This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Stories of Awakening and Wisdom with Leigh Brasington (4 of 4). It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Leigh Brasington at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
So tonight’s story is a bit different from the previous. This is a Mahayana story. It comes from the story of the 84 Mahasiddhas.1 Maha is great, and siddhi is magical power. So it’s usually translated something like “the Great Adepts.” Some of them very definitely had magical powers, and we’ll see what shows up in this story.
This is not the official story. I had a book that had maybe 50 or 60 of the stories in it, and this was the best story to tell. Some of the stories were interesting, but to tell them as a story wouldn’t really work. But this one, this one’s a good story. But I wanted to tweak it a bit. As a storyteller, you hear a good story and it’s like, “Oh, that’s a good story. I’m going to tell that story, but I’m going to fix it up.” Well, that’s what I did. So this has been modified from the original, but hopefully, you’ll find it interesting.
Now, one thing I do want to say before I start: if I’m telling a story to people, it’s very nice to see the people I’m telling a story to. The majority of you do not have your video on. If it works for you, then you can smile, and if you’re confused, you can look confused. It just makes it a little nicer for me if I’m telling a story to people rather than rectangles.
Once upon a time, a long time ago in India, there were two kingdoms. The border between these two kingdoms was a river, and the river was the lifeblood of both countries. When the monsoon came on time, both countries flourished. If the monsoon was late or weak, both countries suffered. But things had gotten along fairly well for many decades, until a new king came to the kingdom across the river.
When the monsoon failed one year, the new king decided he was going to take all the water he wanted for his kingdom, and the kingdom on this side of the river would just have to make do. So he had his engineers build a diversion channel. This was really bad for the kingdom on this side of the river because suddenly they were getting far less water. There wasn’t that much water to start with, and then all of a sudden they were getting even less.
The king gathered his army, because this might get a little contentious, and went to see the other king. Actually, he tried sending messengers at first, but the messengers were sent back with a message that basically said, “Tough.” So the king decided this was going to be more than tough. He got his army together and figured he would go and the army would allow him to destroy the diversion, and then it would flow equally for both kingdoms.
But the new king on the other side of the river was well prepared for this. When the king from this side of the river showed up, it was an ambush. It was a slaughter, and the king was killed along with a number of his soldiers. The remnants fled back to the capital city, and the crown fell to the Crown Prince, who was only 20 years old.
He had to do something for his people, but he was actually quite brilliant. He came up with a plan. He got the remnants of the army together—it was now quite small, much smaller than before—and they rode once again to where the diversion was. Only this time, they knew that there was a trap, and they didn’t fall into it. They fought well enough so that they could withdraw and the other army would pursue them.
The other army pursued the army from this side of the river into a box canyon, a box canyon that had been prepared by the new king. It had a little fortification at the end where it dead-ended. When the other army rushed into the canyon, the new king’s army slipped behind the fortification, and many other people from this kingdom were stationed on the heights and also set off a landslide. They closed the exit. Those stationed on the heights had bows and arrows, and the army and the king from the other side of the river were trapped.
The new king stood behind the wall and called out to the king on the other side and said, “You must throw down your weapons and dismount your horses, or you will all die. Look at the heights. We have soldiers up there that you can’t do anything about, and they will rain enough arrows on you that you will all die.”
Well, the other king was like, “Come on, we can do this,” but his soldiers were a little smarter. They didn’t want to all die and recognized what a terrible situation they were in. One by one, they began dismounting from their horses and throwing down their weapons, until the avalanche of surrender took over the army from the other side of the river.
Then the king said to the people, “You may walk out of here. You can climb over the landslide. You can’t ride your horses out, obviously, but you can climb over the landslide.” So the army began climbing over the landslide without their horses and without their weapons. They were greeted by other people from the kingdom on this side of the river who directed them back towards where the diversion was. The king and his soldiers slipped out as well and mounted up on horses that had been brought for them, and they herded the army back to where the diversion was and had the army destroy the diversion.
The new king said to the king on the other side, “This is what justice is like. We could have killed you all and taken all of your water, but that would not be fair to your people. We’re going to allow you to live. Don’t you ever do something like this again, or we will destroy you.”
The king on the other side of the river had lost face. The people lost faith in him. He was a fairly ineffective ruler after that. But the new king on this side of the river gained great support and was honored by his people. They appreciated what he did. And when the monsoon came the next year, it was prosperity for both kingdoms. In fact, it continued to be prosperous. People were quite pleased with the new king. His father had been a good king, but the new king had a deeper humanitarian spirit and was really taking care of his people.
Four years into his reign, a troop of low-caste acrobats came to town. These acrobats were very good, and it wasn’t long before they were invited to the central square just below the palace. They were performing at lunchtime. The king had gone back to his private quarters, and he heard the cheering down below. He looked out the window and saw this really amazing troop of acrobats doing all these amazing things.
Among the acrobats was a dancer. She was an acrobatic dancer. She was astonishingly beautiful, and she moved in ways that no one had ever seen before. The king was entranced. During their whole performance, he never took his eyes off of her.
When the performance was over, he sent for the leader of the acrobats. In a short time, the leader of the acrobats was shown into the throne room. The king was seated on his throne, and the leader came in and bowed to the king. The king praised him for the wonderful show and how athletic and acrobatic and beautiful the show was. Then the king said, “The dancer… she was the best.”
The leader of the acrobats smiled and said, “She’s my daughter.”
And the king said, “I wish her to stay here with me.”
A look of horror came over the leader of the acrobat’s face. Not only did the king want to take his daughter away from him—remember, these are from the lowest class, the king is of the highest class—the leader of the acrobats stutters out, “But… but… but union between your people and my people is not allowed. That would be…” He didn’t really have words for it.
The king said, “Come closer.” He reached into a box right next to the throne, flipped the lid over, grabbed a handful of jewels, grabbed the pocket of the leader of the acrobats, and stuffed it full of jewels. The acrobats left town very quickly right after that, minus a member of the troop.
That evening, after he had finished his duties, the king goes to the room where his very faithful and trusted servants had installed the dancer. He stepped through the curtain. The dancer is still wearing the same costume. She’s standing at the window, looking out. She doesn’t move when the king steps into the room. The king clears his throat. She glances over her shoulder and says, “What do you want?”
Well, we know what the king wanted. He wasn’t used to being spoken to like that. He kind of stammered, “Uh, you… you haven’t changed into the nice clothes that we have for you lying there on the bed. Why didn’t you change into these beautiful clothes?”
She whirled around, faced him, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Union between your type and my type is not allowed. If anyone finds out I’m in your private quarters, it will go very, very badly for both of us. You will have to keep me penned up here like a caged bird. I don’t want to be your caged bird.”
The king had never been spoken to like that. “I… I’m the king. I can get you anything that you want. What would you like?”
A slight smile crossed her face. She said, “I want my freedom.”
“Uh… besides that?”
“I want my freedom. I’ve seen more of your kingdom than you ever will. I’ve seen more of the neighboring kingdoms than you ever will. I don’t want to be chained up here like a caged bird.”
“But that’s not going to happen. What else do you want?”
The dancer dropped her gaze. She looked down. The smile crept over her face. She said, “I want to learn to read.”
Well, this was an astonishing request. Women didn’t learn to read. People of the lowest caste didn’t learn to read. And certainly, women of the lowest caste would never learn to read. The king is like, “Uh…” He’s trying to think of what to say, what he can do.
She sneers at him. “Yeah, some all-powerful king you are. You may leave now.”
The king didn’t know what to do, so he left. But as I said, he was a wise ruler. He pondered his options. He certainly couldn’t ask anyone from the court to teach this low-caste woman to read. The moment anyone found out that he had a low-caste woman in his private quarters, it would just be too weird. There was nobody in his whole court that he could ask that of. I mean, even his most trusted servants, they didn’t know how to read. What to do?
He pondered it the whole of the evening. He was very late going to bed, but the next morning he was up bright and early, and he was in the palace kitchen for the first time since he’d become king. Now, when he was the prince, a young boy, he would often go early to the kitchen, hang out with the cooks, eat some food. They would give him the nicest whatever there was in the kitchen, and he had friends among the cooks and the servants down there. He hadn’t been down there since he was king.
When he showed up, everybody was like, “Oh, Your Majesty, Your Majesty, it’s so great to see you. Thank you for coming to visit. Would you like some…?” And they started shoveling food at him. He apologized for not coming sooner. He talked about how he had so many duties, but it had just been too long, and he really wanted to see his friends. He was standing suspiciously close to the outside door, though.
After about 20 minutes, this group of well-shaven-headed ascetics wearing orange robes showed up with begging bowls. The king did something he hadn’t done since he was a boy. He took the pot of food that was for the recluses’ alms round and picked it up himself. He went up to the line of Buddhist monastics and began to serve each of them. He said very quietly to the first one, “Please tell your abbot I need to speak with him. I will come to your monastery shortly after midday.”
The head monk nodded very slightly. The king filled everyone’s begging bowl completely full until there was no food left in the pot that had been set aside for recluses. All the monks and the two nuns at the end of the line left, and the king went back to joking and having fun with all of the people in the kitchen for another 20 minutes or so. Then he said, “We must be going. We have many things to do.” And everybody said, “Please come back again soon. Please come back.” The king promised, “I will come back. I will not go so long before I come and visit you again. It’s so nice to see all my friends down here.” And he left.
It was a very busy day. Kings have many things they have to do. It was almost midday before he got a break. When he got a break, most people would eat a meal, take a nap. The king went back to his private quarters. He changed out of his royal garments into ordinary worker’s clothes. He looked like an ordinary person. He snuck out of the palace through the secret passageway he had discovered as a young boy. He comes up in a dark alley, nobody sees him. He’s got his cloak sort of hiding the bottom half of his face, and he leaves the city.
He walks about a quarter mile or so out of the city to the Buddhist monastery. He comes to the gate, there’s a monk there. He pulls his cloak down and says, “I need to speak to the abbot.” The monk bows, “Just come with me.” He takes him into a room, offers him a seat, and disappears. The king does not sit down; he’s standing there, pacing slightly.
A couple of minutes later, the door opens again, and in comes the abbot. The king knew who the abbot was. These Buddhists on the edge of town, they were well known. They seemed like really nice people. The abbot comes in and says, “Oh, great king, what are you doing here? How come you’ve come to see us?”
The king says, “I have a favor to ask.”
“Oh, what could we do for you?”
“You don’t believe in the caste system, do you?”
“No, no, we know everybody is equal. Anyone can wake up. The caste system is not good.”
“And you have people who can read, right?”
“Oh yes, yes, all of us can read. The nuns can read too.”
“Yes, yes, all of us. Just as I thought. Venerable sir, there’s a member of my household who needs to learn to read.”
The abbot looks rather puzzled. “There are many people in your court who know how to read. Why would you be coming to us?”
The king took a deep breath. “She’s of the lowest caste.”
“Oh. Oh, I see,” said the abbot.
The king goes on, “So could you perhaps arrange for a couple of nuns to come to the palace and teach this woman how to read?”
The abbot says, “Well, we certainly have nuns that could teach her how to read, but… remember that big windstorm we had a month ago?”
“Yes,” it had been quite a windstorm. Many houses were damaged, their roofs stripped of some of the waterproofing, and the monsoons were coming. “Yes, I remember the windstorm.”
“Well, great king, the roof of our temple was severely damaged in that windstorm, and all of the monks are needed to repair that before the monsoon comes.”
“But the nuns… I mean, the nuns aren’t repairing?”
“No, the nuns are not part of the repair crew, but they’ve taken over the duties of the monks. And until the temple roof is repaired, it will not be possible for the monks to go back to doing their usual duties. So the nuns are all needed to do the monks’ duties because, of course, you see, we have fewer nuns than we have monks.”
The king says, “But if the roof of the monastery was repaired quickly, then the monks could quickly go back to doing their jobs, and then some nuns could quickly come to the palace and teach this woman to read?”
The abbot says, “Yes, that would work quite well.”
“Thank you,” says the king.
The king leaves, sneaks back into the palace, puts on his royal garments, and sends for the royal carpenter. The royal carpenter arrives in the throne room, and the king says, “The roof of the temple at the Buddhist monastery just beyond town was seriously damaged in the windstorm. These Buddhists, they’re very good people. They’re very well educated. They teach many people about ethics, teach some people even how to meditate. It would be good if the roof of their temple were repaired quickly. Do you think you can get a crew together and go out to the temple and start the repair job today?”
The carpenter knows that this has become his number one priority. “Yes, great king. I can get a group together in probably about an hour, and we’ll head out to the monastery and start working on repairing the temple roof. How would that be?”
“That would be excellent. This would be really good. Very much appreciate all of your hard work.”
So the carpenter got a group together, and they went out to the monastery and took over the roof repair. The monks could go back to doing their duties, and that freed up the nuns so that it was possible, perhaps, for two of them to come teach the dancer.
The king didn’t know what was going on. He couldn’t exactly send a message out, but he did find the carpenter when he came back and asked him how it was going. “Oh, the monks were very appreciative. They were doing a terrible job trying to repair the roof. We’ve got it straightened out now, and they’re very happy to go back to doing whatever they do there.”
“Thank you. Please see that the job is done to the highest quality. I will reward you greatly.”
“Yes, yes, great king.”
The king goes to the dancer’s room. He stepped through the curtain. The dancer has changed out of her dancing clothes. She’s not wearing the fancy clothes; she’s wearing the most plain clothes there is available, and she’s standing by the window looking out. She doesn’t move when the king steps into the room. The king clears his throat. Without looking over her shoulder, the dancer says, “Don’t you ever knock?”
The king was like, “Uh…” He knocks on the door.
She turns around. “What do you want?”
“I… I think I found some Buddhist nuns who can teach you to read.”
“You think you found?”
“Yes, my hope is they will be here tomorrow.”
“Well, good. If they come, you can come back tomorrow night.”
They stood facing each other. The dancer was a very powerful person. The king didn’t know what to say, and so he turned around and left.
The next morning, the king was down in the kitchen again, really early. People didn’t really notice that his most trusted female servant showed up a few minutes after he did because the king was telling this ridiculously long and involved joke, and he had everyone’s attention. When the Buddhist monastics showed up on alms round, it was the trusted servant who served each of the monastics. There were more nuns who arrived this time, but there were fewer nuns that left. The king got to the punchline of his joke after the two nuns and his most trusted female servant had left the kitchen, and everybody had a good laugh. The king hung out for a little bit more and then, “We have much to do, we must be going.”
The king had a busy day. His mind was not really into being a king; he had other thoughts on his mind, shall we say. But he did a good job. People were appreciative of what he was doing. It seemed like the evening would never get here. The day lasted far too long.
But finally, he goes to the dancer’s room. He does knock this time. Inside, a voice says, “Come in.” It’s much sweeter than anything he’d heard before. He steps through the curtain. The dancer is standing on her head on the far side of the room. She drops to her feet, does a cartwheel, and jumps into his arms.
Let’s say they enjoyed themselves that night, and the next night, and every night following that. Eventually, after a couple of nights, the king asked, “Well, how are the lessons going?”
“Oh, very well. These nuns are very interesting people, and they’re teaching me quite nicely. I’m beginning to get a sense of it.”
After maybe a couple of months, after they had enjoyed themselves, the dancer says, “I can now read.”
The king says, “Well, read me something.”
So she gets a book, and she opens it and begins to read, “Thus have I heard…” Of course, the only books they had were Buddhist books: the suttas,2 the Vinaya.3
The king and the dancer’s relationship grew. They didn’t spend as much time having fun, although that certainly continued, and they spent more time with the dancer reading to the king and them discussing what she read. The king would sometimes ask questions, and the dancer would say, “I don’t know, but I will ask the nuns.” And the next night, they would discuss what the nuns had replied. They developed quite a deep relationship.
After about six months, the king said to the dancer, “When I saw you, there was just lust. But now, there’s just love.” Tears were in both their eyes.
The king said, “Can I trust you?”
She looked at him and said, “Why not?”
He said, “If I showed you a way to escape from the palace, would you run away?”
“What? If I showed you a way to escape the palace, would you run away?”
“When I said I wanted to read, I meant I wanted to read. I wanted to learn to read. And what I’m learning when I read, it’s more valuable than what I’ve seen on the outside. And you’re a good man. I trust you. You can trust me. I won’t run away.”
He says, “Tomorrow at lunchtime, be dressed as just a peasant.” And he left for the evening.
The next day at lunchtime, the king showed up dressed as a peasant and showed her the secret passage out of the palace. They came up in the darkened alley, and they walked around through the city, just an ordinary peasant couple walking through the city. And when it was time, they came back to the palace. The dancer was so appreciative to get out, to not be a trapped bird in a cage.
The king said, “Please be very careful. Do not let anyone know about this secret passage. That’s all I ask of you. But I hope you won’t run away.”
They embraced deeply. “I won’t run away.”
So sometimes during the day, the dancer would go out. Sometimes she would go to the monastery, and then she could talk with the abbot and the monks as well as the senior nuns. She became very good friends with the senior nun. She would walk through the streets, go to the markets. The king would give her money so she could buy things. And they continued to meet every evening. It was a most delicious relationship, and they both continued to learn so much from what the dancer was reading.
But Anicca4 has a way of happening, and after 12 years, the dancer was discovered. The news that the king was keeping a low-caste woman in his private quarters spread through the palace like wildfire. This was such an abomination. It would be like discovering that the king had a donkey that he was having sex with. This was how horrific the caste system was. Usually, this would result in death to both of them. But the king had been really good. There had been no more trouble with the king across the river. In fact, the monsoons had never failed. They’d been weak a couple of times, but it wasn’t bad. There was no starvation, no famine, and he had ruled justly for a long time.
The elders of the court said to him, “You must leave immediately. Take your wench and go.”
Two hours later, the king was riding the best horse in the royal stable, the dancer was on the second-best horse, and the third-best horse was loaded with their provisions and her books. And they rode out of the city. They were last seen riding into the jungle.
Well, now who gets to be king? You see, the king had been neglecting his harem and had not produced an heir. And who was going to be king? Let’s just say it was a really messy affair before somebody actually managed to get elected as king. He was on a power trip. It didn’t go well, especially when the monsoon failed the next monsoon season. There was a drought, and the river ran low, and there was a famine. It was worse than it should have been because of mismanagement. He was assassinated. Someone else became king. The monsoon came back, but this king, he was hardly any better. It went like that for 12 years: kings coming, doing a terrible job, a few of them fleeing, some of them assassinated.
Twelve years into this, there was a sword fight in the throne room between two guys who wanted to be king, and they both managed to wound the other one so badly they both died. Now what?
So the members of the court decided to elect the eldest member of the court as king, as a caretaker until they could sort out who should be king. People were beginning to think, “You know, that old king, the one who had weird taste in women… he was good. Wonder what he’s up to.”
And so the new old king, very old, said, “We could send a party into the jungle and see if they can find the good king. If we can convince him to come back…” Well, considering what had gone on over the previous 12 years and all the instability and all the terrible things that had happened, people thought, “Yeah, that might be a good thing to try.”
So they gathered together a group of young men, a few older men as leaders, about 30 in all, and they rode to the jungle and began inquiring about the king. The few people in the area remembered the king riding deeper into the forest. They went deeper into the forest. They came across a hermit in the forest. They asked him. “Oh yeah, I remember them. Handsome couple. They went that way, probably a dozen years ago.”
The party went that way. No sign of human habitation. They found a good place to camp pretty deep in the forest, and then each morning they would fan out and go search as far as they could. After searching an area, they would go deeper into the forest and find another place to camp, and then everybody would go out and search. This had been going on for about a month when the youngest member of the search party, out on his search that day, stumbled upon a clearing.
In the clearing, there was a cottage, smoke coming out the chimney. There was a small lake, and there were two people sitting cross-legged in front of the cottage. “Could this be the king?” Now, this young man was 19, so he was like seven when the king left. He didn’t really remember what the king looked like, but it matched. They seemed to be meditating. He was a little shy to go up and go, “Are you the king?”
After about 10 minutes, the couple stirred, looked at each other. The woman stood up. She picked up two golden goblets. She walked to the edge of the lake, and then she walked across the water of the lake to the middle. She bent down and scooped a hand into the water, and a stream of golden nectar shot into the air, and she filled both goblets. She walked back across the surface of the lake over to where the man was standing, handed him a goblet. They toasted each other. They raised their goblets in salute to where the young man was hiding and took a big drink.
The young man fled. This was too much. She just walked across the water! He gets back to camp and he tells the story, and everybody laughs at him. They ask him what kind of mushrooms he’d been eating. But he finally said to them, “Well, who found somebody any better than this?” Well, nobody had come across anyone. So they agreed to go the next day to see what this obviously stoned-out kid had seen.
So the kid shows them the way, and they come to the clearing. There’s the house with the smoke coming out of the chimney and the lake, and two people in front of it seated at a large table heavily laden with food. And they stand up and they signal, “Come, come.”
The party comes, and it’s the king and the dancer. The king says, “Welcome. Please sit down. Enjoy the food.” Now, this party had been for a month living off the land. They were reasonably well-fed, but it wasn’t delicious. And yet here, spread before them, was this incredible spread of delicious food. So they sat down at the table, and the king began inquiring about how’s old so-and-so, how’s this person doing, just catching up on the news. The dancer asked a few questions too, mostly about the Buddhist monastery outside the town and the marketplace.
After everyone had finished eating, the leader of the group said, “Great king, we would like you to come back and be king again. Times have been tough, as we’ve said. You were a great ruler, and we were wrong to send you away.”
The king looked at the dancer and said, “She will be my queen.”
“Yes, yes, we understand. She will be your queen.”
The king said, “You know, we really like it out here. It’s a lot more peaceful than the palace and all the politics and all the crazy stuff that goes on in the city.”
“Your Majesty, your people need you. It’s been very tough since you left. Please.”
The king says, “We will think about it. We will discuss this, and we will give you our decision on the morning after the next full moon,” which just happened to be two weeks away.
“Thank you, thank you, great king.” Everybody bowed to the king. They all promised about all the good things that were going to be done to welcome him back, and they went back and packed up and went back to town.
When people heard that the old king might be coming, that he would give his answer in two weeks, well, they got busy trying to spiff up the place. It had fallen into some ruin. Repairs weren’t done, things weren’t painted. So people swept up the trash and painted the houses and repaired things, and the town was looking better than it had any time since right after the king left.
And sure enough, on the morning of the full moon, everybody gathered at the main square. It was packed. And the king and the dancer came riding into town on the back of a tiger. They rode through the city streets to the main square and dismounted. The tiger looks around, heads back out, everybody giving it plenty of room. They mount up onto the stage there.
The king looks at the crowd and says, “We have discussed it. Two conditions, and I will come back and be your king.”
The crowd broke into cheers. “Long live the king! Long live the king!”
“Excuse me. The first condition,” the king said, “this is your queen.”
“Long live the queen! Long live the queen!” Not quite as enthusiastic as the “Long live the king,” but clearly people were willing to accept it.
Then the king said, “The second condition is you must abolish the caste system.”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” The “no’s” rang out through the square. “We can’t do that! It would destroy everything! No, no, no!”
The king shook his head. He turned to the dancer and embraced her. He kissed her passionately. Public displays of affection like this were completely unknown. And as he did so, their outline began to shimmer and sparkle. They began to fade and glow, until, still embracing, they just disappeared.
And the king’s voice rang out, very, very loud, “Oh, how useless is temporal power. Seldom can it be used for good. Mostly, it only causes trouble.”
So I like this story. I added the whole thing about giving the dancer a leading role. I did that because in the commentaries, they talk about the Buddhist psychological types: the greedy type, the aversive type, and the deluded type. I’m a greedy type, okay? And so I wanted to create and tell a story where someone’s greed led them in a direction that could have gone really bad, but they showed enough wisdom not to let it go really bad and to profit from the direction in which it led them.
We’re all going to find sensual pleasures. This happens. There are pleasant experiences that are going to come to us, and sometimes we might seek pleasant experiences. If we do, we need to know that’s what we’re doing, and we need to be very, very careful about what we do when we seek pleasant experiences because it can go so wrong, so badly. So that’s what I added to the story.
The original story was the futility of temporal power. The power of the government is not going to save us. This has probably become a little bit more apparent in the year 2025. We are on a spiritual path, I presume that’s why you came to this talk. There are going to be a lot of people out there that are going to need help. The spiritual power that we have should be used to help ourselves and to help everyone else as best we can. Temporal power—seldom can it be used for good; mostly it just causes problems.
Questions? Comments?
Audience: So who were those two in later incarnations?
It doesn’t say. People want to know, “Well, what happened to them after they disappeared? Did they incarnate again? Did they become Devas,5 or did they just simply reappear at their cottage in the forest?” The story doesn’t say. They just disappear. You get to make your own ending as to what happens next. I don’t know if you ever read the book The French Lieutenant’s Woman. It was a movie made of it. The book is really, really good, but it has two endings. One is pretty nice, and one is very disappointing. The thing I got from that is I get to pick which is the real ending. I mean, it was just a story, but I got to pick which was the real ending. And so I did. Well, now you get to pick what happens next in this story. I gave you the setup; the rest of it’s up to you.
Audience: Well, are you asking what we think?
I’m just here to answer questions. If you have a question, I’ll do what I can.
Audience: Okay, well, I’m going to tell you what I think.
Oh, good, good.
Audience: I think they entered a higher plane. They realized that this world was no longer enough for them or that they had surpassed the understanding of all other beings. So that’s why they just dissipated.
Yeah, that’s a good… I like it. I like it.
Audience: My question about that story is, the whole thing about the river didn’t seem to relate to the rest of the story, except for the wisdom of the king. Is that the whole point of that, or was there more to the river issue?
So one thing about telling a story is you want to not let people know where the story is going. It started out very, very different, right? And then it went in a completely unexpected direction. The river was there, the monsoon failed. You know, if the monsoon fails, the river is going to be a problem. After the king and the dancer left, the monsoon failed, the river was a problem. You can figure that out yourself. But yeah, it was just a storytelling feint to move the story in one direction and then suddenly take it in a completely unexpected direction. The river was not in the original; that’s something I put in.
Audience: Okay, but I do have a bigger question about… so they disappear into the ether. And so, something I wanted to ask last week, but I was a little embarrassed because the idea of the supernatural in Buddhist stories, like the red-eyed man…
He was a Yakkha,6 an evil spirit.
Audience: Yeah, so the supernatural character in Buddha stories, there must be something to say about that.
Well, personally, I wouldn’t take any of it literally. But they’re useful for stories, right? I mean, the dancer walking across the lake, that was in the original. And you know, suddenly it’s very obvious their spiritual depth has gotten extreme during the 12 years in the palace and 12 years in the forest. So it’s a nice thing to show the depth. And so yeah, supernatural stuff shows up in a lot of stories and in a lot of Buddhist stories.
I have a background in physics. I mean, if somebody can walk on water, just demonstrate it. Not on YouTube; it’s too easy to fake on YouTube. But yeah, just give a public demonstration. I’ll be happy to believe if you can walk on water. Otherwise, I’m not all that interested, except as a trope in a story.
Now, it does say that if you’re really good at the Jhānas,7 you can do things like walk on water and fly through the air. My understanding of that is, well, the first thing it says is you can make a mind-made body, and with the mind-made body, it’s complete in all of its faculties. And that’s followed immediately by the walking on water, flying through the air stuff.
I was talking to a student in Portugal who is seriously into lucid dreaming, where you have a dream, you know it’s a dream, and then you manipulate the dream, you know, like you fly or do something else. And he said there’s a technique where you don’t have to fall asleep, have a dream, recognize it’s a dream, and then start manipulating. There’s a technique called Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming, where you can enter directly into a lucid dream and start flying through the air, walking on water immediately.
So of course, I looked it up on Google, and I read what you had to do, and the mind state you’re to create is very much like the mind state that gets created in the fourth Jhāna. So my interpretation of that is that yes, it was a real thing, but it was wake-induced lucid dreaming to create the mind-made body and then doing things in a lucid dream.
Now you might say, “But do you have any other evidence other than you making it up?” Well, there’s a sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya, 3.60, where a Brahmin and the Buddha are having a discussion about miracles. And the Buddha says there are only three miracles: there’s the miracle of walking on water, flying through the air, that sort of stuff; and there’s the miracle of knowing the minds of others, telepathy. The Brahmin says, “But those only benefit the one who does them.” Now, that sounds to me like it’s a private experience, which would be a lucid dream and so forth. The Buddha goes on to say, “No, the only miracle that really counts is the miracle of instruction.” What is the miracle of instruction? The Buddhist teachings.
So that’s my take on all the miracles in the suttas. At least the walking on water, flying through the air part, that’s lucid dreaming. The mind-reading, that’s ESP, whatever ESP is. I mean, science says it can’t find it, but if I say ESP, extrasensory perception, you know what I’m talking about, right? So whatever it is, whether it’s scientifically valid or not, it does seem to be enhanced with a concentrated mind, whether it’s picking up subtle cues or doing your probability right or whatever. So yeah, those are my answers, but I have a science background, so you’re not going to get anything from me other than, if you can walk on water, please show me.
Audience: The other message in the tale is about overcoming ostracism, and they achieve a kind of enlightenment, right?
Yeah, overcoming ostracism, overcoming those who are opposed to DEI, basically. Yeah, that’s really important to recognize that we’re all in this together. We all depend on each other. Nobody is better than anybody else by birth or wealth or anything else.
Audience: Another question, do you think they displayed quantum effects and entanglement, perhaps?
No idea. You know, it’s a story. That’s the beauty of a story; you can make up whatever you want. It’s a story, Joe.
Joe: So I would prefer to think that it was something more along the lines of Siddhartha in the story by Hermann Hesse. I mean, one of the things that I found quite beautiful about that was the fact that he didn’t do anything extraordinary. He just rowed the boat, you know, and he paid attention to the things that he learned. And I would think rather than doing something magical would be to do something commonplace with full engagement and satisfaction.
Yes, that’s the best. We don’t need magic. We just need to do something that’s really beneficial, really helpful. Very good. And besides, who among us can really do any magic other than the miracle of instruction, perhaps? And a lot of people need instructing.
Joe: There is one other thing. You suggested that I look at the Brahmaviharas.8 I went to your website and I found that you had modified the time and place, or at least the time when it was going to occur, sometime like in November or December. I went to the Barre Center, but I couldn’t find it. It’s not on their calendar.
They probably don’t have it up yet. I have no idea when it’ll go up, so you’ll just have to check in. I mean, it’s an online class, so unless it gets more than 500 people, which I can’t imagine, it’s not going to fill. I’d be surprised if there’s maybe 30 people, something like that. So yeah, just check in once a month. Get on their mailing list to see what else they have going on.
Joe: I’m on it.
Oh yeah, then just check each time until it shows up with my name on it.
Joe: Okay, yeah, that should be fun.
I hope so. I did the course on the Sutta Nipata, book five, the 16 suttas, for BCBS and for Sati Center. I did that so that I would have to study hard to actually teach a class on that. So that’s why I picked the Brahmaviharas. I’m going to study the Brahmaviharas, and we’ll find out what the suttas really have to say about this topic.
Audience: It’s interesting how you’re mentioning… I’m teasing a bit, but not entirely, about the whole quantum aspect of things. But really, my question is, what did the Buddha say about what I would call natural miracles? I call them miracles. I don’t think they’re a result of an intervention by a deity, but I could be wrong. I know the Buddha did talk about cosmology and things like that. But I’m talking about things like that terrible accident that happened in Toronto, the plane crash. I only saw a tiny bit of the footage. My first thought was, how could anybody have lived through that? But the article made it clear everybody got out. Some people were very badly hurt, but nobody died. And I thought, that’s a miracle. Or those people are blessed, I don’t know how you want to put it. But I thought that’s a miracle. I know the Buddha discouraged the performing of powers and miracles to display the capabilities of his students to laypeople, but did he ever talk about that kind of phenomenon? You know, sort of good luck or possibly some other kind of effect?
No, I don’t think so. Not really. What he talked about was dependent origination. I saw an article today that was discussing the changes that had been made in aircraft design so that people could survive a crash like that. And so yeah, it was dependently originated because they had changed aircraft design such that something like that wasn’t entirely fatal. It used to be.
Audience: I think that’s a huge part of what happened. I mean, there’s other things, I won’t take up time with speculation. Eventually, we’ll get a report, but I still thought it was a bit magical. Maybe that’s just how I wanted to see it because I saw this headline—I’ve been trying to stay away from the news—and I thought, how horrible and how tragic. And it still was, but everybody walked away. And I thought, oh God, that’s amazing.
Yeah, so it is very amazing. If it’s dependent origination, we’d need… I don’t know how we trace that back, but I suppose that will come out to some extent in the report when it’s finalized in a year or two.
Well, everything arises dependent on other things, and those things arise dependent on other things. And the accident itself will drive other changes to come.
Audience: Right, okay, thanks. I just wondered if there was anything ever written. I’ve never seen anything.
No, I’ve never seen anything like that either.
Audience: Okay, right. Thank you, Leigh.
Sure. Joe says in the chat, “If you want magic, consider that all the passengers calmly helped all the other passengers out.” Yeah, that’s really good. That’s what we got to do. We got to help each other out.
So may any merit from anything we’ve done tonight be for the benefit and liberation of all beings everywhere. Have a good evening.
Mahasiddhas: (Sanskrit: “great adepts”) A term for someone who embodies and cultivates the “siddhi” of perfection. They are a type of yogi/yogini recognized in Vajrayana Buddhism. ↩
Suttas: Discourses or sermons of the Buddha. They form the second part of the Pāli Canon, the sacred texts of Theravāda Buddhism. ↩
Vinaya: The disciplinary code for Buddhist monks and nuns. It is the first part of the Pāli Canon. ↩
Anicca: A Pāli word meaning “impermanence.” It is one of the three marks of existence in Buddhism, along with dukkha (suffering) and anattā (no-self). ↩
Devas: In Buddhism, a deva is a type of celestial being or god who shares the god-like characteristics of being more powerful, longer-lived, and, in general, much happier than humans. ↩
Yakkha: A broad class of nature-spirits, usually benevolent, who are caretakers of the natural treasures hidden in the earth and tree roots. They are sometimes depicted as malevolent. ↩
Jhānas: States of deep meditative absorption. They are a key part of the Buddhist path to enlightenment. ↩
Brahmaviharas: A series of four Buddhist virtues and the meditation practices made to cultivate them. They are also known as the four immeasurables. The four virtues are loving-kindness (mettā), compassion (karuṇā), empathetic joy (muditā), and equanimity (upekkhā). ↩