Constant Core, Shifting Coil

Once upon a time, in Korea, there lived a young woman who was quite unable to speak. On the day she turned 19, the woman met the famous Buddhist layperson called Busol. She was able to speak, for the first time in her life. As the master turned to leave, she fell at his feet clutching at his robes, “I got my voice only because of you! Without you, now there can be no meaning in life for me.” She also begged the sage for marriage and threatened to kill herself if he should refuse. Busol was in a quandary: if he did not stop her from killing herself, the Buddha’s teaching of the eight-fold way could be brought into disgrace. 

How could he hope to move forward and eventually achieve perfect enlightenment if he did not resolve the dilemma he was in right now?

He opted to give up monastic life and chose to marry the girl. Then one day, the two Buddhist ascetics who used to practice with Busol called on him. But because he had married, they were rude and treated him contemptuously.

Busol, however, did not get ruffled. He greeted the visitors with warmth and kindness. There wasn’t a word of harshness or criticism from him. However, he also could not let his fellow-seekers persist in their vengeful state of misunderstanding. In order to jog up the aspirants out of their folly, Busol filled up three gourds with cold water and had them hung on pegs in the wall.

Next, he begged the monks each to break a gourd. Nothing could be easier, the monks thought. As each ascetic struck a blow, the gourd broke into smithereens and all the water just ran down the wall. But when Busol hit his target, the shattered pieces did fall to the ground, but the water seemed to remain suspended in mid-air in the shape of a bottle gourd, as if it was frozen. The two astonished monks realised that they had erred in their estimation of the depth and power of Busol’s spiritual/tantric practice.

They apologised, saying, “Until now, we’ve paid attention to only theories, without having tried to put them into practice. Further, we didn’t discard the stubbornness and arrogance that arose from the thought that we had studied under so many great masters. Please forgive us.” Busol then told them that the physical body was like the gourds they broke; whereas their inherent nature was like the water dangling in the air.

He taught them that our inherent nature always remains as it is and doesn’t change, regardless of how circumstances may change.

Vithal C Nadkarni