No. 2.
VAṆṆUPATHA JĀTAKA.
The Sandy Road.
"The Determined Ones," etc. — This discourse was uttered by the Blessed One while at Sāvatthi. About what? About a mendicant who had no perseverance.
For whilst the Successor of the Prophets, we are told, was staying at Sāvatthi, a young man of good family dwelling there went to Jetavana, and heard a discourse from the Teacher. And with converted heart he saw the evil result of lusts, and entered the Order. When he had passed the five years of noviciate, he learnt two summaries of doctrine, and applied himself to the practice of meditation. And receiving from the Teacher a suitable subject as a starting-point for thought, he retired to a forest. There he proceeded to pass the rainy season; but after three months of constant endeavour, he was unable to obtain even the least hint or presentiment of the attainment of insight.[1] Then it occurred to him, "The
- ↑ The Buddhists had no prayer; their salvation consisting in a self-produced inward change. This could be brought about in various ways, one of which was the kind of meditation here referred to (Kammaṭṭhāna), leading to a firm conviction of the impermanence of all finite things. As every road leads to Rome, so any finite object may be taken as the starting-point from which thought may be taken, by gradually increasing steps, near to the infinite; and so acquire a sense of the proportion of things, and realize the insignificance of the individual. The unassisted mind of the ignorant would naturally find difficulty in doing this; and certain examples of the way in which it might be done were accordingly worked out; and a disciple would go to his teacher, and ask him to recommend which way he should adopt. But the disciple must work out his own enlightenment.
