A Story of A High Priest
(Une histoire d'un grand prêtre)
Once in India, Buddha himself was traveling around across various kingdoms to save and teach people.
In a certain community just like many others, a group of young people were learning and studying the truth preached by Buddha.
They belonged to an institution managed and supervised by a local lord who had an attractive wife.
Yet, the wife of the local lord one day tried to allure and vamp one of nice young men diligently learning in the institution.
Though so attempted, the young man flatly rejected and left her on the occasion, which upset and enraged her.
She then ripped her clothes and started to violently cry, which brought her husband in a hurry to the site to ask her what had happened on her.
She said that one of the students violated her; her husband got angry and mad to be determined to avenge and punish the young man.
The local lord called the student and ordered that he must kill 500 people in a day as part of his religious training to master the truth Buddha was teaching.
As the young man was so obedient to the seniors and rules of the institution which requested students to fully follow orders their seniors would issue, he took a sword and went out to a street of a town to start to kill people.
Then, he wielded the sword to imbrue it with bloods of many people he was killing as part of his religious practice, since he had been so ordered.
But, when the noon came, he found that he could just kill 100 people or so yet; and not many people were on a street any more.
So, he remembered that his mother was at home at this hour. The diligent student of Buddha's teaching then decided to kill his mother as part of his ascetic training, since he had been so ordered by his supervisor.
But, behold! Buddha himself was then approaching this community, being alerted to atrocity he felt from afar through his divine power. Buddha even sensed that the young man was going to harm his mother fatally. So, Buddha came upon the young man hurrying with the sword on his way to home.
The young man saw a very senior person hurrying toward him. With suspicion, he asked, "Why are you hurrying, Sir?" Buddha replied, "I am not hurrying; I am standing. Why can't you stop moving?" The young man said, "I am not moving, sir; I have stopped to talk to you." Buddha said to the young man, "Look at me and you yourself!"
Then the young man could see that it was Buddha himself that he was talking with. Then suddenly he realized what a horrible crime he was engaged in. He came to himself, dropping the sword down on the ground as he stopped hurrying along a circle with Buddha at its center standing still on the road.
At the moment, the king of the country arrived at the site, leading his soldiers to arrest the mad student live or dead, though the background of the atrocity was understood. Yet, the king, as Buddha was taking the young murderer with him to cleanse his soul, decided to let him go with Buddha.
Later, the young man became a highly regarded ascetic monk and eventually understood the truth to become a high priest authorized by Buddha.
But, no one knows what happened with the local lord and his wife in the kingdom for ever.
* * *
All I want to say is to stop suicide bombings.
Indeed, Muslims must stop suicide bombings in Afghanistan.
Truly, AlQaeda and the Taliban must not have blown off the Great Statutes of Buddha in Bamiyan in Northern Afghanistan in the spring of 2001.
(I don't know how proud Europeans would learn and study the teaching of Buddha. But, Jesus Christ never forbade it, for your sake.)
"If your hand or your foot makes you lose your faith, cut it off and throw it away!"
(Wenn deine Hand oder dein Fuß dich zum Bösen verführen, hacke sie ab und wirf sie weg. )