Optician India

A great king asked to be initiated by Buddha and became a BHIKKHU, became his sannyasin. But he was just a junior sannyasin; there were elders who had meditated for thirty years, forty years. So where Buddha was staying in a caravanserai, the younger sannyasins -- not younger according to age, younger according to the time of initiation.... This king was old and he was a great king, but in the world of Buddha those things don't count, neither the age nor the money nor the kingdom. He was the most junior because just that day he had taken sannyas, so he had to sleep in the porch because there was no other place.

The king could not sleep; it was difficult, and one can understand his difficulty. He had never slept in such a place. And you know Indian mosquitoes... and the king had never experienced mosquitoes. And the ground was hard and the bhikkhus use no pillows, just their hands; their arms. He tossed and turned but he could not go to sleep.

In the middle of the night he thought, "What have I done? This seems to be stupid! I should be sleeping in my palace; I had everything. This seems to be pointless. Tomorrow morning the first thing I am going to do is to ask permission of the master: 'Please excuse me. I cannot tolerate such unnecessary misery. I am going back to my palace.' But in the middle of the night Buddha came out and he said, "Why wait for the morning?

If you want to drop sannyas, drop it right now! Why suffer the whole night?" The king was amazed. He had not said it to anybody -- there was nobody else, he was alone in the porch. He said, "But how did you come to know? It was just a thought in me." Buddha said, "If your thoughts disappear you can start seeing others' thoughts because others' thoughts are then like things. It is because of your thoughts that you cannot see others' thoughts. You are so covered with your own thoughts that there is no space for others' thoughts.

But you please go!"

The man said, "Now I cannot go. How can I leave such a master?"

Buddha said, "But my suggestion is still this, because you will again think of leaving. You had better leave. Only one thing I have to remind you of: you took sannyas in your past life too -- and the same difficulty was there, and you renounced sannyas. Now the same difficulty has arisen and it will arise again and again. You have not learned anything from your past life."

As Buddha was saying this, the man suddenly felt a tremendous upsurge of the memories of the past life. He could see, he could remember that yes, this had happened. The whole situation was the same. The master was different, the serai was different, the mosquitoes must have been different, but the king was the same person and the difficulty was the same.

The king said, "That's enough, now I am not going to leave; I am going to stick to it. Now whatsoever happens.... I have lived in palaces many times and I have not gained anything so I am not going to waste this life anymore." And he became enlightened one day. He persisted; a great perseverance must have been needed.