EMBODIMENT OF TRUTH
Venerable Vakkali was suffering from a disease, he was
sick and afflicted. With his practice, he was not attached to his body, he was
not mentally afflicted by the pain caused by the illness. However, he had one
regret which was not being able to arouse the energy to pay respects to the
Buddha. Despite his understanding of the Dhamma and his practice, it did not
cross his mind that his unwholesome state of mind was a result of clinging onto
the Buddha's form. It did not occur to him that it too was impermanent and
subjected to decay and death. This did
not occur to him even when the Buddha came to visit him out of compassion.
Therefore the
Buddha reminded him that "when one sees the Dhamma, one sees the Buddha,
and seeing the Buddha one sees the Dhamma". All form is impermanent,
subjected to deformation, subjected to decay.
What can we draw from this?
1. One should see the Buddha as an embodiment of the
Truth and not as a physical form. When one sees the Buddha as a physical
entity, he doesn't see the real Buddha. The real Buddha lies in seeing the true
nature of reality.
2. The Buddha may not be around for us to contemplate
on impermanence of his form. However, we could remind and see for ourselves
that even well-practiced Sangha that we revere are also subjected to old age
sickness and death.
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