PureInsight | July 9, 2006
[PureInsight.Org] During the
time of Jiaye Tathagata, there was a young monk who sang well. He
usually looked down upon the other monks while singing songs of praise
of the Buddha together with them. He believed that his voice was
superior to others with its clear, rich and deep qualities. He behaved
arrogantly and always demonstrated that he was extraordinary.
An old monk with hoarse voice couldn't sing songs of praises well. The
young monk always ridiculed this old monk and told him how disgusting
his voice was. He, of course, didn't know the old monk had already
attained the level of arhat.
One day, the old monk asked the young monk: "Do you know me?"
The young monk answered: "I have known you for a long time. You are the
old monk singing with a hoarse voice and make people uncomfortable."
The old monk said to him: "Although I can not sing well, I have already
freed myself from the bondage of life and death and have no worry in
this human world."
Upon hearing this, the young monk was panic-stricken and felt ashamed.
He pleaded forgiveness from the old monk. But the karma had already
been established. He had to suffer in the next five hundred
reincarnations for his abusive tongue.
Once, there were five hundred merchants who gathered together to go to
a distant place. One of them brought a dog with him for night watching.
On their way, the dog stole a piece of meat when the dog owner was
asleep. When the merchant woke up and saw what had happened, he was
very angry and beat the dog severely. He abandoned the dog after
breaking its leg.
Seeing that with his celestial eyes at this time, Buddha Myna came and
gave food and water to the dog and also imparted the Buddha Fa to the
dog. Upon hearing the Fa, the dog died right away and was reincarnated
to a Brahman family in City of Shewei.
One day when Buddha Myna was begging for food by himself, a Brahman saw
him and asked: "Honorable monk, are you here by yourself without a
young monk with you?"
Buddha Myna said: "You have a young boy. Could you give him to me to be my young monk?"
The Brahman answered: "The boy is only seven years old. Isn't he a little too young?"
Buddha Myra answered: "He is just the right age."
Because of the Buddha Myna's favor of giving food and imparting the
Buddha Fa, the dog reincarnated as a young monk to serve Buddha Myna to
repay him for saving his life.
The young monk was able to comprehend the Buddha Fa imparted to him by
Buddha Myna and thus obtained Attainment Status quickly. As he freed
himself, he realized the suffering of five hundred re-incarnations was
all because of his vicious slandering of the elder monk.
This story tells us: Even among fellow disciples, one cannot use one's
strength to compare oneself to others' shortcomings. That is because
you will never be able to measure other cultivator's levels of xinxing and understanding of the Fa principles with how many ordinary people' skills they have.
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2006/6/27/38280.html
