ལས་བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ་པ 15.20

15.20

with my own flesh and blood, saving their precious lives, when I perfectly and completely awaken into unexcelled, total, and complete enlightenment, may I sate them with a taste of the holy Dharma, establishing them in the unsurpassed, supreme welfare of nirvāṇa.’

“O monks, what do you think? I am the one who was that lizard then, and lived the life of a bodhisattva. Those who were the eighty thousand ants then are none other than these eighty thousand gods. At that time I sated them with my own flesh and blood, saving their precious lives, and now as well I have sated them with a taste of the holy Dharma, establishing them in the unsurpassed, supreme welfare of nirvāṇa.”

The Lay of the Land

When the Blessed One was in Śrāvastī, there were two times of year when it was customary for the disciples of the Blessed Buddha to convene: in the middle of the summer months when the time came for the summer retreat, and on the full moon of the last month of autumn. When the time came in the middle of the summer months for the monks to enter retreat, they would receive special instructions to ponder, and then retreat to mountain ravines, mountain caves, reed huts, plains, charnel grounds, and forests, and settle there for the duration of the rainy season. On the full moon of the last month of autumn they would all return, give an account of all that they had realized, and put questions to their superiors regarding all that they still did not understand.

There was a certain monk who, having spent that period in the countryside, made his way through the countryside, traveling and traveling until he arrived in Śrāvastī, where he put down his alms bowl and holy robes. In the morning he donned his lower garment and holy robes, and, carrying his alms bowl, went for alms in Śrāvastī. He was a newcomer, having never been there before, so he was unfamiliar with the area and had very little knowledge of the lay of the land.

He had come to Śrāvastī very late,