The Blind Thera

[yawares]

Dear Members,

The Blind Thera
[Translated from the Pali by Daw Mya Tin, M.A.]

While residing at the Jetavana monastery in Savatthi, the Buddha uttered Verse (1) of this book, with reference to Cakkhupala, a blind thera.

On one occasion, Thera Cakkhupala came to pay homage to the Buddha at the Jetavana monastery. One night, while pacing up and down in meditation, the thera accidentally stepped on some insects. In the morning, some bhikkhus visiting the thera found the dead insects. They thought ill of the thera and reported the matter to the Buddha. The Buddha asked them whether they had seen the thera killing the insects. When they answered in the negative, the Buddha said, "Just as you had not seen him killing, so also he had not seen those living insects. Besides, as the thera had already attained arahatship he could have no intention of killing and so was quite innocent." On being asked why Cakkhupala was blind although he was an arahat, the Buddha told the following story:

Cakkhupala was a physician in one of his past existences. Once, he had deliberately made a woman patient blind. That woman had promised him to become his slave, together with her children, if her eyes were completely cured. Fearing that she and her children would have to become slaves, she lied to the physician. She told him that her eyes were getting worse when, in fact, they were perfectly cured. The physician knew she was deceiving him, so in revenge, he gave her another ointment, which made her totally blind. As a result of this evil deed the physician lost his eyesight many times in his later existences.

Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:

Verse 1: All mental phenomena have mind as their forerunner; they have mind as their chief; they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with an evil mind, 'dukkha' follows him just as the wheel follows the hoofprint of the ox that draws the cart.

At the end of the discourse, thirty thousand bhikkhus attained arahatship together with Analytical Insight (Patisambhida).

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Love Buddha's dhamma,
yawares/sirikanya

[orangejuicecampfire]

so beautiful that all of it is emptiness, yet i see the buddha appearing now next to me, and yet he is only a bottle of listerine... and though i wash my mouth, of what, there is no mouth, there are no words, there is nothing, and yet there is so much love... love itself seems dependent neither on existence nor nonexistence. in love there can be no harm.
though we do not understand, we must only remember all things are nothingness, yet for no reason we act with kindness, why? it makes no sense, and yet we do it...
though there is no other, still we do not enter into even the illusion of death of an illusion, it grows and grows, and in the growth there is nibbana,

but if cut off, what then? what then?

it makes no sense, yet we preserve it, again now, there is a monk...
appearing there, in the floor...
at the gateway, to senselessness and harmlessness

laughing sutra... these thoughts are comforts, this compassion is of another sort
though it is all empty...

there is another kind of enlightenment from this art of seeming to be

that ends suffering... the food we eat, the warmth we feel, the love between friends
it is true, we run from true emptiness,
only feeling the distance breeze it makes...
we love this life, in it we suffer and find joy alike,
but by the buddhas truth this is not different from having shunned it all
this is a sign of right practice, that we are okay

there is no explaining how it is here truly, it simply is...
and even if it is not, how blessed that it does seem to be,
and when it fades, blessed that it leave no emptiness, but only a lightness
for it is the body too that fades, and only the heart-mind-spirit left behind
which needs nothing external, for everything is the pure energy

[yawares]

Dear" orangejuicecampfire",

Thanks for your beautiful article
yawares