“That’s wrong, oh Blessed One! Judge this seriously!”

“Yeah, Ananda hasn’t returned in three days! The whore must’ve won over him!”

“Oh, Shakyamuni! Worldly desires are like drinking the dripping honey of a beehive while the bees of suffering sting! Ananda will be again overcome by lust if we do not stop him!”

“It’s too late anyway, he must’ve been corrupted much before, so the lord sent him away! We shouldn’t await his arrival any longer.”

“Oh Blessed One! Please do not abandon brother Ananda!”

“It’s too late anyways, I saw him sitting and talking earnestly to that woman!”

“Yeah, even I saw him dancing with the woman in their abode! Oh lord, why did you let a prostitute take away Ananda? Wasn’t he your best disciple?”

“Oh Shakyamuni, why let misery rule Ananda’s life, why let lust ruin him? He was the best amongst us bhikkus, earnestly following the eight-fold path to nirvana, yet now he lost his way!”

“Answer us oh great teacher, why abandon Ananda like this?”

With the cries getting louder and louder, the Lion among Shakyas sitting under the tree dressed in a loin cloth, immersed in meditation, opened his eyes and smiled. Then he said, “You may throw dirt at a human and he will get dirty, but throw it on burning flames, the fire doesn’t get dirty. The dirt burns up!”

Saying so, he looked straight, and as the disciples followed his sight, they saw Ananda, with the woman together coming to them. Both dressed like the bhikkhus; the woman fell to the feet of Ananda’s Master, saying “Oh Tathagatha! Lead my sinful self to nirvana, for I have realized the fruitlessness of my lust and actions!”

Smiling, he blessed her as his new disciple.

(retelling of a Buddhist legend)


© iamjusta_storyteller