One day the Buddha was traveling with his disciples. After a large distance he thought to take rest in a village.
He sat under a tree and all his disciples sat in front of him, while he continued preaching. The news of the Buddha coming to the village spread in all houses.
People were eager to hear him and a lot of people went to listen to the Buddha.
There was a man in their village who did not believe in his teachings and felt that the Buddha was just misleading the people. He was very angry on how all the villagers respected him and wanted to go to him.
The man also went to the Buddha and while he was talking, he suddenly came into the scene.
He started talking to the Buddha quite arrogantly. He used foul language and abusive words for the Buddha. All the people were shocked and angry at the same time they could not believe their ears.
All the disciple could not hear him anymore. However, when they turned to the Buddha, they saw that he was completely calm and was smiling!
All the people were puzzed. They could not understand the reaction of the Buddha to what the man was speaking about him.
Soon the man realised that his words were putting no effect to the Buddha. He got even more angry and irritated. He could not understand what was happening.
After a pause the Buddha said,"So are you done?"
The grew impatient and the Buddha's smile made him even more angry.
One of the disciple said,"He just talked so ill about you in front of so many people"
The Buddha replied,"These people are my followers and I know that they respect me a lot. What someone else things of me or says to me, won't affect the respect they have for me.
One of the villagers asked."Please tell us how can you be so calm? This man has crossed all limits but you are still in a composed state"
"Yes, even I want to know this now", said the angry man.
The Buddha said,"Suppose you have a slice of bread that you want to give me but I do not take it. You are trying very hard to give it to me but I refuse to take it. So tell me with whom will the bread be?"
The man replied,"With me, since you haven't taken it from me, it will still be with me"
All the others agreed with his answer.
The Buddha then said,"Similarly if someone uses abusive words for me but I refuse to accept them, then whom do those words remain with?" Everyone was quiet.
The Buddha continued," And if I have a refused to accept those words why will they disturb my calm, since they still remain with the one who said them."
Everyone understood what the Buddha was trying to teach him.
The man's anger also started to fade away and he soon realised his mistake. He realised that the Buddha was trying to help people and was a kind soul. He wasn't misleading the people but showing them the right path.
This is one of my favourite stories ; obviously because of the message it give us.
There's a very important thing we can learn from this story.
The words that we use for somebody actually just harm ourselves more than the one in front of us.
By saying those abusive words the man wanted to spread that negative energy in such a positive environment, but the Buddha did not accept those words.
Basically he just returned that negative energy back to the man and we quite well understand that the angry man was growing even more impatient and irritated.
Remember when we were kids, whenever used to fight with each other even we use some words like that. But when someone used to call us by some name, how would we reply to them? We would say,'The one who says, is the one who is'. Right?
Even we were refraining to accept that negative energy, that is, those words and returned that negativity back to the person, so we stayed calm and the words caused no harm to us and our peace.
Sadly, we have stopped doing this and we get angry quite easily.
Whenever someone uses such words for us, we are in a haste to reply to them, and soon this fight turns into......well you know that .
The point I want to make here is that, we should think of how to react to the particular situation carefully.
And sometimes, staying silent and keeping calm is a better answer, isn't it?
Think about it and let me know in the comments below!
That's what I have for you today.
Hope you find it helpful.
Please comment on what you felt about it, so that I can keep bringing more like these.
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