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| Coming through, excuse me, please. |
As the nun Ven. Subha was going through Jivaka's delightful mango grove, a randy libertine, a goldsmith's wealthy son with sex on his mind, blocked her path. So she said to him:
"What wrong have I done to you
That you obstruct my way?
It is improper, friend,
That a man should touch
A female who has gone forth.
I hold dear the Master's message, this
Training pointed out by the Well-Gone One.
I am pure, without blemish, so
Why do you stand in my way?
"You with your mind agitated,
I with my mind at ease,
You full of aggravating passions,
I dispassionate, untainted,
With a mind in every way released,
Why do you stand in my way?"
[The man replied:]
"You're young and not ugly.
What need have you of going forth
[From a home to a left-home life]?
Cast off that [monastic] saffron robe.
Come, let's delight in the flowering forest!
They exude a sweetness all around,
Towering trees sending aloft their pollen.
The beginning of spring is a pleasant season.
Come, let's delight in the flowering forest!
The trees to their blossoming tips moan
As it were, in the warm breeze.
What delight will you have if you
Withdraw into the forest all alone?
Full of packs of wild beasts,
Disturbed by rutting elephants all aroused,
You want to venture unaccompanied
Into that big, lonely, frightening forest?
You're like a precious doll all of gold. Will you go
Whisking about a goddess in a heavenly garden?
With delicate, smooth Kasi fabrics,
You shine, O, beauty without compare!
You would have me under your spell
If we were to go into the woods together.
For there is no one dearer to me than you,
O nymph! I languish without you. If you
Do as I ask; come live happily in my house!
Dwell in the calm of a palace,
Have women wait on you,
Wear delicate Kasi cloth,
Adorn yourself with garlands and scents.
I will make for you ornaments
Of gold, jewel encrusted, with pearls.
Climb into my costly bed,
Perfumed with carved sandalwood,
With a clean coverlet, beautiful,
Overspread with a new woolen quilt.
You are a blue lotus rising from water
Where nature sprites dwell, yet you
Will come to old age limbs unseen
If you stay as you are living the pure life."
.
[She replied:]
"What essence do you see or assume
In this carcass that will swell the cemetery
Already overfilled with corpses,
This body that is destined to break up?
What do you see when you look at this,
You, man out of your mind?"
"Eyes like those of a deer,
Of a nymph in a mountain haunt,
Seeing your eyes delights my senses
And passion grows all the more.
They are like blue lotuses.
And your golden face is spotless.
Staring into your eyes delights my senses
And passion grows all the more.
Even if you run far, far away, I will
Always think your sweet long-lashed gaze,
For there is nothing dearer to me than your
Eyes, O nymph. I languish without you."
"You want to stray from the path.
You want the moon as your very own plaything.
You want to vault over Mount Meru.
You have designs on one born of the Buddha?
But there is nothing anywhere in all the world,
With its devas and men, that would for me
Any longer be an object of passion.
I do not even know what passion would be,
For it is slain, root and all, by the Path.
Like embers in a smoldering pit, scattered.
Like a cup of poison, evaporated.
I do not see what that passion would be
For it is slain, root and all, by the path.
Go seduce one who has not reflected on this,
One whom the Master has not yet instructed.
But try to seduce one who knows and
You do yourself violence.
For whether praised or insulted,
In pleasure or pain,
My mindfulness remains unbroken.
Knowing the unattractiveness
Of all formations, of all fabricated things,
My heart no longer clings to anything at all.
I am a student of the Well-Gone One,
Riding the vehicle of the Eightfold Way.
Passion's arrow removed, defilement-free,
I delight, having gone to a quiet dwelling.
For I have seen well-painted puppets
Yanked by sticks and strings,
Made to dance in foolish ways.
With sticks and strings removed,
Cast away, dispersed, shredded,
Smashed to pieces, nowhere to be found,
Within what will the mind make its home?
This body, which is just like that,
Devoid of necessities no longer functions.
Devoid of necessities, it no longer functions.
Within what will the mind make its home?
Like a mural smeared on a wall,
Painted with golden pigments,
Your vision is all distorted, perverted.
Your perception is meaningless, seeing
A human being, an evaporating mirage,
A tree of gold in a dream,
A magic show in the midst of a crowd —
You run blindly after what is unreal.
Resembling a ball of wax set in a hollow,
With a bubble in the middle
And bathed in tears, the filth of the eye
Secreted there, too; the parts of the eye
All rolled together in various ways."
Plucking out her eye with mind detached
She felt no regret.
"Here, it's yours, this eye. Keep it."
Then and there she handed it to him.
Then and there his passion was extinguished.
And he begged her forgiveness.
[He said:] "Be safe, pursuer of the pure life.
This sort of thing shall not happen again.
To harm a person like you would be to
Embracing a blazing fire. It is as if
I have seized a venomous snake.
So may you be safe and forgive me."
 |
| The drishti of your virtue restores me. |
No longer detained, the nun Subha went in
Search of the Buddha's. When she beheld
The mark of his excellent merit, her
Eye became just as it was before.
Source 
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