One morning, the Buddha put on his robe, picked up his bowl, and went into the city of Sravasti to beg for food. Ananda accompanied him. That morning they saw an old couple, their backs stooped over, who were warming themselves over some burning garbage. They looked like a pair of old cranes missing all their feathers, and they displayed a greedy and miserable expression.

The Buddha told Ananda, “If this old couple had scrimped and saved in the past, they could have become wealthy elders of Sravasti. If they had cultivated the spiritual path with unrelenting zeal, then they could have become arhats, or non-returners, or once-returners, or stream-enterers,¹ thereby becoming noble ones and attaining the bliss of liberation. But when they were young, they were lax and extravagant. They did not put effort into attaining a comfortable living, they heard the Dharma but did not uphold and practice it, and they did not live in a pure and upright fashion. That is why, in their old age, they are like old cranes that have landed on the banks of a dried up pond. The only thing they can do is spend their remaining years of life in such misery.”

While we say there is “nothing to attain,” this does not negate the attainments of spiritual practice. The Buddha wants us to cultivate free of attachments, but that does not mean that we do not need to cultivate. Th.ere are some people who will chant the sutras, bow to the Buddha now and then, and perform various acts of giving, but when they meet with the slightest difficulties regarding their emotions, career, work, or health, they blame the Buddhas and bodhisattvas for not protecting them. The Dharma is not some business deal. As we interact with the Buddhas and bodhisattvas our faith should increase and become more pure. We should be able to feel connected to all the Buddhas, rather than always putting up roadblocks. If in our minds we are looking to get something, how can we be free?

Once there was a particularly zealous Buddhist practitioner who made his own Buddha statue. Every day he would carry the statue with him and devoutly make offerings to it. One day this practitioner went to a Buddhist temple to burn incense, but noticed that the incense he was burning wafted off to the other Buddha statutes. He thought to himself, “My Buddha statue cannot smell the incense I burn. I need to fix this.”

He soon came up with an idea: he would drill holes in the nostrils of his Buddha statue to which he could affix some incense, and that way only his Buddha statue would enjoy the incense he burned.

A few days later the practitioner’s Buddha statue, originally immaculate and clean, now had its nose blackened by the smoke. Only then did the practitioner realize that his own delusion had ruined the majestic appearance of the Buddha statue.

Source: Hsing Yun, Four Insights for Finding Fulfillment: A Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Diamond Sutra, Los Angeles: Buddha’s Light Publishing, 2012.

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Footnote:

1. These are four levels of great spiritual attainment, with the arhat being the highest. The non-returner, once-returner, and stream-enterer are each assured to become arhats in a varying number of future rebirths. Ed.