106. The Story of Infatuation with an Unmarried Girl of Marriageable age
While the compassionate Buddha was living in Jetavana monastery, he disclosed this story regarding a monk who was infatuated with an unmarried girl of marriageable age. The incident will come in detail in the Jataka story of Culla-Ndrada-Kassapa in the thirteenth book [No. 477].
[There was a girl who thought, “Nobody has asked for me. Therefore it would be good to persuade a monk suitable to me. Then I can ask him to disrobe and be with him. Thinking so, she selected a young monk who was not strongly devoted to monkhood. One day while her mother was preparing food for alms, she saw such an attractive young monk and invited him to her house for alms. There she offered him food. She said to the monk, “Sir, from now on do not go elsewhere for alms. Please come here every day.” Since then, he started to go there and he became more familiar with her.
One day her mother said, “There is no one to inherit my wealth at home as I have no son or nephew.” On hearing these words, his mind was changed. Her mother said, “Now is the time that you can persuade this monk.” And she did it by showing him her feminine wiles. She persuaded him, and he determined to disrobe. He slept with her lust, not with her body. After, though, he went to his teacher and disclosed the situation of his mind and informed his master that he had disrobed. Then the teacher took him to the Buddha. The Buddha told him that he was not only infatuated in this life, but also in a past life.]
The Buddha summoned the monk and asked whether it was true that he had become infatuated with a woman. He said, “Yes, sir.” Then the Buddha asked, “Bhikkhu, with what type of a woman have you become infatuated?” He responded, “Your lordship, I have become infatuated with a woman who has never associated with a man, and who has spent her entire young life alone. Such a person is the one who has attracted my mind.”
Then the Buddha said, “Bhikkhu, this woman will bring harm to you. Not only in this life, even in a previous life you have violated your celibate life and wandered trembling on account of her. Because of association with wise people, you again came to happiness.” And the Buddha disclosed the story of his past:
Long ago in the past when a king called Brahmadatta ruled in Benares, there was a recluse who was the Bodhisatta who lived in the forest with his son. Once the recluse went out to collect fruit, and he then returned in the evening and saw that his son had done no chores at home. He asked his son, “My son, since we came to this forest you always brought firewood and drinking water and you always made a fire. But today you have done nothing. Why are you so upset?” Then the son said, “My dear father, after you left the hermitage there came a woman who captured my mind. She wants me to go with her, but I did not go thinking that I had to get permission from you first. I made her wait for me on the way. Please give me permission to go now.”
On hearing these words the Enlightenment Being thought, “Now it is not easy to stop him.” He said, “If so, you can go, son. But whenever this woman bothers you, saying all the time that she would like you to bring her meat, fish, sesame oil, salt, and rice, remind yourself of my meritorious qualities and come back and live here with me.” Then the son left for the city with her.
After coming to the city, the woman showed the young man her lures. Whenever she needed something like meat or fish, she would persuade him to bring them. He could not refuse her. When she did like this, the son thought, “This woman bothers me requesting this and that, thinking I am a servant.” And he became depressed, left her and went back to his father’s hermitage.
He paid respect to his father and said, “My honorable father, I lived with you content. I was so infatuated by a woman, I let her lead me away. There, at her home, she bothered me requesting this and that all the time. She used me as if a bucket that would take water from a well, as if a cup that takes water from a jug. This woman was a trickster, deceiving me with sweet words and lustful promises, and by these means fooling me as a young lad to do all her bidding.” He detailed all her bad qualities to his father.
Then the Enlightenment Being comforted him and said, “Okay, my son. Come back and stay here. And from now on, think of her with loving kindness and be compassionate toward her.” Saying so, he taught him the four sublime states of mind on which to meditate.
The ascetic son developed his mind though that meditation and gained the five knowledges and eightfold concentrations, and lived with his father. In due course of time, he was born in the Brahma realm with his father.
Buddha, the master, disclosed this Dhamma sermon covering the four noble truths, which are the noble truth of unhappiness, the noble truth of the cause for unhappiness, absence of the cause of unhappiness, and the path leading to the attainment of enlightenment. In this way, he finalized the story of this Udancani, this bucket that would take water from a well. At the end of the preaching, the upset monk attained the stream entrance state of mind. He became a Sotapanna.
At that time, the unmarried girl of marriageable age was the same as today. The ascetic son was the monk who became upset. The ascetic was the Buddha of the present.
The moral: “Beauty is skin deep.”
106. The Story of Infatuation with an Unmarried Girl of Marriageable age
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頂禮 H.H. 第三世多杰羌佛- 眾善奉行 