Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Tonight we continue on with verse 122, which reads as follows.
Mawamanyetapunyasa namandam agamisati
Udubindu nipatena udakumbho pi purati.
Diro purati punyasa.
Thokang thokang pi ajinam.
which is almost exactly the same as the last verse, which, if you remember, was in regards to not thinking little of evil deeds, thinking it won't come to me.
So here, it's the opposite.
Don't look down upon or don't underestimate
Punya, which is goodness.
Thinking, it won't come to me.
A water pot becomes full drop by drop with drops of water, with drops of water falling.
A wise person becomes full of goodness.
And
even though it might be drop by drop, one becomes full with goodness or by through goodness, full of goodness.
Anyway, here we have a story.
The story goes that the Buddha was talking about different types of giving
Again, it seems there are many stories of giving.
Giving being a fundamental religious practice that you might say gets maybe a little, some people might say gets a little too much coverage in Buddhist circles.
I think it's fair to say that often it's because there's a concern for getting.
People talk about giving because they're concerned with getting.
Often monasteries or meditation centers or monks would like to get things or are in need of things, realistically are in need of things.
So there's kind of a tension there, because you have to accept that, well, there is a need, but
Seems a little bit suspicious and I've often commented on this.
A little bit, not suspicious, a little bit, a little bit uncomfortable to talk about how good it is to give when you're actually mean.
It would be good if we could receive, for example.
Anyway, giving is a spiritual practice.
It's a good spiritual practice.
There's nothing wrong with giving.
We recently gave a large donation, our group, many of you who are watching this video perhaps, to a children's home in Florida.
That was, it was so good even my stepfather got involved, my mother got involved, and everyone was so happy.
My Sri Lankan friends in Florida got involved.
It was a way to really bring people together and has the potential to bring people together.
again so we do this again next time we'll even bring more people together and that's what this story in the Dhammapada is about the Buddha talks about how some people give themselves are charitable are kind but don't encourage other people to do good deeds
This doesn't just have to do with giving any good deed.
You could say the same about meditation or morality.
If you're moral yourself, but you don't encourage people or let other people know about your views on ethical acts or ethical matters, issues.
And another person might encourage others but not do good deeds themselves.
And then one person does neither and another person does both.
Both does good deeds and encourages others.
And so his teaching, it's something that we've talked about before, is that if you do good deeds but don't encourage others to do good deeds, then you'll get great
great reward yourself your life will get better but you won't you'll be alone you won't be surrounded by other people right if you become a good person yourself but you haven't made friends with or or work together with other people to do good deeds then you'll be lacking in friendship and companionship which is very important both in the world and in spiritual practice
And so as the Buddha was teaching, it turns out there was a certain Pandita Purisa, a wise man,
who having heard this Dhammadesana thought to himself, well then, that's what I should do rather than just be generous and kind and do good deeds on my own.
I should bring people together to do good deeds.
Sound familiar?
This is what we did for Florida.
This is why we do these things.
Bring people together.
Don't just do good deeds yourself.
Do them together as a group.
So he went to the Buddha and he asked
or maybe he went to the Buddha and said to him, Bhante, I would like to invite monks for lunch.
And the Buddha said, how many monks?
And
And the man said, all the monks, I want to invite them all for lunch.
Now, how many monks were there?
There were
Many, many monks.
I don't know if it says here how many monks, but it was a lot.
It was the kind of, it was the number of monks.
This is in Jetavana, so there were probably hundreds, if not more.
Thousands even, maybe.
I don't know.
Of course, they always over-exaggerate.
But lots, lots of monks, more than any one poor family or even ordinary family would be able to care for.
So he did this completely on faith that he could get people to join him in this great deed.
And it was really sort of a powerful determination on his part to be so bold.
And so he went into the village, into the town, into the city actually of Sabadi and he went maybe banging a drum or he went to went to his own village, maybe not the city, but he went to
He went around saying, everyone, maybe banging a drum or something, I have invited the congregation of monks presided over by the Buddha for the meal tomorrow.
Come, give what you can, provide as much as your means permit.
Let us do all the cooking in one place and give alms in common.
So rather than the ordinary way, which would be, oh well, I'll invite a couple of monks to my house or I'll...
do this good deed or that good deed.
The idea was let's all do one good deed together so that we share in the deed and that our karma is intertwined in the sense that we have similar futures together.
We move forward and upward together.
And so the people were for the most part overjoyed, but there was one rich guy who was not pleased.
And hearing what this guy was saying, preaching and talking about his intentions, became quite angry with the thought thus.
Rather than, look at this guy, rather than invite people, invite monks based on his own means, how dare he assume that other people should help him fulfill his wishes.
fulfill his intentions.
I mean, how dare he just assume or push us all, or try to persuade us all to do something that really is, it's on him, you know.
This is his burden.
He's the idiot who bit off more than he can chew, and now he's coming and begging and pleading us.
He was very upset about this.
Rich man, this guy was rich as well.
So when the guy came to his door, he took, it's funny, he took two fingers and his thumb, I guess.
Or maybe three fingers in his thumb.
Maybe it was like this and grabbed just as much rice would fit there and dropped it in this guy's bowl and did the same with beans and jaggery or sugar and salt or whatever.
Whatever he gave, he gave just a little bit when he was giving ingredients.
And so that's significant because he came to be known as the cat foot rich man or the cat foot guy.
Because I guess, I think, because this looks like a cat's foot, right?
Cats have three paws maybe, right?
The three paws and the thumb.
Somehow that had a meaning at the time.
So his name was, he became known as cat foot or Bilalapada.
And so the wise man, the guy who was organizing this,
took the offerings and he placed them apart.
So he took everyone else's offerings and just put them all together.
But the rich man's offerings, he kept them separate and guarded them individually.
And the rich man was sort of watching this guy.
And as he saw this behavior that he hadn't mixed them in with everything else,
that he had kept them separate, he asked one of his servants, he told one of his servants to go and spy on him and see what he was doing, what was up with all this.
And the man followed after this
guy, the organizer, and saw that what he was doing is he was taking like one grain or a few grains of the rich guy's rice and putting a little bit in each and everything that they were cooking.
So distributing it evenly among the products.
And so this guy goes back and tells the rich man who's quite puzzled and doesn't know what's going on.
He can't see what angle this guy is playing, but he starts to get suspicious because this guy has
This guy deliberately paid special attention to the rich man's offering, which was ridiculously small.
And so he starts to get this thought in his mind, he knows, that guy knows that my offering was minuscule, was meaningless, was an insult.
And he's going to tell.
He's going to tell the Buddha.
Or he's going to announce everyone.
And he's going to announce that I gave such and such.
That I gave very, very little.
So what he does, he takes a knife.
and goes and gets like a sword or a knife or something and he sticks it in his robe and he goes to the monastery the next morning or no he goes to the place where they're going to feed the monks the next morning with the thought if he does as soon as he opens his mouth if he starts to talk about me I'm going to kill him that's what that's what how awful this guy really was
It's quite odd that he... Because later on he actually comes to realize the Dhamma, but... This is the story.
It's hard to know what's going on underneath, but he gets very, very angry.
And he must really think that this guy is out to get him.
That this guy has set him up and is... is...
kind of disappointed or upset or feels self-righteous about the fact that the rich man didn't give what he could give.
Anyway, so he's there with his knife, sort of standing off to the side.
And what does this organizer do?
He proclaims to the Buddha that all the people gathered there had given something for every bit of the food.
And he said, please, venerable sir, may everyone here receive a rich reward because they all gave according to their ability.
And the rich man heard this and he was quite moved by this, by the generous, and he realized that he had had this whole thing misunderstood, that he had misunderstood this man's intentions and started to realize that actually this guy was a really good person.
And it's funny, the translation says, if I don't ask him to pardon me, punishment from the king will fall upon my head.
But I'm pretty sure that's not what it says.
You see, there's something called Deva Danda.
which deva means angel, but it can also mean king.
The king is considered to be a god among men or a deity among men.
So it could mean king, but it really doesn't because it's talking about, actually talking about his head, which
Well, there's no reason that the king would punish him, but it's the angels that will mete out punishment by splitting his head into pieces, which is a common phrase.
There was this belief that if you did a terribly heinous crime, the angels would mete out punishment on your head by splitting it into pieces.
And so he actually, this rich man who was very arrogant and conceited and was very much on the wrong path, mended his ways just standing there listening and watching and looking and seeing what a wonderful thing he had missed out on because of his selfishness and his greed and his stinginess.
And so he bowed down at the feet of this organizing fellow
and said, please forgive me, sir.
And the man looked down at him and said, why are you asking me forgiveness?
Totally oblivious and having never thought anything bad about the man.
So he was totally surprised as to what was wrong.
And the treasure explained to him, sorry, the rich man explained to him that, you know, really he was angry.
He gave that gift out of anger and he purposely gave very, very little.
And he actually at this point felt kind of sad that he hadn't given something significant.
And the Buddha saw this, standing right there, sitting there probably eating, and asked what was happening, what was going on.
And so they told him.
And the rich man said, well, I was awful really, and I feel like I missed a really good opportunity to take part in something wholesome.
And the Buddha said, oh no you didn't actually.
Well the Buddha basically said, don't ever think of a good deed as a trifle.
In the end you gave, in the end you were, you relented.
You could have said no, you could have given nothing, but in the end you gave something.
You were kind, you were generous You gave something that belonged to you You had no duty or no obligation to give So even that is a good deed, the Buddha said And he used it as an opportunity to tell this verse And it's kind of... I would bet that there's... The fact that this was a rich and sort of well-to-do...
affluent individual played a part in being fairly positive about this.
Because he could have warned the guy, you know, don't do evil, be careful, and yes, you've done a bad deed, but rich people don't tend, people who have wealth, who have power,
You attract more flies with honey is the same.
Such people you often have to be careful with.
It's funny, the people who are most virtuous and spiritually uplifted, you tend to be able to treat them the harshest.
tend to be able to be the hardest on them they can take it and it's useful for them and helpful for them but for people who are rich you're better off to go and people who are who are spoiled perhaps you're better off to go positive nonetheless there is a point here that any amount of goodness should not be should not be disregarded should not be
underestimated.
And so then he taught this verse.
And this is like the last one, well even more so than the last one.
I think this is really an awesome verse for us to remember as meditators, as Buddhists, as spiritual practitioners.
Because it's easy to get discouraged when you think of your problems, when you think of your goals, when you think of spiritual goals.
It's easy to think, I'll never be like that.
I'll never get there.
I'll never free myself from this.
And we become discouraged before we've even tried, because it seems like a mountain.
but even a mountain when you get up close it's made of rock it's something that you can take apart all good things come step by step right the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step it's a very important concept because this really how it works goodness doesn't disappear our good deeds don't just disappear
Every success has to come from deeds, from individual good deeds.
And so whether it be generosity and therefore the result being affluence or
high status, all the good mundane things that come from being generous, whether it be having good friends, all these good results, they all come from small deeds, from small acts of kindness.
Because our lives are this way.
You know our lives work moment by moment and every moment we can do wholesomeness, we can do a good deed, we can do a bad deed.
Every moment there's an opportunity whether it be through generosity or morality or simply through meditation.
So our ethics, we don't have to have lofty ethics.
Ethics aren't about the principles themselves.
It's about the act.
It's about our state of mind and our momentary interaction with the world around us.
And meditation likewise.
Enlightenment isn't something that you jump to or you fall into or you break open.
It's not an instantaneous thing.
It comes step by step and moment by moment.
Every moment we have the opportunity to do good deeds, every moment that we're mindful, when you're mindful of the foot lifting, when you're mindful of the foot moving, when you're mindful of the foot placing, when you're mindful of the stomach rising, that one moment is a wholesome mind.
When you see that you're angry and you remind yourself, this is anger, it's not me, it's not mine, it's just anger.
When you see something and you remind yourself that scene,
Every time you do a good deed like this, when you're kind to someone, when you're generous, when you're compassionate, when you're helpful, when you're patient, when you get frustrated and impatient with people and then you remind yourself, impatient or frustrated, and as a result become more patient.
The power of this is not to be underestimated.
Because this is how true power comes about, not in a single bound, not by one great act.
You don't break through to become a good person.
goodness comes moment by moment it's something anyone can do because it's here and now and it's moment by moment this is what's so awesome about this path this practice Buddhism meditation it's not something lofty or difficult as difficult as it is it's just moments something you can do any moment every moment that you do a good deed
It's one step closer to the goal.
It's one step higher, step up on the ladder, bringing you higher, making you happier, bringing peace and clarity and freedom to you.
and to those around you.
The neat thing about this story that doesn't really come out in the verse is about encouraging others.
So not only should we encourage others to be generous, but even more importantly we should encourage others to be ethical and spiritual, contemplative.
We should encourage others to meditate, to better themselves, to not just be content to be an ordinary person, to get old, sick and die and have the world forget about them.
but to move forward and upward and to make use of the time that they have and the energy that they have and the life that they have to become to put it to some use to make it to have bring it to have value true value
So in encouraging others, we gain this extra support of having good people around us.
If you don't encourage others in goodness, well, you can be as good as you want.
Just not sure who you'll be surrounded by.
You'll often be surrounded by people who complain about it because they don't have the sense of the importance of goodness and they haven't had the taste of the fruit of goodness.
So you end up often being surrounded by people who don't understand goodness, who don't appreciate goodness, who don't have the clarity and the happiness that comes from goodness, and therefore surrounded often by miserable people.
We don't want that.
That's why it's very important to, when we do good deeds, to encourage other people in it and to work together to perform good deeds.
So anyway, that's the Dhammapada verse tonight.
One more teaching on good things, bad things, spiritual things.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Wishing you all good practice and success in practicing together in a good way.
Thank you.
Have a good night.