Miss Buddha Read Free

very
beginning, Ananda, that with all that is dear and beloved there
must be change, separation, and severance? Have I not said that all
that rises, comes into being, is conditioned, and subject to decay,
must—sometimes sooner, sometimes later—cease and dissolve?”
    “You have,” answered Ananda.
    “Also,” said the Buddha, “The Buddha does
not go back on his word, cannot go back on his word. In three
months’ time I shall attain final Nibbana.”
    Then he asked Ananda to assemble the Sangha
that he might address them again. Ananda did so.
    Once assembled, the Buddha again rose before
them, and thus standing—although this was an effort for his ailing
body—he exhorted them to learn and practice the Dhamma, the path to
enlightenment. “This holy life must endure, it must endure long,
for the welfare and happiness of many, out of compassion for the
world, for the good, welfare, and happiness of devas and
humans.”
    Then he said, “Three months from now the
Buddha’s Parinibbana will come to pass.”
    Then he offered a brief poem for their
contemplation:
     
    My years are now full ripe, the life span
left is short
    Departing, I shall leave you, relying on
myself alone.
    Be earnest then, monks, mindful and pure in
virtue!
    With firm resolve guard your own mind.
     
    One who in this Dhamma and Discipline
    Dwells in constant heedfulness
    Shall abandon the wandering on in birth
    And make an end to suffering.
     
    The normally many-tongued Sangha was all
quiet that evening. Few if any words were exchanged, each monk
anchored to his own vision of a world without the Buddha.
    The following morning the Buddha and the
Sangha left Vesali for the province of the Mallas, in the Himalayan
foothills.
    At the next resting place, the Buddha again
assembled his monks and addressed them on the subject of his
deepest concern. And again he stood up, the better to be heard:
    “Please remember this: When I am gone you
will meet those who purport to quote my words. What should you then
do? You should commit those words to memory and then seek
confirmation in the Vinaya or in the Suttas. If you cannot hear
them there, you must assume that they were wrongly learned—or
otherwise colored—by that person, and you should reject such words.
The Dhamma must remain pure, and only as I have taught it.”
    He then raised his arm and pointed, first
skyward, then seemingly to each and every monk and nun present.
    “Accept no teaching attributed to me that
you cannot verify as existing in the Vinaya or the Suttas. I cannot
tell you anything more important than this, for accepting such
false teaching as my teaching will surely destroy the Dhamma.”
    :
    One night nearly three months later, the
Buddha asked Ananda to follow him.
    “Where to, Master?”
    “There is a grove of sala-trees in Kusinara.
I want to go there.”
    Seeing the Buddha rising with effort—though
fending off Ananda’s offered hand—Ananda knew that it was now only
a matter of days, if not hours.
    Once they arrived, Ananda, finding a
suitable spot between two large sala trees and arranging there
several thick blankets just so, made for the Buddha a couch, its
head to the north. And here, as the Buddha lay down to rest, the
sala trees, even though out of season, blossomed and snowed their
flowers down upon him as a soft and fragrant blanket.
    Ananda sat down beside him.
    Now, other blossoms, from the heavenly coral
tree and from the very clouds themselves, drifted down from the sky
upon celestial music. The Buddha noticed, looked up and smiled.
Then he looked at his friend.
    “Ananda,” he said. “Is it not thus, that
Gotama Buddha is venerated and honored in the highest degree by
greetings and gifts?”
    “Yes,” said Ananda. “That is so, and has
always been so.”
    To this the Buddha answered, “Still,
whatever bhikkhu or bhikkhuni, layman or laywoman abides by the
Dhamma, lives uprightly in the Dhamma, walks in the way of the
Dhamma, he or she venerates and