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| Who stole my babies? Where are my eggs! |
It's the first day of summer (in our time California zone). It's the longest day of the year and we want to spend it meditating. But the city is so noisy and busy that it makes serenity seem like a far off dream. We want to go to the beach or, at least, the beach of the mind.
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| What must have that meditation been like? |
There was that one time, once upon a time in Ancient India (Jambudivpa), when the Bodhisattva (the Buddha-to-be) set off on a merchant ship with a merchant friend. The ship came to destruction by storm, but he and his friend survived on a faraway deserted isle. The Bodhisattva found a tree to sit under, while the merchant tried to figure out a way to get off the island and back to business. As he was combing the beach, he noticed that birds used it as a rookery. And he began to steal their eggs and eat them. The Bodhisattva, now a castaway, entered a deep meditative absorption, and the good terrestrial devas could not bear to see a good person such as this come to harm in the wilderness. So by their advanced technological (read "magical") powers they made a ship to appear on the shore to pick him up. The merchant saw the ship docking and ran to it to board, now saved. But the devas, knowing him to be a wrongdoer, a killer of birds by way of eating eggs, would not let him board. The Bodhisattva emerged from his meditation and approached the ship. The devas invited him on board by a plank extending to the beach. As he approached, he invited his merchant friend to get on board. And as he did, the devas said to him, "It is your good fortune to have a friend such as him. It is your good fortune to be in his company because we did not come for you, but as he invites you are welcome on board." And so ends another Jataka Tale by revealing that in that past life, the Bodhisattva was the [being who became] the Buddha and the merchant was another person present at the recounting of this Rebirth Tale.
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