On an alms round, a devout lay follower made an offering to a monk, but not all of it could not fit into the monk’s alms bowl. So the monk said that the rest of the offering could be placed in his monk bag. Reluctant, the layperson asked if you could still get merit if the offering wasn’t placed in the alms bowl. The monk replied, yes, because merit earned has no correlation to the container. Rather, merit depends on the heart of the giver.
On his way back to the temple, the monk was reminded of a story about how giving alms to the homeless brings you to heaven while giving alms to an arahant brings you to hell (arahant is someone who has attained nibbana, or ultimate liberation from rebirth). The story goes like this:
A homeless woman was pregnant and wanted to eat royal food. So the homeless husband had to figure out a way to procure the food for his wife. He dressed as a monk in saffron robes and went to the gates of the royal palace as if on a typical alms round. The king saw the monk and was very impressed with the monk’s tranquil, collected demeanor. He thought, this serene monk must surely be an arahant. In actuality, the homeless man was being extra cautious because he was scared of being caught in his lie. The king jubilantly offered royal cuisine to the imposter and told his chief advisor to follow the monk to see what temple he resided at, so that he could later visit to venerate him.
After receiving the royal delicacies the homeless man left the royal palace, with the advisor trailing behind him. At the edge of the palace walls, the imposter pulled off the saffron robes and ran into the forest. The advisor was shocked at what he saw. The serene, respectable monk was actually not a monk at all?
Upon returning to the palace, the king ecstatically asked his advisor where the monk’s temple was. The advisor didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t burst the king’s bubble. So he said, “He doesn’t live at a temple. At the edge of the palace walls, he just disappeared into thin air.” The king was even more impressed with the incredible merit he had performed with the monk who possessed supernatural powers.
On his death bed, the king warmly recollected the past merit he had performed with the special monk and when he died he went straight to heaven. Some time later, the king’s advisor himself became the new king. As a monk who was actually a paccekabuddha (a self-enlightened Buddha who does not teach dhamma) came on an alms round, the new king thought, “I will not be fooled twice by the calm demeanor of beggars. This man must be a monk impostor, for look at how serene he is.” The new king proceeded to collect rotten fruit and food scraps to put in the monk’s alms bowl. Upon the new king’s death, he went straight to the depths of hell.
Thus, giving alms to a homeless man brings you to heaven, and giving alms to a monk brings you to hell!
This story was entertaining because the conclusion contradicts that which we are usually taught. We are told that giving alms to a homeless man cannot compare to that of giving alms to a monk who practices dhamma correctly, let alone the incredible merit gained from giving alms to a paccekabuddha. At the end of the sermon, Mae Yo asked, “What could the advisor have done so that he wouldn’t have gone to hell?”
The answer is the same as always: perception. It wasn’t about the act of giving alms, but more about the mindset that the king’s advisor held. After realizing he had been deceived by the monk impostor, the advisor formed the permanent view that someone dressed in monks robes with a calm disposition must be a fraud posing as a monk. So when he saw a calm monk, the advisor assumed he was an imposter straight away. As a result, instead of achieving a monumental amount of merit from giving alms to a paccekabuddha, the advisor committed an egregious act that destined him straight to hell. If he had truly understood impermanence, the perception he held would have been more flexible. Ok, one time he was fooled. But that doesn’t mean that calmness indicates duplicity every single time.
In fact calm and collected demeanor is neither a defining character of a monk, nor is it directly linked to a monk’s level of practice or acheivement. Luang Por Thoon always preached on the four types of practitioners:
1. Shallow water, shallow shadow
2. Shallow water, deep shadow
3. Deep water, shallow shadow
4. Deep water, deep shadow
Deep or shallow water indicates the level of actual dhamma practice attained, while the shadow indicates what appears to be the level of dhamma attained. Sometimes a calm demeanor belongs to a monk who people believe is an arahant but who has not actually acheived any true dhamma (shallow water, deep shadow). Sometimes a fun and playful monk is the actual arahant (deep water, shallow shadow). Thus we cannot use shadows to determine how deep or shallow the water actually is.
It is our wrong views that create problems for us. Anytime we believe in permanence, we are destined to experience suffering. To erase our wrong views we must feed ourselves evidence of why our views are not always true, do not hold for all cases, or any other terms that indicate impermanence. Once we see how our wrong views create harmful problems for us and once we understand that the truth is that our views are impermanent, we will begin to think correctly and stop reaping negative results.
Thursday I went to a dept. store to get a battery replacement for a watch I’d bought from there. I allowed my perception of what I thought was going to happen to be negatively colored by the negative experience someone else had had attempting the same thing. I had my best arguments ready to counter her foreseen insolence. To my surprise, the saleslady, very courteously, said she knew the type of battery,they had one in stock and she would indeed install it for me. She not only installed it but did it for free! I tipped her anyway. This is an example of how wrong perception (All sales people are the same.)can negatively affect my relationships with others.
Friday , on the way home from work, I stopped by a store to pick up a couple of ingredients I needed to make my version of fried rice.(Yum!) While in the check out line I spied these huge, delicious looking pieces of cake. The one labeled “Choco Cake” was really calling out to me: “Eat me, eat me” it said, “You know you want to!” So I bought it. I mean, even though I’ m trying to lose weight, who was I to stand in the way of this piece of cake fulfilling it’s ultimate destiny? I started to walk out of the store, and heard a chorus of tiny voices piping: “Buy us to, we taste just as good as that one!” “Yea, I even taste like chicken, You know you like that.” But I found the strength to continue home. home I ooured a tall, cold glass of milk and took a bite of that cake. Wow ! The cake was stale and dry and wasnt’t really chocalate at all, but some type of gingerbread concoction. I needed the milk just to swallow what I’d bitten off.(Not yummy)
This is another incident in my life where false perception got me in trouble.
I love this story! Many times we get mad at objects and people for tricking us or for making a promise and not delivering on it. The challenge in dhamma practice is realizing that we were willingly duped by our own perception, and that no matter how convincing something or someone appears to be, it only appears that way. We’re the one who interprets and buys into the so-called advertising.