འཕགས་པ་བྱམས་པས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 18

18

‘Your Majesty, if I were to get just enough of the marrow from your body to satisfy me, my illness would be assuaged.’

“Prince Puṣpa was satisfied and delighted; he rejoiced, and then pleasure and happiness arose in him. He beat his own body, then gouged out the marrow and smeared it on that man’s body. Ānanda, as soon as he smeared it on him, the man’s illness was cured. Ānanda, even though Prince Puṣpa beat his own body so that the marrow dripped out, he felt no regret in his mind.

“Ānanda, if you wonder whether Prince Puṣpa was then, at that time, someone else, or you are of two minds about it, or doubtful, do not see him so. Why? Because I myself was then, at that time, Prince Puṣpa. Ānanda, all the water of the four great oceans can be measured, but the marrow that I have given to sentient beings as I sought supreme, completely perfect enlightenment cannot.

“Ānanda, formerly in times gone by there lived a king named Candraprabha, good-looking, handsome and beautiful to behold, endowed with a supremely good complexion, excellent figure, and with the great wealth and power of a king. He was going to a pleasure grove, when between the villages he saw a poor, eyeless blind man, a destitute beggar. At this sight, he felt compassion.

“That man then approached King Candraprabha and said, ‘Your Majesty, you are happy. Your Majesty, you are joyful, but I suffer. I am blind; I have no eyes. I am poor and destitute. I am a beggar without refuge.’

“Then, Ānanda, King Candraprabha saw the man again, and after listening to his words again he wept, and still in tears, asked him, ‘My good man, what do you need?