Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse number 68, which reads as follows.
tancakamangkatamsadhu yankatvananutapati yasapatito sumanu vipakampatisevati Which means,
It's actually the same as the last verse, so there's a cha in here.
Cha means end.
So the last one was about the problem of doing bad deeds.
Well, this one is tancha, and that kammang, and that kamma, katangsadu, when done, is well done.
Yang katwa nanutapati, which when performed doesn't burn one up, doesn't cause one to burn up.
The performing of which, because of which one is delighted and sumano of good mind or of happy mind.
when they receive the results.
So when you receive the results of a deed and it's pleasant and peaceful and makes you happy at mind, happy at heart, this is a well done deed.
So the story behind this verse
is in the time of the Buddha in the kingdom of King Bimbisara in Rajgaha, which is a kingdom.
It's now a city in northeastern India or northern India in the province of Bihar.
It's one of the places we go on our pilgrimage of the holy sites.
Bimbisara was a Sotapanna.
When he first met the Buddha, he listened to the Buddha's teaching, he realized Nibbana.
at the moment of listening to the Buddha's teaching.
So he was a special king and therefore a special kingdom.
And it so happened that in this kingdom there was a gardener named Sumana.
And the story goes that every day he would collect eight measures of flowers every morning and offer them to the king.
For which he would receive eight kahapana, which is eight gold coins.
And one day as he was collecting his flowers in the morning, he saw the Buddha coming for alms, followed by 500 monks or a large company of monks.
And he'd never seen the Buddha before, I guess.
And that morning when he saw the Buddha, it overwhelmed him with the great joy of seeing such a spiritually enlightened being, being in the presence of someone who is so powerful and so cultivated.
It just struck him quite deeply, moved him.
And so immediately he thought, what could he do to reverence this person?
Because this is a tradition in religious cultures like India for ordinary people who maybe didn't have their sights set on a spiritual life to
pay reverence to them.
The idea is, well, we can't live our lives like you, but we can honor your life.
And in a way, there's something to that.
It's a reaffirmation of what you believe in.
So a person who pays respect or reverences something that is worthy of reverence,
it sets in their mind, it affirms in their mind what they believe in.
So, I believe in what this person is doing, my contribution to their cause, and so on and so on.
So, anyway, if it seems somehow strange that this is what he would immediately think, it's what religious people often think, religious lay people, that
even though they themselves can't live the life they want to support it and by supporting it it affirms in their mind their dedication to that type of a path and this is the good karma so that in the future good things come from it so immediately he thought what can I do and he looks and he sees these flowers that he's preparing to offer to the king and he thinks to himself
these flowers.
I'll give these flowers to the Buddha."
And just the thought arises in his mind and then immediately the second thought arises, ah, but these are the flowers that I'm supposed to give to the king.
And so he's got this dilemma because kings in the time of the Buddha, of course, were known to be rather harsh in their meeting out of justice or in their judgments of their citizens.
So there was some fear from the king, from the king's reaction.
So he thought to himself that the king could have him beheaded or killed or exiled, banished from the land.
But as this thought, as this worry, as this fear is coming up in his mind, he shakes it off and he says, I don't care.
This is it.
If the king doesn't like it, if the king banishes me, I just think, what can the king do for me?
The most that the king can do for me is give me wealth in this life.
He can give me these eight kahapana every day and it allows me to feed my family.
That's all he can give me.
But the Buddha, this guy, who I've heard about but I've never seen until today, what he can give me...
What He can give me is something spiritual, and by my dedication and my devotion to Him, it's something that could last lifetimes, millions of countless lifetimes into the future.
And so he makes up his mind and he says, he makes a decision, if my mind is pleased by this, I will do it.
And immediately this pleasure and this joy comes up just from the idea of offering, paying respect to such a worthy object.
And so he makes the decision and he offers the flowers and in India they would place the flowers on his feet or so on.
The story in the book, I'm not going to really subscribe to it.
I'm not saying it didn't happen, but it may not have happened that way.
So the way they say it happened in the book is when he threw them up
he threw two measures above the Buddha and they hung there suspended and he threw two measures over the left side and the left side of the Buddha was a curtain of flowers and then he threw them up on the right side and they stayed suspended on the right side and he threw two measures on the
And so there was like this cave of flowers surrounding the Buddha that was just floating there.
And then he walked through the city with these flowers suspended around him.
But I'm going to sort of not deny that, but we're going to blurb over that.
We're going to skip over that and say he offered these flowers.
He offered the flowers to the Buddha and it was a great thing.
It's a great sacrifice.
Because it's not that he was obligated to the king.
It's that kings, you don't enter into the contract the same way as you would with an ordinary person.
If a king expects something, usually they get it.
Whether or not you've promised or whether or not it's... It's not like these flowers belong to the king.
You know the story of Kujjutra, which is I think also in here somewhere.
she actually stole flowers from the queen.
We went through it, right?
This was the story of Samavati.
We've already been there.
So, Kujjotira was her maid and she stole flowers from, she stole money from the queen and instead of buying flowers, she'd only buy half the flowers.
and give her half the flowers, the other half the money she would steal for herself.
Then one day she listened to the Buddha's teaching and came back with all the flowers.
And the queen asked, well, why is there twice as many flowers today?
And Kujutra had become a Sotapanna.
So she had no interest in lying whatsoever.
So she told Queen Samavati, well,
I've been stealing from you.
Every day I've stolen half the money and bought you half the flowers.
And so what's different today?
Well, today I heard the teachings of the Buddha and there's no way I would steal after that.
And Samavati was of course a great being and she wasn't angry at all and instead she took Kujjutara as her teacher and asked Kujjutara to go and learn all of the Buddha's teaching and come back and teach them.
So that was a bad thing that she had done.
Kujjutara was a thief in the beginning.
He's not a thief here.
He's not stealing these.
He's the gardener.
As far as we understand from the story, they're his.
But he's got an unspoken contract or maybe even a contract with the king
to sell them to the king for eight kahapana he doesn't do that offers them to the Buddha then he goes pays respect to the Buddha bows down at his feet and goes back to his wife goes back home his wife greets him at the door and normally he'd bring the flowers home prepare them and offer them to the king she asks him where are your flowers today and he says well I saw the great fully enlightened Buddha walking for alms and I offered the flowers to him
And his wife is incensed by this.
His wife is a simpleton, according to the books.
Mogha Purisa probably is what it says.
I didn't check the Pali.
And she's upset by it.
And she says, are you crazy?
We could be killed.
The kings are dangerous people.
He could have us beheaded.
He could have us...
He was exiled and he repeated what he had said.
He said, whatever the king can do to me, it's nothing compared to what the Buddha can do for us.
But she wouldn't have any of it.
She took her children.
and left him and went to see the king and told the king exactly what happened and explained to the king what she had said to him how please if you're going to punish my husband consider that he's no longer my husband I've left him me and my children are now separated from him we had nothing to do with this if you're going to punish him punish him alone
Of course, King Bimbisara is, as I said, quite a special being, and so he wasn't angry at all, but he realized what had happened, and he knew the Gardener Sumana was a great man, and hearing this, of course, it made him only think higher of the Gardener Sumana, and so he realized this woman is probably not right for
the gardener anyway, she's a Moga Purisa.
And so he pretends to be angry and he said, oh, he did what?
And she repeats and he said, are you saying that he took the flowers that he was going to offer to me?
And she said, yes.
And he said, well, thank you.
You've done the right thing by leaving him.
Of course she has because it's good for him, good for Sumanath.
You've done the right thing by leaving him.
Leave it to me.
I'll see that he gets his just desserts.
And the woman goes away satisfied, thinking that she's won the day.
And Bimbisara immediately, the king Bimbisara immediately gets his retinue and goes to see the Buddha, pays respect to the Buddha and they walk together.
The Buddha of course realizing that the king, knowing that the king is at peace and has no resentment for this flower, flower situation.
And so they walk together and they walk back to the king's palace and they sit down outside of the palace and the people are all able to see these flowers suspended above and around the Buddha.
I'll just skip over that.
But then the Buddha calls Sumana over, the gardener.
He calls someone to bring the gardener Sumana to them.
And the Buddha asks,
What is it that you said?
What were you thinking to yourself when you offered me these flowers that you normally offer to the king?"
And Sumanas, with the king sitting right there, he said, I thought to myself, no matter what the king can do for me, the best he can offer me is physical wealth.
But the Buddha, what the Buddha can offer me, what I can get from paying respect, paying homage to such a great being, that is something that will last me much longer, will be much more lasting and of far greater benefit.
And Bimbisara immediately spoke up and praised him and offered him eight elephants, eight horses, eight male servants, eight female servants, eight concubines from the royal harem, and the eight other stuff.
all sorts of things, eight of each, and made him a rich man.
Eight measures of kahapana, eight thousands of treasures or something, lots and lots of money, made him a rich man.
And that was that.
And so the Buddha went back to the monastery and the monks
Ananda asked the Buddha, he thought, wow, this must be a great thing.
I wonder what benefit would he get from this deed?
And he asked the Buddha, and the Buddha said, Ananda, don't think that this is just an ordinary deed that the gardener did.
This is something that with his truly pleased and delighted mind, delighting in goodness, delighting in the good deeds,
In the future, in some future time, he's going to be reborn as a Pacheco Buddha called Sumana.
So the Buddha foretold that someday, probably Sumana is still up in heaven somewhere, waiting to be reborn as a private Buddha.
Or maybe it's already happened.
But someday he will become a Pacheco Buddha.
Then one day the monks were sitting in the hall of Dhamma talking about this, saying, wow, it's great, it's amazing how he could do such a good thing.
Isn't it great?
The doing of good deeds, isn't it such a great thing?
Great to see the benefit.
Great to see how good people are rewarded for their good deeds.
And the Buddha walked in and asked them, Monks, what are you talking about?
And the monks said, Venerable Sir, we're talking about Suman and the gardener.
And they tell him what they were saying, and the Buddha said, Indeed, monks, a deed should be done, those deeds should be done that lead to happiness and peace, that when performed do not cause one to feel remorse, don't make one burn up in the mind.
And then he said the verse, Tanchakamangkatangsadhu
So how does this relate to our practice today?
Well, doing good deeds never gets old.
This is one part of these stories.
The virtues never change.
So there's nothing different today about doing good deeds.
Any good deeds that you can do, not just offering, not just giving, but any good deeds, helping other people, teaching other people,
But meditation is considered the greatest good deed, the greatest wholesomeness.
And morality, keeping ethical precepts, stopping abstaining from unwholesomeness, these are all good things.
The point is that this is what leads to real happiness and this is what the meditation shows us.
It's amazing, people today, the happiness that we look for.
And we do things knowing, really we know, often we know, intellectually, that these things that we're doing are not bringing us happiness.
These activities that we engage in, these sources of happiness,
that we're pursuing are not actually making us happy, are not actually satisfying us in any way.
They make us suffer physically, they make us suffer mentally, they cause arguments and conflict between people.
They don't lead to happiness in any appreciable form.
And yet we cling to them, we chase after them because of the way the mind works, because of the reward cycle, the chemicals in the brain, the pleasure that they bring for a brief moment.
reminds us and reaffirms the habit and causes us to seek them out again.
These are the things that don't bring us happiness.
What really and truly brings us happiness is goodness, is good deeds.
And so the Buddha said to focus our attention on good deeds, focus our efforts on good deeds.
This is a great way to keep yourself from falling into doing bad deeds.
If you're always
if you're always engaged in doing good deeds, in being kind and helpful to others, in being moral and ethical, and in practicing meditation, cultivating your mind.
then you won't have time and your mind won't sink back into unwholesomeness.
Doing good deeds is the greatest way to prevent yourself from falling into bad deeds.
So, people often complain about how Buddhism today, Pop Buddhism, seems to be all about generosity and giving, which you find in Buddhist countries it's all about giving, giving, giving.
And so there's often this backlash and people claim how it's not the Buddha's teaching and how you don't really need to do any good deeds, just practice meditation.
Of course, meditation is a good deed, but people who say you don't have to do good deeds, all you have to do is stop doing evil.
Mahasi Sayadaw once pointed out, which I totally agree with, if you're not, as I said, if you're not doing good deeds, then it's very easy, it's very difficult to keep yourself from doing bad deeds.
And what are you going to do besides unwholesome deeds?
It's very difficult to keep yourself from them if you're not engaged in good deeds.
So the benefits of goodness, they bring you, it brings you happiness, it purifies the mind, it creates habits of goodness, it turns you into a better person, it brings physical well-being, it calms your body, it allows you to digest your food better, it allows you to sleep better, it brings you friends, it brings you riches, it brings you security and safety, it calms the world, it purifies the world, it makes
It brings goodness to the universe.
It changes destiny.
Good deeds should never be seen as, should never be looked down upon.
How does it go?
There's no such thing as a small gift if given with a pure heart, is one thing.
It's not what I was thinking about.
You shouldn't look at a karma, shouldn't look at a deed as being small.
No deed is small.
But that's about bad deeds.
Anyway, there's lots of quotes about good deeds and bad deeds.
Karma is so important because it changes you.
So if you're performing good deeds, it makes you a better person.
It allows you to calm your mind.
It allows you to cultivate wholesomeness.
If you're performing bad deeds, good luck with the meditation.
Not going to happen.
Not going to go very easily.
So this is a part of our practice.
It's really a fundamental step, becoming a better person, being generous and kind, being moral and ethical, and being calm and composed in the mind.
So that is the teaching for today.
And together with the one last time, it makes a pair.
that we should just not do bad deeds.
If a deed makes you suffer because of it and makes you feel guilty because of it, you shouldn't do it.
You should focus on doing good deeds.
Do those deeds that when done,
You don't burn up.
You don't feel guilty.
When you receive the results of them, it's happiness.
It's peace.
It's delight.
Happy at the results.
So, that's the teaching for today.
Wishing you all peace, happiness, and freedom from suffering.
See you next time.