich.
And so he looked at this Pacheco Buddha and he picked up the ball.
He gave it to one of the servants and he bowed down before this Pacheco Buddha and he took the bowl back and he began to pour this most expensive of meals into the Pacheco Buddha's bowl.
Now when it got half, when he had got half of it out, the Pacheco Buddha covered his hand and in a sign that, you know, it's okay, you share it with me, you can have half, I'll have half.
And the man shook his head, he said, look, this is one portion for one person.
And he said, and here's the quote, he said,
Do not bestow favor.
I ask you not to bestow favor on me in this life by leaving half the rice for me.
I want full favor in the next life, in future lives, for my spiritual benefit, basically.
I want this to be for my spiritual benefit, not my physical well-being.
And this is important because that's what food is.
If you eat a meal, and the Buddha said this, if you eat a meal,
You give benefit to yourself for a morning.
You get a day's worth of life, and that's it.
It doesn't last beyond that.
But if you do a good deed, if you give that same food to someone else, the greatness of the act changes you.
It changes your heart, your soul, if you will.
It changes who you are.
makes you a better person.
And that lasts.
That lasts through this life into the next life.
It changes the course of the future.
And so he gave all this rice.
And he went hungry after all that time.
It's probably one of the more powerful gifts that we have as an example here.
Someone who spent three years working because he wanted this food and then gave it away.
Quite impressive, isn't it?
One of the more impressive acts that we see.
And he made a determination, he said, here's something better, something better than this wonderful meal, far better.
And he looked at him and he said, venerable sir, may I, may I gain what you have gained.
May I partake in the same truth which you have seen.
He made a determination to become enlightened.
And the Pachuka Buddha said, May it be so.
And he gave him another blessing, which I won't go into.
And then he left.
Now the repercussions of such a great event impressed the whole crowd and impressed the rich man, Gandha.
who in turn shook his head and said, what a fool I've been.
Here I've had all this money all this time and I've done nothing good with it.
I had so much opportunity to be a good person, to cultivate good things, to better myself spiritually and I've done nothing of the sort.
I've wasted it on my own useless, futile, frivolous luxury.
And he called this man to him and he said,
He took a thousand gold coins and he said, here's a thousand gold coins.
Give me the goodness of your deed.
Hand it over to me.
Make it over to me.
And so the poor guy said, well, sure, okay.
Anuruddha, the same thing happened to Anuruddha.
This is a common story.
Rich people trying to buy merit.
Anuruddha was concerned whether it's possible to buy goodness.
So he went and asked to Pachacabuddha.
And Pachacabuddha said, well, it's okay.
You keep your goodness.
If someone else wants it, they can have it too.
It multiplies.
And so he gave it over and they became good friends.
And they changed their lives.
They decided
We have to do something.
Let's make this our lives.
The king got involved.
The king heard about this because it was a great spectacle in the city.
It was a big festival watching this guy eat.
So everyone knew about this great act of renunciation.
Everyone was waiting.
Three years they had waited to see this poor guy get the meal, the meal.
And then he gives it to the Pachayka Buddha.
So it really shook up.
the whole population.
And so the king rewarded him and made him a rich man.
And so these two rich guys dedicated themselves from that day on to doing good deeds.
That's the story of the past.
The present story is of Sukha the novice, and it's quite short.
There's a bit about the gods getting involved, but I don't want to get into it.
I'm not really convinced as to the veracity of all that.
But hey, who knows?
I think my audience is probably less inclined than I am to indulge in the possibility.
So we'll stick to the simple version.
So this guy, Bhattabhatika was his name, which means the one who works for a meal, the meal.
So he became known as Bhattabhatika.
He was reborn in Sabhati.
And he was named Sukha.
And his mother was one of the great supporters of Sariputta, just like Pandita.
The story is very similar to another story we've told in verse 80, I think.
But they named this boy Sukha.
And he ordained at the age of seven.
At the age of seven, he just decided, he said, mother, I would like to ordain.
And his mother let him ordain.
And like Pandita, I think it was Pandita, he was walking through, walking after Sariputta on alms.
And he saw these things, yeah, just like Pandita.
He saw the ditch diggers guiding the water, making the water go into their fields.
He saw the arrow makers straightening their shaft, the shafts.
And he saw the carpenters shaping the wood.
And he thought to himself, well if they can do that with inanimate objects, surely I can tame my mind.
So I guess the context is he had been hearing about taming the mind and he thought, well how is that possible?
How do you accomplish that?
Or he was considering it, how it was possible.
And when he saw these guys, he started to realize what it was.
If you think in modern terms, how we work with computers, how we work with machines, robots,
We can get inanimate objects to do great things.
Even compute provide us with computations and information.
We can manipulate.
If we put information in, we can manipulate the information, get all sorts of information out.
So many wonderful things we can do with inanimate physical objects.
And so it gives him the analogy of dealing with the mind, that the mind is, surely I can work with the mind.
I guess at least giving him, realizing that actually it can't be any harder than what these guys are doing.
He sees them, and it gives him an idea of how to tame the mind.
It gives him an inclination to do the same with his mind.
He sees them working and he thinks, well, my work is this, I should do it.
So he stops on alms round, he doesn't go on alms round, he goes back to his kutti and he meditates.
And he meditates on taming the mind, working with the mind.
It's a really good analogy.
It's impressive that such a young boy was able to work this out for himself, but definitely for us it's a great way to think of our meditation practice.
Because you can't control the water, you can't control the shafts, make them suddenly straight, but you can work with them.
And the mind is the same.
The mind is like working with an inanimate object.
You have to be patient, work with it, train it and tame it in a figurative sense.
When you tame physical, you tame the wood so that it becomes straight, or you tame the waters
of the rivers and lakes.
You tame it and you train it and you direct it.
You do the same with the mind.
You direct the mind.
Tame the mind.
You tame yourself.
And the Buddha found out about this, long story short, and he said, this novice has realized this, that just as all these people tame inanimate physical objects, so too the wise tame their minds.
Not the wise, in this case, those of good conduct.
So what lessons do we have to learn?
Well, that's, of course, the main lesson.
If we go back to the origin story,
The great lesson there for me is the nature of desire, how intense it can be, and how wrong it is, really.
How it compares and contrasts to the good deeds of giving, of charity, of renunciation.
how much happier it makes you.
The contrast between the life of debauchery and the life of giving and the life of goodness.
And just how intense it can be to want, how you're intense wanting.
It can lead you to do the most extreme things, like leave your family behind and go and work for a single meal.
There's no rationality behind it, but yet this is similar to our behavior and most of our behavior, how we do such irrational things.
For just a meal, for example, we pay a lot of money sometimes for a good meal.
Sometimes we'll pay money just for good food, for example.
Or we'll pay money for music.
We'll pay money for art, for things that don't actually satisfy us.
thinking that would be satisfied.
I suppose it's a little more blatantly obvious that this guy wasn't going to be satisfied, that this was totally out of proportion, working three years for a single meal.
But to some extent we do that as individuals.
You know, we'll work for an object that we want to get.
Maybe you want to buy a car or get a house or something.
I mean, not all purchases are wrong or bad, but
Our desires do lead us to do more than we should.
Our desires do force us to work harder than we need.
They cause us more suffering than would otherwise befall us.
That's sort of the lesson I get from that.
And just that moment, it's an interesting moment to think of what you would do if you got to that point where you were going to have this food and then you saw someone, a Buddha, a Buddha came and stood before you having not eaten that day.
What would you do?
and the feeling that it gives to think about that and to think of the greatness of being able to give this most precious of meals away to someone who objectively deserved it and was worth giving it to.
So that's that.
Then as for the verse,
I mean, the lesson is, as I stated, it's that meditation is like working inanimate objects.
It's something you have to work at.
First of all, it's not meant to be comfortable or pleasant.
It's meant to be challenging.
It's meant to take effort, focus, introspection, discrimination.
It's meant to be something you put your heart into.
But it's not something you can force.
You can't force the water and say, go into my field.
You have to train it.
You have to divert it, direct it.
You can't force the arrows to be straight.
You have to work them, heat them over the fire, and they slowly, somehow you can straighten the wood.
I don't really know how.
Or as a carpenter, you have to shape it.
So we do this with the mind.
We direct it.
We straighten it.
We shape it.
We lead it to do our desires, but we don't force it.
We train it to be straight as a habit.
Meditation is like a good habit.
that overrides all of our bad habits.
We have the bad habits of judging, reacting, clinging.
And we replace that with the good habit of knowing, seeing.
a habit of careful, patient observation of things as they are, without judgment, without partiality, without stress, without suffering.
And it's a process.
It's a process of cultivation.
That's what we do in meditation.
Another verse, as it's very, very similar to the other one, there actually isn't
much more to say, but it's nice to go over these things again, as I have, so there we go, verse 145.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Wishing you all good practice.