Miss Buddha Read Free Page A

honors the Buddha in a higher
degree still. Truly, I ask for no higher reverence than this.”
    Ananda nodded that he agreed, while, again,
silently engaging his fear and grief.
    “Do not sorrow, Ananda,” said the Buddha, as
always noticing. “Have I not told you many times that everything
changes and vanishes? How could something that has come into being
not be destroyed? For a long time, Ananda, you have attended on the
Buddha, gladly, sensitively, sincerely, and without reserve, with
deeds, speech, and thoughts of loving-kindness. You have made great
merit, Ananda. Keep on striving and soon you will be free from all
cankers.”
    While Ananda bowed his head in
acknowledgement, the Buddha went on to say, “All the Buddhas of the
past had such excellent attendants, and all future Buddhas will,
too.”
    Shortly after this the Buddha fell asleep,
while Ananda stayed awake by his side, watching the sala tree
blossoms drift to earth to kiss the Blessed One.
    Gotama Buddha slept a deep and peaceful
sleep that night.
    The following day, the day of his Death, the
Buddha gave some final instructions to the gathered monks. “Do not
think, bhikkhu, that after I am gone you no longer have a teacher,
for the Dhamma and Vinaya will be your teachers.”
    Then the Buddha said nothing for many hours
while the monks waited in silence.
    Toward evening the Buddha arose once more.
He looked at Ananda and smiled, then at the gathering of silent
monks. Then he said:
    “Now, monks, I declare this to you: It is
the nature of all conditioned things to vanish. Do your utmost.
Meditate diligently and do your utmost to reach your goal.”
    And those were the last words Gotama Buddha
spoke.
    At that, the Buddha laid back down, closed
his eyes and entered through the four Jhanas into the formless
spheres of meditative absorption, until he attained the stage of
cessation of perception and feeling.
    Then he entered these nine stages of
concentration in reverse order, back to the first Jhana.
    Again he rose through the four Jhanas, and
during his absorption in the fourth Jhana he passed away.
    :
    The sala-tree grove glimmered below. Gotama
Buddha took one last look at Ananda, mute with grief now that he
knew his master had left, and told him in a small breeze of love
that he would soon follow, that Ananda himself would reach Nibbana
soon, and shortly thereafter his own Parinibbana.
    Ananda nodded that he had heard and that he
had understood.
    Soon the sala-tree grove was nothing but a
bright speck upon the Earth below, and then the Earth turned blue
and white with ocean and cloud and soon it, too, was gone in the
starry dust of galaxies.
    The gates to the Tusita heaven swung open,
and Gotama Buddha entered once more.
    :
    This should have been a time of rest for the
Gotama Buddha. It should have been many a Tusita day of
well-deserved contemplation of a job well done. But he could not
rest, for in his heart he still feared that the Dhamma was not
secure, that he had not taught it well enough, that he had not
sufficiently clarified it. He feared that the Dhamma was not well
enough understood, not even by his closest friends, and that it
would not withstand the ravages of time.
    He well knew the frailties and follies of
men. He well knew the compulsive importance they attached to the
self. He knew how they valued—and sometimes even preferred—opinion
above truth, guessing above looking. He knew that such men—and they
were in the vast majority—would shape the Dhamma to fit their own
notions of what it should be rather than seeing what it was. These
men would adopt opinions—their own and others’—rather than seeing
for themselves. That was the biggest threat to the Dhamma.
    Thus he worried, and could not cease to
worry.
    And so it was not long before the Gotama
Buddha again left for the Earth—for he simply had to see for
himself how the Dhamma had fared in the troubled world below since
his death as the Buddha.
    This time the Gotama Buddha