ལས་བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ་པ 10.6

10.6

and since he no longer took food in the later part of the day, he washed his feet outside the Domicile of Ghosts, and entered the grounds to meditate. In the meantime there was a thunderstorm, and lightning struck in Adumā. The people there were chattering anxiously about how it killed four bulls and two brothers: one a householder, the other a peasant farmer.

As evening fell, the Blessed One rose from his meditation and emerged from the Domicile of Ghosts and lingered there, walking among the shadows on the grounds of the Domicile of Ghosts. Thereupon one of the great many people there got up and walked toward the Blessed One. After approaching him, he touched his head to the Blessed One’s feet and fell in behind him, that he might also walk where the Blessed One had walked.

The Blessed One asked the man, “My friend! What are the people of Adumā village chattering about so anxiously?”

“Lord,” said the man, “there was a thunderstorm, and lightning struck in Adumā. Everyone is chattering anxiously about how it killed four bulls and two brothers: one a householder, the other a peasant farmer. Did the Blessed One not hear the thunder roar and the lightning strike?”

“No, I didn’t hear it,” the Blessed One replied.

“How is that?” the man asked. “Was the Blessed One sleeping?”

The Blessed One said, “No, I was not asleep at all.”

“If the Blessed One has faculties of perception and wasn’t asleep,” he said, “then how did he not hear the thunder roar and the lightning strike?”

“I have faculties of perception, and I was not sleeping,” the Blessed One replied, “but I did not hear the thunder roar nor the lightning strike.”

Now the man had to think this over. “Hmm,” he thought, “although he has faculties of perception and was not sleeping, still he did not hear the thunder roar nor the lightning strike. How wonderful that the Blessed One can abide so peacefully in meditation.”