Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06delightful moment was well-nigh impossible. Mostly it was like flyingwith a broken wing, and in that state we did absurd things. For no realreason, we had dallied on the way: with a stoned sadhu in a bat-infestedtemple, and later in a nearby village where a shopkeeper had imploredus to stop and have tea. Then, having subscribed to the “being with whatturns up” mode of thought, we switched back to “destination fever” andfound ourselves hastily pounding along the main road at (Nick timed it)seven kilometres per hour.A strange sense of foreboding accompanied the otherwise reassuringperceptions of the hills: Rajagaha had been the place of betrayal, of thestruggle for power. The narratives from the Buddhist scriptures refer totwo simultaneous conspiracies that came to a head in Magadha’s capital;that of Devadatta to wrest leadership of the Sangha from his cousinand teacher, the Buddha, and that of Ajatasattu to take over the kingdomby disposing of his father, King Bimbisara. Having attempted andfailed to take over the Sangha by implying that the Buddha was too old,Devadatta later made arrangements for assassins to murder the AwakenedOne. When this failed (the assassins were all converted by theBuddha) he set a boulder rolling down from one of the crags to wherethe Master was walking. It struck a rock and shattered, but a fragmenthad grazed the Buddha’s foot. Rebuked and warned by the Buddha,Devadatta was ostracized from the Sangha and caused a schism byattempting to create his own Order, one that would adhere to stricterstandards than those advocated by the Buddha. In this way he hoped tojustify his desire to lead the Order with the need to develop a purerlifestyle, now that the Buddha was over the hill and had gone soft. Thistoo was unsuccessful—the Master sent his two chief disciples to visitDevadatta’s Sangha, and in one night of Dhamma talks they won thebhikkhus back to the original path.Devadatta’s friend, Prince Ajatasattu, had been more successful. Hisfather had discovered and foiled one of his plots, then having caughthis son and pardoned him, he abdicated in his favour. That wasn’t2 2 0