Rahula

Rahula was Prince Siddhartha's son before the prince left home to become Buddha. A few years after he attained his enlightenment, Buddha came home at his father's invitation to give sermons to the royal family and the general public. Young Rahula was delighted to see his father for the first time. Buddha's wife, Yasodhara, was full of mixed emotions about his return. She caressed young Rahula and hoped that with his innocence, he might persuade Buddha to return as prince and as her husband. However, it did not work. In fact, Buddha made novice. Buddha feared that at some time in the near future, Rahula might ascend to the throne. Rahula was still too young to do so, and it would definitely put the whole nation in danger. Hence, Buddha told Sariputra to take in Rahula as the first novice in the assembly.

Because of his young age, Rahula was quite mischievous most of the time. Whenever people came to visit Buddha, Rahula would tell them that Buddha was somewhere else, and he would laugh as they ran back and forth. When Buddha heard about this, he went out to see him one day. Rahula took out a basin of water for Buddha to wash his feet. After he had washed his feet, he pointed to the basin and asked Rahula, "Can you drink the water?"

Rahula replied, "No, I can't, because it's dirty."

"You are just like the water! You are a novice but you don't study hard enough. You like to cheat and make fun of other people, and the poisons in your mind are just like the dirt in the water."

Buddha told him to throw the water out. When he came back, Buddha asked him, "Can you put food in the basin?"

Rahula replied, "No, I can't, because it's a basin for washing feet and it's dirty."

"You are just like the basin," Buddha said to him. "You are a novice, and you do not study hard enough to purify your mind, words and deeds. There is filth in your mind, so you can't put my teachings into your mind, just like you can't put food in the dirty basin."

Buddha then kicked the basin, which startled Rahula. Buddha then asked Rahula again, "Are you afraid that I might break it?"

Rahula replied, "No. It's only a basin, so it's OK if you break it."

"You don't care about the basin, just as no one cares about you. You are a novice now, but you are ill-behaved. In the end, no one will like you. What's worse, you will fall into the three Lower Realms of animal, hungry ghost and hell when you die."

Rahula apologized sincerely for his behaviour and became quite diligent in following Buddha's teachings. He changed his ways and became a new person.

One day, Rahula came back from one of Buddha's sermons and found that his room had been occupied by a visiting monk. His robe and bowl had been thrown outside the room. Just at this time, it started to rain hard and Rahula had no place to go but the washroom.

As the rain kept falling, insects, snakes and other animals started to come out of their holes to avoid being drowned. Some of them crawled into the washroom, which really frightened him. Suddenly, he heard Buddha calling him. He came out and saw Buddha standing outside of the washroom. Rahula ran and embraced him, crying out his fear, loneliness and helplessness. Buddha patted him lightly on his back and told him softly to go to Buddha's room. The original rule was that novices and monks could not sleep together, but because of this incident, Buddha changed the rule so that a novice and a monk could sleep together for two nights, thus helping novices to adjust to the new environment. A mentor should help his disciple, and since Rahula's memtor was Sariputra, Sariputra told Rahula to stay with him.

One time Rahula went out with Sariputra to beg for food. A hooligan saw them and threw stones at Rahula. The ruffian even hit him on the head with a club, causing his head to bleed. Rahula became very angry and glared furiously at this man. His mind was boiling and his temper was rising, but suddenly Sariputra called out to him. It was like a splash of cold water, cooling down his rage. "Rahula," Sariputra said, "Buddha constantly reminds us that whenever we are praised, we should not become arrogant. Whenever we are humiliated, we have to control our temper. Therefore, Rahula, you must control your anger. No one in the world is braver than the one who can tolerate insults, and no strength is more powerful than tolerance." Rahula quietly went to a river bank, washed away the blood and cleaned the wound.

One day, a devotee in Kapila offered a house to Rahula so that he and his students could live and teach there. However, the devotee constantly interfered with the management of the residence. The monks living there were not happy about it, and when Buddha heard about it, he urged Rahula to ask the devotee what the purpose of his offering was. If the house was to be given to the monks, then he should not ask too much about their affairs. The house should be run by the monks. Devotees could only assis the monks, but had no right to manage it. When Rahula spoke to the devotee about this, he became angry, and one day when Rahula was out, he gave the house to some other monks. When Rahula heard about this, he reported it to Buddha, who then immediately informed all the monks, "If lay people give you something that they have given to someone else earlier, you must not accept it." Buddha set down this regulation to avoid disputes among assembly members over material goods that were given to them.

Kasyapa

Maha Kasyapa, also known as Kasyapa, was a Brahman born somewhere near the city of Rajagrha, Magadha. He became Buddha's disciple three years after Buddha was enlightened, and he became an arhat (a Buddhist who has reached the stage of enlightenment) eight days later.

Buddha had many disciples surnamed Kasyapa. This Kasyapa was called Maha ("big, large") Kasyapa because he was the oldest disciple with that surname. That is also the name modern Buddhists remember him by. His given name was Pippala, because his parents worshipped the god of the pippala tree (Ficus religiosa), a sacred tree in India. His father was a rich man in the village. When Kasyapa was eight years old, he started to learn Brahman philosophy, painting, math, literature, music, dancing, etc. He was very clever and mastered all of them. He was different from other children of his age in that he preferred to live by himself and he did not like to display emotions.

When Kasyapa was twenty-nine years old, his parents wanted to find a wife for him, but he replied that he wanted to be a religious practitioner and did not want to get married. His parents vehemently objected to this. He then had an artist create a gold statue of a woman. He said to his parents, "Unless you can find a woman as beautiful as this, I will not get married." His parents ordered their servants to take the statue to other places and to find the woman. As it happened, they found a woman in the suburb of Vaisali who looked exactly like the statue. Her name was Subhadra, and she was very beautiful indeed. When Kasyapa's father heard about her, he was quite delighted and immediately agreed to the marriage.

That evening, Subhadra was very unhappy. Kasyapa asked her why she was so upset. "I originally wanted to be a religious practitioner and I didn't want to get married," she finally replied sadly. "But my father was beguiled by your father's wealth and made me marry you. Now my hope is completely ruined."

When Kasyapa heard this, he was delighted that she desired the same thing that he did. "Hey, we're in the same boat," he said to her. "I also wanted to be a practitioner, but I didn't expect that the servants would find someone who looked exactly like the statue. How about this: why don't we split the bed into two? We'll be married in name only."

They happily did so, but when Pippala's parents later realized what they were doing, they considered it inauspicious. They threw away one bed, thinking that the young couple would have to sleep on the same bed. But the couple had a different way to solve the problem: they took turns sleeping on the bed. One slept until midnight while the other one meditated. After midnight, they changed places. The two practitioners lived like this for twelve years.

When Kasyapa was thirty years old, his parents passed away. One day, his wife told the servants to press some sesame for oil. The servants noticed that there were small worms in the sesame and said to themselves, "We're killing so many worms here, but it's not our fault-our mistress told us to do it." She overheard this and immediately told them to stop.

Meanwhile, Kasyapa was working in the field and he noticed that many worms in the field were injured or killed by the farming tools or the cattle. He was not happy with this situation, so he went back to his house. He noticed that his wife had something on her mind, so he told her what he had seen and she told him what she had heard. They were unhappy with all they had observed, so they decided to be practitioners by leaving home. Kasyapa said to his wife, "I will go find a good teacher first, and then I will come back to get you."

So Kasyapa left to search for a good religious teacher. He went to many places, but he could not find a suitable teacher until he came across Buddha, who was living in the Bamboo Grove Abode outside of Rajagrha. When Kasyapa saw Buddha's gracefulness, he prostrated himself before him and asked Buddha to accept him as a disciple. Buddha kindly agreed and shaved his head. Then Buddha started to teach him. Eight days later, Kasyapa was enlightened and attained arhathood. Then, Kasyapa remembered Subhadra and asked a nun to bring her to Buddha. Because of her beauty, she became the target of much goossip. She felt so upset that she decided not to go out begging for food. Kasyapa felt sorry for her, so with Buddha's permission, he gave her some of his food. Of course, this also caused a lot of gossip. Subhadra realized what was happening, so she vowed to study very industriously, and a few days later she also attained the arhathood.

Kasyapa was very good at observing asceticism, which disciplined the mind to attain nirvana. He disliked the community life of the sangha (the assembly of monks). He considered corpses and bones to be quite beneficial for comprehending the impermanence of the universe.

Sariputra and other disciples suggested that he change his ascetic practices and work to benefit other people. Kasyapa refused, saying, "I can only set myself as a good example of an ascetic and allow other people to respect and follow me." Buddha also told him one day to stop his practices because he was frail and looked tired. Kasyapa refused again. "I consider asceticism to be a happy state of life. I don't worry about food or clothing, I don't have any sense of loss or gain, and I can feel the happiness of emancipation." Buddha replied, "Kasyapa, I will not force you-you can go your way."

Kasyapa begged food from the poor so that the poor could have a chance to offer to a religious person and receive merit. One day he noticed a poor, old woman squatting by a sewer of a rich family's house and using a roof tile to scoop up water that had been used to wash rice. Kasyapa went to her and begged her to give him some. The old woman was surprised that Kasyapa would ask her to offer anything to him. "You know I am a poor, sick, old woman," she said to him. "There is nothing I can offer you." Kasyapa replied, "You must realize that anyone who is willing to give goods doesn't limit himself to rich people. Anyone can make an offering of anything, and you can give me some rice-washing water." So she happily gave some of it to Kasyapa, who immediately drank it all. Because of this offering, she became a beautiful celestial woman after she died.

It is said that Mahabrahma Devaraja, king of the Eighteen Heavens, wanted all people to receive benefits from Buddha's sermons, so he asked Buddha to give a sermon and he also presented a golden flower to Buddha. Buddha sat down and held the flower out to the whole audience without saying a word. Everyone was quite puzzled at Buddha's behavior, wondering what he was up to-everyone except Kasyapa, who smiled. Buddha saw this and announced happily, "I am going to give Kasyapa the quintessence of my teachings."

Buddha also gave Kasyapa his golden robe and bowl. This is the story of "Passing Down the Robe and the Bowl" often told in the Zen sect. Because of the Zen nature of this story, Kasyapa was known as the first patriarch of the Zen sect.

When Buddha passed away, Kasyapa was not present. He was leading a group of disciples and preaching somewhere else. When they heard that Buddha had passed away, they rushed back to attend Buddha's funeral. While some monks were crying because of Buddha's death, Upananda, one of the six ill-behaved disciples, seemed to be quite happy. "Why are you crying?" he asked them. "You should be happy! When Buddha was around, he always nagged us and told us that we couldn't do this and we couldn't do that. Now he's dead and we are free from his restraints. We should be happy!"

Kasyapa was quite upset to hear this, because he feared that any monk like Upananda could become a major source of trouble for the congregation in the future. He felt that the most important thing after the funeral was to compile Buddha's sermons and precepts so that every monk could have something to rely on and follow to keep from going astray.