法苑珠林 53.38

53.38

Furthermore, the *New Mahāvibhāṣā-śāstra* says: His elder brother taught him a single gāthā verse, but after four months he still could not recite it. His elder brother scolded and expelled him. At that time, the World-Honoured One saw him weeping, took pity on him, and by divine power transformed the gāthā he had been reciting and taught it to him anew. He was immediately able to recite it, surpassing the effort he had spent over those four months. [The Buddha] then separately taught him a verse on removing dust and defilement, and told him: "Today, when bhikṣus arrive from outside, you may wipe off all the dust and dirt on their leather shoes." Cūḍapanthaka reverently agreed and practiced according to the instruction. At dusk, there was a bhikṣu whose leather shoes were heavily soiled with dust and dirt. Cūḍapanthaka wiped them; one was completely clean, but though he wiped the other vigorously, it could not be made clean. He then reflected: "The dust and dirt of external objects is merely temporarily attached, yet it still cannot be cleansed; how much more so with the inner defilements of greed, hatred, and ignorance, which have tainted the mind through the long night—how could they be cleansed?" As he had this thought, the contemplation of impurity and the mindfulness of breathing immediately appeared before him. In sequence, he then attained the fruit of an arhat. Question: By what cause was Cūḍapanthaka so dim and dull? Answer: In the past, in the Dharma of Kāśyapa Buddha, the venerable Cūḍapanthaka fully received and maintained that Buddha's tripiṭaka. Because his mind was veiled by the defilement of stinginess with the Dharma, he never received the texts, explained the meanings, or taught them to others, and through neglect he forgot the principles. Due to that karma, he now received such an extremely dim and dull result. Some say that this venerable one was once a pig dealer in the city of Vārāṇasī. He bound the muzzles of five hundred pigs, loaded them onto a boat, and carried them to the other shore. When he unloaded them from the boat, because their breathing was blocked, all the pigs had died. By the force of that karma, he was dim and dull like this. Some say that in another past life, this venerable one once blocked the entrance to the burrow of an iguana-beast so that it could not come out, and it died inside. Due to that karma, he was dim and dull like this.