TEACHING IN ANCIENT FABLES

Fable 13

A man living near a cemetery heard one night a voice calling him from a grave. He was too timid to investigate it himself but the next day he mentioned it to a brave friend, who made up his mind to trace the place whence the voice came from the following night.

While the timid man was trembling with fear, his friend went to the cemetery and, sure enough, the same voice was heard issuing from a grave. The friend asked who it was and what it wanted. The voice from under the ground replied: “I am a hidden treasure that has decided to give myself to someone. I offered it to a man last night but he was too timid to come after it, so I will give it to you who are worthy of it. Tomorrow morning I will come to your house with my seven followers.”

The friend said: “I will be waiting for you, but please tell me how I am to treat you.” The voice replied: “We will come in monk’s robes. Have a room ready for us with water; wash your body and clean the room, and have seats for us and eight bowls of rice-porridge. After the meal, you are to lead us one by one into a closed room in which we will transform ourselves into crocks of gold.”

The next morning this man washed his body and cleaned the room just as he had been told and waited for the eight monks to appear. In due time they appeared and he received them courteously. After they had eaten the food he led them one by one into the closed room, where each monk turned himself into a crock full of gold.

There was a very greedy man in the same village who learned of the incident and wanted the crocks of gold. He invited eight monks to his house. After their meal he led them into a closed room, but instead of turning themselves into crocks of gold, they became angry and rough and reported the greedy man to the police who eventually arrested him.

As for the timid man, when he heard that the voice from the grave had brought wealth to the brave man, he went to the house of the brave man and greedily demanded the gold, insisting that it was his, because the voice first addressed him. When the timid man tried to take the crocks away he found lots of snakes inside raising their heads ready to attack him.

The king heard about this and ruled that the crocks belonged to the brave man and uttered the following observation: “Everything in the world goes like this. Foolish people are avaricious for good results only, but are too timid to go after them and, therefore, are continually failing. They do not have either faith or courage to face the internal struggles of mind by which alone true peace and harmony can be attained.”

The above TEACHING IN ANCIENT FABLES is taken from THE TEACHING OF BUDDHA. May all who reads this article gain in wisdom and be well and happy. Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!

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