22. Gains of an Ascetic

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was renowned as a great teacher of the Vedas, and nearly five hundred pupils gathered around him to study under his guidance. Among them was one young student who, despite years of instruction, still felt the constant pull of worldly ambition and could not fully let go of his longing for wealth and comfort.

One day, unable to keep the question to himself any longer, he approached his teacher directly. “O holy one,” he asked, “how does a person truly find happiness in this world? What, in the end, does an ascetic actually gain by giving up everything else?”

The Bodhisattva smiled patiently at the question, recognising the doubt behind it. “My dear student,” he said, “at the close of his life, a true ascetic finds happiness in the wisdom and understanding he has gathered along the way, and in the quiet blessing that comes from having lived rightly. It is true that in this world – a world where many have forgotten the path of virtue – a man who slanders others, who bends and shifts his colours to suit whatever situation benefits him, and who speaks carelessly of evil things, may well succeed in gathering riches and comfort for a time. But when his mortal life finally ends, such a man finds only endless torment waiting for him, the price of every shortcut he took.”

The young student turned these words over in his mind for a long while afterward, and found that they had settled something in him that no amount of worldly ambition ever had. Not long after, he set aside his lingering doubts entirely and chose, of his own free will, to become an ascetic himself.

Moral: The gains of a virtuous life – wisdom and inner peace – outlast whatever material success might come from a life of deceit.

23. The Value of Forbearance

Word reached King Kalabu one afternoon that his queen had been seen in quiet conversation with a wandering ascetic in the royal park. Consumed instantly by jealous rage, the king stormed to the scene himself, drawing his sword the moment he laid eyes on the holy man seated peacefully beneath a tree. Only the queen's frantic pleading – assuring him the meeting had been entirely innocent – held his blade back from striking.

Still simmering with fury, the king rounded on the Bodhisattva instead. “Holy man! What is it you claim to teach, sitting here in my gardens?” he demanded.

“I teach the value of forbearance,” the Bodhisattva answered calmly, his composure unshaken by the sword still hovering near him. “I teach that a person should never lose their inner peace, even in the face of abuse or provocation.”

“Is that so?” the king sneered, a cruel idea forming behind his eyes. “Then let us see just how well you practise what you preach.” He ordered his men to strike the ascetic a hundred times with a thorned whip. Blow after blow tore into the Bodhisattva's back, yet through it all he remained silent and composed, his stillness only enraging the king further.

Furious that his cruelty had failed to break the ascetic's calm, King Kalabu went to a terrible extreme, ordering that the Bodhisattva's hands and feet be severed before him. “Now, holy man,” the king demanded, standing over him, “tell me again – what is it you teach?”

Even in that state, the Bodhisattva looked up at him without a trace of hatred and answered exactly as he had before: “The value of forbearance.”

Unable to comprehend a composure his cruelty could not touch, the king stormed away from the scene in frustrated defeat. He did not go far. On the road back to his palace, a sudden and violent bolt of lightning struck him down, and King Kalabu died where he fell – a swift and terrible end to a life of unchecked cruelty.

Moral: Forbearance held firm through even the cruellest provocation reveals a strength no violence can shake – while cruelty itself rarely goes unanswered.

24. The Foolish Son

In the city of Vaisali there once lived a royal barber, a devout and lifelong follower of the Buddha, who often brought his young son along when his duties called him to the palace. On one such visit, the boy caught sight of a young woman of the royal household, dressed in fine silks and ornaments, and was instantly and completely smitten. He resolved then and there that he would marry her, whatever it took.

His father, gentle but realistic, tried to explain that the girl belonged to the royal family and would never be permitted to marry a barber's son, however devoted his intentions. But the boy would not be reasoned with. He refused every meal set before him, refused even water, and lay in his bed consumed entirely by a longing that had no hope of being fulfilled. His parents pleaded, his relatives reasoned, but nothing could shake him from his fixation, and in time his refusal to eat or drink took its final, tragic toll – the heartbroken young man wasted away and died.

After performing the proper rites for his son, the grieving barber made his way to the Buddha, hoping to understand how such a thing could have happened to a boy who had wanted for nothing in his short life. The Buddha listened to his sorrow with quiet compassion, and then offered him the plain truth of it: “Your son died because he set his whole heart on something he could never rightfully have. It was not fate that took him, but his own inability to release a hope that was never his to hold.”

The barber could find no words to answer this. He could only weep, mourning not just the loss of his son, but the painful foolishness that had led him to it.

Moral: Setting one's heart entirely on something that can never be had leads only to needless suffering – wisdom lies in knowing when to let go.

25. The Compassionate Deer

In one of his forest lives, the Bodhisattva was born as a Sarabha – a rare and powerful kind of deer, said to carry the strength of a lion within the body of a graceful stag, along with a wisdom that surpassed even that of most men. Gentle by nature and kind to every creature in need, the Sarabha was well loved throughout the forest he called home.

One day a king, out hunting with his retinue, spotted the magnificent creature moving through the trees, and immediately gave chase with bow drawn and arrow ready. Though the Sarabha possessed more than enough strength to turn and fight, he had long ago vowed to avoid violence wherever possible, and so he ran instead, leading the king deep into unfamiliar forest, further and further from the safety of the palace.

The chase carried them at last to the edge of a wide, jagged chasm. The Sarabha, sure-footed and light, cleared it in a single graceful leap. The king's horse, heavier and less certain, could not manage the same distance – and both horse and rider tumbled down into the ravine below, landing hard among the rocks.

The Sarabha, hearing the crash and the king's cries of pain, could easily have continued on his way to safety. Instead, he turned back, climbed carefully down into the chasm, and used his own strength to help pull the shaken and injured king back up to solid ground.

Only then, face to face with the very creature he had been hunting only minutes before, did the king fully understand that this was no ordinary deer. Humbled by the mercy shown to him by an animal he had meant to kill, he knelt before the Sarabha and asked, with genuine sincerity, for his forgiveness.

Moral: Compassion shown even to one's pursuer reveals a strength greater than the power to fight or flee – and it can humble even a king.

26. The Power of Generosity

There once lived a wealthy man widely celebrated across his city for his boundless charity, never once turning away a beggar from his door. Living close by was a poor hermit known to everyone as the Silent Buddha – a title earned through years of deep enlightenment, though he chose, in his humility, never to preach aloud to others.

Once, this hermit entered a state of meditation so profound that he remained motionless for seven full days and nights, taking neither food nor water. When at last he emerged from his trance, hunger gnawed at him fiercely, and he made his way toward the rich man's house, as he had many times before, to ask for alms.

Watching all of this from the shadows was Mara, the God of Death, who had long resented the rich man's growing reputation for goodness. Determined to see the hermit starve and the rich man's charity fail at the crucial moment, Mara conjured a wall of blazing fire directly between the two men just as the rich man stepped forward to offer his gift of food.

The rich man did not hesitate, and he did not turn back. Trusting completely in the strength of a lifetime of good deeds, he walked directly into the flames – and emerged from the other side entirely unharmed, the fire having done him no harm at all. Without so much as a pause to catch his breath, he pressed on and placed the food into the Silent Buddha's waiting hands.

Mara, his scheme utterly defeated, vanished from the scene admitting defeat as he went: “Indeed, the power of true generosity is greater than anything I command.”

Moral: True generosity, when tested by fear itself, proves stronger than even the God of Death – and no obstacle can stand against a resolve rooted in genuine kindness.

27. The Teacher and the Student

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as Karandiya, a young Brahmin studying under a widely respected teacher in the city of Takshila. The teacher was a genuinely learned man, but he had one habit that wore thin on those around him – he preached moral instruction to absolutely everyone he encountered, whether or not they had asked for it, and whether or not the moment called for it at all.

One day, Karandiya set out with a group of fellow students on an errand to a nearby village. Along the way, their path took them past a rocky hillside dotted with small caves, and to the bewilderment of his companions, Karandiya stopped, picked up a handful of stones, and began hurling them one after another at the rock face, as though trying to knock the entire hillside flat.

His friends watched this strange behaviour with growing confusion but said nothing at the time. When they returned to Takshila, however, several of them could not resist mentioning it to the teacher, curious whether he might make sense of Karandiya's odd actions.

The teacher called Karandiya before him and asked him plainly to explain himself. Karandiya answered with a straight face and a pointed question of his own: “Master, if you believe it is within your power to make the entire world moral – lecturing every stranger you meet, whether they wish to listen or not – then why should it seem so strange that I might try to level an entire hillside with a handful of stones? Neither task, I think, is likely to succeed by such methods.”

The teacher fell silent, turning the comparison over in his mind, and recognised at once the truth in what his clever student had shown him. From that day forward, he set aside his habit of preaching indiscriminately to anyone within earshot, and reserved his wisdom instead for those who genuinely sought it.

Moral: Preaching endlessly at people who have not asked to hear it rarely changes anyone – sometimes the sharpest lesson is a mirror held up to the teacher himself.

28. The Power of Devotion

In one of his lives, the Bodhisattva was born as a Kinnara, one of the celestial musicians said to dwell between the world of gods and the world of men. Each summer, he would descend from the heavens with his beloved companion, Chanda, to spend the warm season together on the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains, filling the valleys with music and laughter.

One day, as the two of them played happily in a mountain stream, King Brahmadatta happened to pass by on a royal excursion. His eyes fell upon Chanda, singing and dancing in the sparkling water, and he was instantly captivated by her beauty. Guessing correctly that the Kinnara beside her was her husband, and unwilling to let any obstacle stand between himself and what he desired, the king raised his bow and shot the Kinnara where he stood, believing that with her husband dead, Chanda would have no choice but to accept him instead.

He could not have been more mistaken. Chanda dropped to her husband's side, wailing in grief that echoed through the mountains, utterly inconsolable. When King Brahmadatta approached and offered his love, hoping to console her, she turned on him with a fury that startled even his own attendants. “How could you imagine,” she cried, “that I would ever forgive the very man who murdered my husband before my eyes?”

Her grief was so complete, her cries so heartrending, that they are said to have reached all the way to the heavens, shaking the very throne of Sakka, king of the gods. Moved by such unwavering devotion, Sakka descended from his celestial realm, and by his divine power, restored the Bodhisattva to life – reuniting the two companions, and leaving King Brahmadatta to depart in shame at what his desire had so nearly cost.

Moral: Devotion so complete that it refuses even a king's offer of comfort can move the heavens themselves – and true love does not waver simply because the one it belongs to is gone.