經律異相 37.19

37.19

There was an upāsaka who upheld the precepts diligently without remiss. There was a śramaṇa who had laid down his heavy burden, forever ended birth and death, and attained supernatural powers; he was a close friend [of the upāsaka]. Then the upāsaka suddenly contracted a grave illness which medicines could not cure. His wife was in great sorrow and anguish, and said to her husband, "Together we are husband and wife, yet you suffer alone. By what means might I share your illness to make it lighter? If you should pass away, whom can I rely on? Our child is left solitary—whom can he depend upon?" Hearing this, the husband felt an even deeper attachment and yearning. As the end of his life approached, he died at that very moment. His conscious spirit immediately returned and was situated within his wife's nose, transformed into a worm. The wife wept aloud, unable to stop herself. At that time the man of the Dao went to meet with the wife, purposely wishing to advise and admonish her to cast aside her grief and sorrow. Seeing the man of the Dao arrive, the wife grieved all the more bitterly: "What can be done, Upādhyāya? My husband has died!" Suddenly, the worm fell to the ground from her nasal mucus. Ashamed, the wife was about to step on it with her foot. The man of the Dao told her, saying, "Stop, stop! Do not kill it! This is your husband, transformed into this worm." The wife said to the man of the Dao, "My husband revered the scriptures and upheld the precepts with diligence that was hard to match. By what cause, at the end of his life, did his form change into this?" The man of the Dao answered, saying, "Due to the fault of arousing mutual longing and attachment, he has now been born as a worm." The man of the Dao preached the scriptures for the worm: "You diligently revered the scriptures and upheld the precepts; by your merit you ought to have been born in heaven to see all the Buddhas. But solely on account of thoughts of passionate love and yearning, you have fallen among these worms. You should feel ashamed at once!" Hearing this, the worm understood and reproached itself. Shortly thereafter its life came to an end, and it immediately attained rebirth in heaven. (Extracted from the Sūtra on the Householder Deceased and Becoming a Worm in His Wife's Nose.)