15 02 2012 LESSON 525 Dhammapada Verse 70Jambukatthera Vatthu The
Unconditioned Is The Highest Achievement
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LESSONS 525
Verse 70. The
Unconditioned Is The Highest Achievement
Month
after month with blady-grass tip
the fool may take his food;
heโs not worth the slightest bit
of one who Dhamma knows.
Explanation:
A foolish person sets out to attain the highest reward of spiritual life. As an
austere ascetic, he eats a mere morsel of food with the tip of a blade of
grass. And, that too, only once a month. Still that kind of misguided ascetic
will not at all be nearer liberation than when he started. With all that, he is
not worth even one-sixteenth part of an Arahant who has achieved the
Unconditioned.
Dhammapada Verse 70
Jambukatthera Vatthu
Mase
mase kusaggena
balo bhunjeyya bhojanam
na so sankhatadhammanam
kalam agghati solasim.
Verse
70: Even though, month after month, the fool (living in austerity) takes his
food sparingly with the tip of a grass blade, he is not worth even
one-sixteenth part of those who have comprehended the Truth (i.e., the ariyas).
The
Story of Thera Jambuka
While
residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (70) of this book,
with reference to Thera Jambuka.
Jambuka
was the son of a rich man in Savatthi. Due to his past evil deeds he was born
with very peculiar habits. As a child, he wanted to sleep on the floor with no
proper bed, and to take his own excreta for food instead of rice. When he grew
older, his parents sent him to the Ajivakas, the naked ascetics. When those
ascetics found out about his peculiar food habits they drove him away. At
nights he ate human excreta and in the day time stood still on one leg and kept
his mouth open. He used to say that he kept his mouth open because he only lived
on air and that he stood on one leg because it would otherwise be too heavy for
the earth to bear him. “I never sit down, I never go to sleep,” he
boasted and on account of this, he was known as Jambuka, a ‘jackal’.
Many
people believed him and some would come to him with offerings of choice food.
Then Jambuka would refuse and say, “I do not take any food except
air.” When pressed, he would take just a little of the food with the tip
of a blade of grass and say, “Now go, this little will give you enough merit.”
In this way, Jambuka lived for fifty-five years, naked and taking only excreta.
One
day, the Buddha saw in his vision that Jambuka was due to attain arahatship
within a short time. So, in the evening, the Buddha went to where Jambuka was
staying and asked for some place to spend the night. Jambuka pointed out to him
a mountain-cave not far from the stone slab on which he himself was staying.
During the first, second and third watches of the night, the Catumaharajika
devas, Sakka and Mahabrahma came to pay homage to the Buddha in turn. On all
the three occasions, the forest was lit up and Jambuka saw the light three
times. In the morning, he walked over to the Buddha and enquired about the
lights.
When
told about the devas, Sakka and Mahabrahma coming to pay homage to the Buddha,
Jambuka was very much impressed, and said to the Buddha, “You must,
indeed, be a wonderfully great person for the devas, Sakka and Mahabrahma to
come and pay homage to you. As for me, even though I have practised austerely
for fifty-five years, living only on air and standing only on one leg, none of
the devas, nor Sakka, nor Mahabrahma has ever came to me” To him, the
Buddha replied, “O Jambuka! You have been deceiving other people, but
you cannot deceive me. I know that for fifty-five years you have been eating
excreta and sleeping on the ground.”
Furthermore,
the Buddha explained to him how in one of his past existences during the time
of Kassapa Buddha, Jambuka had prevented a thera from going with him to the
house of a lay-disciple where alms-food was being offered and how he had also
thrown away the food that was sent along with him for that thera. It was for
those evil deeds that Jambuka had to be eating excreta and sleeping on the
ground. Hearing that account, Jambuka was horrified and terror-stricken, and
repented for having done evil and for having deceived other people. He went
down on his knees and the Buddha gave him a piece of cloth to put on. The
Buddha then proceeded to deliver a discourse; at the end of the discourse
Jambuka attained arahatship and joined the Buddhist Order on the spot.
Soon
after this, Jambuka’s pupils from Anga and Magadha arrived and they were
surprised to see their teacher with the Buddha. Thera Jambuka then explained to
his pupils that he had joined the Buddhist Order and that he was now only a
disciple of the Buddha. To them, the Buddha said that although their teacher
had lived austerely by taking food very sparingly, it was not worth even
one-sixteenth part of his present practice and achievement.
Then
the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:
|
Verse 70: Even though, |
56 Uttar Pradesh assembly seats went to polls on Wednesday
LUCKNOW: Fifty-six seats
spread across 10 districts on Wednesday gone to polls in the third leg of the
seven-phased Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
The most high-profile of these districts is Amethi (re-christened Chhatrapati
Shahuji Maharaj Nagar).
Sultanpur as well as Allahabad are also in the list of places to go to polls.
Among the other districts are Varanasi, Jaunpur, Mirzapur, Bhadohi (renamed
Sant Ravidas Nagar), Kaushambhi, Sonbhadra and Chandauli - mostly situated
along the banks of the Ganga river.
The fate of 1,018 candidates for the 56 seats will be determined by 1.77 crore
voters at 18,374 polling stations where 31,400 electronic voting machines are
in place.
Prominent candidates include Mayawati
cabinet ministers Indrajeet Saroj and Nand Gopal Nandi.
Said Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer Umesh Singh: “The 18,374
polling parties detailed to man the polling stations have reached their
respective destinations.”
This year, in a striking break with the past, there have been no
charges of electoral fraud or malfeasance. In considerable part, there was
peaceable process.
Throughout India, the same
electronic voting machines (EVMs) are used and they are mostly tamper proof.
The EC personnel has also made use of video cameras to record the proceedings
around polling booths in potentially sensitive areas to ensure that party goons
donโt foment discord and create havoc.
‘Congress can’t tolerate daughter of an Untouchable (Scheduled
Caste) as CM’
UP Chief
Minister Mayawati attacked the Congress, blaming it for the things that
she could not deliver to the people during her 5-year term in the state
Launching Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) election campaign yesterday, Uttar
Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati attacked the Congress, blaming it for the
things that she could not deliver to the people during her five-year rule over
India’s most populous state.
She did not spare the Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party either,
but it was the Congress that remained her key target throughout the
50-minute-long speech which she read out from a printed pages before a large
crowd in Sitapur, about 85 km from Lucknow.
Mayawati did not miss the opportunity to run the Youraj down. Claiming that her
rally drew at least five times the crowd that was addressed by Gandhis, she
sought to warn the people, “Don’t get carried away by the lip service of
different opposition parties and their manifestoes, but be particularly wary of
the Congress party, because it has very big stakes but a very poor support
base.”
In an obvious reference to Youraj, she remarked, “A top Congress leader
has been repeatedly lamenting over the fact that a lot of people from UP go
begging for jobs in far-off places, but I would like to ask him what his party
did to prevent this migration during the 40 years that Congress ruled over this
state.”
Jumbo support: BSP supporters hold up the party’s symbol at
Chief
Minister Mayawati’s election campaign rally in
Sitapur.
Terming the Congress as grossly “anti-SC/ST”, Mayawati accused the
Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government of personally targeting her
as well as her government through misuse of institutions like the Central
Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).
Citing the current probe into the Rs 5,000-crore National Rural Health Mission
(NRHM) scandal, which also involves murder of three senior health officials,
she said, “The manner in which the probe is being carried out reflects the
anti-SC/ST mindset of the Congress party which has clearly influenced the CBI
and the CAG to target me.
“The Congress cannot tolerate the daughter of an Untouchable (Scheduled
Caste) as chief minister and that is why its effort was to run me down.”
She also charged the Congress-led central government with not giving adequate
assistance for development of the state.
Talking to reporters, Mayawati said her government had done more work in the
past five years than any other government in the state since the country became
independent and asserted that only her BSP can ensure progress of all
communities.
“There is need to ensure progress of all communities. Only BSP can ensure
that people from all communities are on their feet,” Mayawati said.
UP: Mayawati blames Centre for lack of funds
Varanasi: Uttar
Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP supremo Mayawati at a rally in Varanasi on
Friday attacked the Congress government for not releasing the funds asked for
development projects in the state.
Mayawati
said the State Government is not being given funds by the Central Government.
“We
have started many schemes for development with the help of private sector. We
ask for funds for development projects but the Central Government does not
release the funds for development in UP for political reasons,” accused
Mayawati.
She also charged the Congress-led
central government with not giving adequate assistance for development of the
state.
Talking to reporters, Mayawati said her government had done more work in the
past five years than any other government in the state since the country became
independent and asserted that only her BSP can ensure progress of all
communities.
“There is need to ensure progress of all communities. Only BSP can ensure
that people from all communities are on their feet,” Mayawati said.
The BSP
Chief said the Central Government has not given complete funds for the Central
Government projects and all this is affecting the development work in the
state.
Mayawati
also attacked the Congress and Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi.
Mayawati
said that Rahul and other Congress party leaders are taking names of Kashiram
to attract the SC/ST and BSP supporters.
“Congress
taking Kashiram’s name is like insulting him,” said Mayawati.
-
A flag with photographs of Bahujan Samaj Party leaders,
Kanshiram, left, Mayawati, right, and B.R. Ambedkar, centre, at a rally
in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, Feb. 6.
The Bahujan Samaj Party, the
ruling party in Uttar Pradesh, was founded in 1984 by Indian politician Kanshi
Ram. The party is currently led by Kumari Mayawati, who champions the cause of
the stateโs millions of SC/STs(untouchables), a group that
is traditionally at the bottom of the Hindu caste system, the
OBCs/Minorities and the poor upper castes.
The BSP has its stronghold in
the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and been in power four times there, winning
elections in 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2007. Ms Mayawati is the only Chief Minister
who completes a full five-year term in power in the state, where elections
started Wednesday. No other Chief Minister in Uttar Pradesh have ever completed
five years term.
The party has currently 21
members in Indiaโs lower house of Parliament, making it the fourth-largest
party in the country. Its political symbol is the elephant.
Cong
enacting drama on Batla House encounter: Mayawati
Jaunpur/Varanasi: Uttar
Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today alleged that Congress was enacting a
“drama” on the Batla House encounter and said the Muslim community
should exercise vigilance against such “designs”.
“Congress
is enacting a drama on the Batla House encounter case… had it been really
serious it would have ordered a judicial probe so that the reality could come
before people,” Mayawati told an election rally.
Instead
of a probe, Congress is only trying to “mislead Muslims and the community
should be vigilant against such designs”, she said.
Alleging
that Congress was not implementing the Sachchar Committee report and was merely
“shedding crocodile tears”, the chief minister said, “Congress
did nothing for the welfare of the community and only treated it as a vote
bank”.
Lashing
out at opposition parties, she said that Congress, SP and BJP were unable to digest
that BSP government had successfully worked for the welfare of all sections of
society.
Those
playing with the sentiments of people should not be allowed to come to power,
she said. Accusing the Centre of having “casteist mentality”,
Mayawati said that it was because of this that UPA government did not give any
package to the state and hindered welfare works of her government.
“The
Centre did not take any initiative to deal with the recurring problem of floods
in purvanchal,” she said. “People of Uttar Pradesh will never forgive
Congress for remembering BR Ambedkar and BSP fouder Kanshiram only at the time
of elections. The Congress-led UPA government did not even declare a day’s
mourning in memory of Kanshiram when he had passed away,” Mayawati said in
Varanasi.
Trouble for BJP
This time the BJP in UP
is facing the wrath from a section that it had never expected. Sant Mahasabha,
an umbrella body of various sadhu organisations, has demanded the removal of
the mention of Ram Temple from the BJP’s election manifesto.
A delegation of the Mahasabha even met
officials of the EC in this regard. According to national president of the Sant
and Hindu Mahasabhahas Chakrapani Maharaj, the BJP has repeatedly used the
temple issue only for its political advantage. The sadhus have even threatened
to go on fast unto death in front of the EC office if the BJP does not delete
the mention of Ram Mandir from its manifesto.
VOICE OF SARVAJAN
[IHRO] Re: [samukhya]
President, Minister and Treason! ~ rajinder puri
loksamukhya
If
you pick up a ordinary person from the street and ask him to run a marathon-
what will he do.
He/She will do a mockery of the run.
Congress party has its best to put underserving people at the Presidents house.
They have made it clear- The cabinet is
accountable to the empress Sonia Gandhi not the president.
There is an alternative to President.
Ashok
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Abhijit Sengupta <sengupta.abhijit@ymail.com>
wrote:
President,
Minister and Treason!
12
February 2012
rajinder puri
Law
minister Salman Khurshid openly defied the Election Commissionโs (EC)
restraining order on his advocacy of a sub-quota for minorities during the
Uttar Pradesh election campaign. The law minister was undeterred by the EC. Sticking to his stand he reiterated he would ensure the
rights of the Muslim community even if the Election Commission were to
“hang” him. The EC as a Constitutional body accountable to the
President complained to Rashtrapati Bhawan by writing in a letter: โThe
Election Commission of India finds it necessary and unavoidable to turn to you
at this juncture for immediate and decisive intervention.โ President Pratibha
Patil forwarded the complaint to the Prime Minister asking for โappropriate
actionโ.
President Patilโs response was totally
inappropriate. Regardless of how the PM reacts it is against the
principles of natural justice to seek redress from someone subject to such
obvious conflict of interest. The Law Minister is
the PMโs colleague in the Union Cabinet which is chaired by him. The
misconception that the President is bound by the advice of the Cabinet
according to the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution introduced during the
Emergency by a paranoid and dictatorial PM is not relevant here. Never
mind the perverse Amendment that needs to be scrapped, even under its
provisions the President is not obliged to seek the
PMโs advice in this matter. The President may be bound by the advice
that is tendered by the Cabinet. In this case it is not the Cabinet proffering
advice. It is the President being obliged to give direction regarding the
complaint received from a Constitutional office directly accountable to the
President related to a dispute arising between the EC and a Cabinet minister.
President Patil is the only officeholder in the
nation under oath to โpreserve and protectโ the Constitution and Law. All other
officials including the PM and ministers are under oath to abide by the
Constitution and to maintain official secrecy where required. Does the
Presidentโs oath of office have any relevance? If it does, there is an even
graver episode involving the law minister that has escaped appropriate
Presidential intervention. The law minister in an
election rally indicated that the Batla House encounter between terrorists and
the police was faked and deserved a judicial inquiry. He told the
audience: “When I showed her the pictures of the Batla House encounter,
Soniaji wept bitterly and asked me to go to the prime minister so that
something could be done,” He added that the government was set to appoint
an enquiry panel headed by a former chief justice to examine the genuineness of
the encounter but had to abort its plans in view of the ensuing 2009 general
election.
Clearly, by shooting over the shoulder of Mrs Sonia
Gandhi the law minister was strengthening the view expressed by the
Congress general secretary, Mr. Digvijay Singh. Mr Singh had earlier said that
the Batla House encounter was faked and it deserved a judicial inquiry.
However, Mr Singhโs opinion, as that of any citizen, is on a different footing
from the same view being endorsed by Mr Salman Khurshid. Despite his high
office Mr Singh is not a member of the Cabinet. He is free to question the
Cabinetโs view. How that affects discipline within the ruling party is a
problem that concerns the Congress and not the public. Mr
Khurshid as a Cabinet minister endorsing Mr Singhโs view is an altogether different matter.
It might be recalled that home minister Chidambaram
has on more than one occasion stated categorically that the Batla House encounter was genuine, and that it
occurred between the police and terrorists. The Prime Minister publicly
endorsed the home minister. It is therefore the view
of the Cabinet, which has collective responsibility, that the Batla
House encounter was genuine. Mr Khurshid as the law minister and member of the
Cabinet therefore also stands committed to that view. However, in his election
rally he ran totally counter to his own officially-held view. By opposing that view he did not simply commit
indiscipline. The implications could be much graver.
Terrorism is akin to fighting a war against the state. In the Batla House
encounter two terrorists and one highly decorated police officer were killed. Article
121 of the Indian Penal Code that deals with Treason
under the heading: โWaging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting
waging of war against the Government of Indiaโ goes on to state: โWhoever,
wages war against the Government of India, or attempts to wage such war, or
abets the waging of such war, shall be punished
with death, or Imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to fine.โ
The question arises: Did the law minister commit treason by opposing what he
officially believed to be a genuine encounter between the police and
terrorists? This is a question that the legal advisers of the President might
address. One does not know how the President will react to the dispute between
the EC and the law minister, or to one between the law minister and the home
minister. At the start of this year I had predicted that the next Presidential
election, due in a few months, will be fought by candidates promising
pro-active roles by exercising the powers assigned to the office by our written
Constitution. If that does not happen, given the cavalier fashion in which law
and convention are flouted by this government, democracy in India will be dead.
I do not believe that will happen. I believe that the system will be restored.
It will have to conform to the intentions of the Constitutionโs founding
fathers. President
Patil has the historic opportunity to start the ball rolling.
[dhamma_voice] RE:
Honour killing reaches Karnataka In the Abalavadi village of Karnatka, a girl
was killed for falling in love with a Scheduled Caste (SC).
Harbans virdee
REMEMBER AS BABA SAHIB
SAID-: UNTIL HINDUISM REMAIN, CAST SYSTEM WILL REMAIN
Honour
killing reaches Karnataka
In
the Abalavadi village of Karnatka, a girl was killed for falling in love with a Scheduled Caste.
In a chilling case, an entire village, Abalavadi, appears to
have stood mute witness to the murderous beating and killing of a young girl,
Suvarna, 22, by her immediate relatives, even as her SC paramour of five
years, Govindaraju, 24, helpless to stop it, was thrashed and allowed to crawl
away with nothing but his life. It is said to be the first case of honour
killing in Karnataka.
On January 5, two months after the incident, Govindaraju’s still-rattled mother
and two sisters-in-law, Tholasamma, Thayamma and Mangalagowri, told the
jurisdictional Mandya district police that they witnessed the November 6, 2011
killing. The battered Suvarna, belonging to the dominant other backward caste
of Vokkaligas, was hanged from the rafters of their cattle shed by her
relatives, egged on by her father Davalana Ramakrishna. According to their
account, and the version given exclusively to India Today by Govindaraju,
nearly 300 villagers belonging to the girl’s caste, as well as several SC/STs,
watched the incident. No one intervened.
“They could not bear the idea of their girl being with me, an SC. We
loved each other so much and longed for a life together, but they killed her.
They told her, you want a SC boy, we will kill you in his house,'’ a
distraught Govindaraju told India Today over the telephone from his hiding
place.
Activist Lakshman Cheernahally, who is fighting for justice for Govindaraju and
Suvarna, said some Vokkaligas were supporting their cause. “But this
incident is just the latest among the anti-Dalit incidents in this Vokkaliga-dominant
district,'’ he said.
Most Vokkaligas at Abalavadi insist Suvarna’s death was suicide. “Will any
man kill his own daughter? That too his only child whom he brought up like a
flower?'’ asks Suvarna’s neighbour Savitri, 40. The deceased girl’s classmate
Jayalakshmi, 22, says: “She was weak and always complained of stomach
ache. She killed herself. Her father would never have raised a hand against
her. He was so caring, we used to wish our fathers were like that.'’
Abalavadi gram panchayat member Lakshmamma, 40, from the Congress party, says:
“Ramakrishna, our village elder from Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), got
Govindaraju’s brother Thimmappa elected to the panchayat. Look at how they
repaid him.'’ Another neighbour, Ningamma, 35, maintains that Govindaraju’s
family was trying to duck outstanding loans of Rs.4 lakh taken from Vokkaligas
by concocting the case. ‘’They are using Suvarna’s death to make money,'’ she
says and points to the Rs.25 lakh rehabilitation package that some
organisations have sought for the family.
Govindaraju angrily denies these allegations. He says the “characterless'’
Ramakrishna egged on Suvarna’s brother Sunil, 16, to commit suicide a year ago,
as he suspected that the boy was illegitimate. “After Sunil’s death,
Suvarna was the sole heir to about four acres of land and a jaggery unit, so
all her cousins were eyeing her property. They seized the excuse of our
relationship to get rid of her,'’ he claims.
The village of Abalavadi, near External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna’s
hometown of Maddur, is home to over 2,000 Vokkaligas and about 300 SC/STs of
the “untouchable'’ Maadigas. The SC/STs are “outsiders'’ from
Kunigal, 45 km away, who migrated to Abalavadi over three generations ago. They
do not have land, but work as labourers on Vokkaliga lands.
“They are a lazy lot, but we can’t even raise our voices against them.
They complain to the police for flimsy reasons and we are immediately penalised
under the (Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Prevention of) Atrocities Act (1989).
They may be just a minority in this village, but they know their power,'’ says
an angry Vokkaliga villager.
This feeling is reflected across the region and the death of Suvarna, with its
consequent SC/ST agitation, threatens to exacerbate the long simmering
inter-caste conflict in this hotbed of Vokkaliga politics. In the past one
year, the district administration has reported an alarming number of
inter-caste disruptions, perceived as an effort to capture and consolidate the SC/ST vote. “We have still not identified a specific party that is
fomenting this trouble, but a pattern of instigation is certainly emerging,'’ a
senior official in the district administration who did not want to be
identified, told India Today.
With just a year to go for the 2013 Assembly elections, Mandya district and its
surrounding Vokkaliga belt, which accounts for 45 seats in the 224-seat
Assembly, is crucial for the fortunes of all parties. The JD(S) led by former
prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, and the Congress, are traditional rivals here,
but the ruling BJP is making inroads. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party is also
stepping in.
Suvarna’s death and immediate cremation had been passed off as a “hidden
suicide'’. Locals and the police admit that it is the norm for bodies of
suicide victims to be burnt without a case being registered or a post-mortem,
as no one wants to get involved in the legal process. But Govindaraju’s family,
drummed out of Abalavadi since the incident, were emboldened by local bsp
leader Krishnamurthy to lodge the complaint about what happened two months ago.
The family is still in hiding.
Govindaraju’s elder brother Thimmappa also approached the State Human Rights
Commission (SHRC), along with several Dalit organisations. He contends that the
district police are not in a position to conduct an impartial inquiry as the
Vokkaligas are politically powerful. He has asked the shrc to conduct an
independent inquiry and also sought its support to refer the case to the CBI.
“I took up the case suo motu based on media reports, before these people
approached me. I issued notices to the chief secretary, the Mandya district
administration and the superintendent of police. I also spoke to the inspector
general for the range and sought a report within six weeks,'’ shrc Chairperson
Justice S.R. Nayak told India Today.
Mandya’s Superintendent of Police Koushalendra Kumar said there did appear to
be a case as per Govindaraju’s family’s allegations. “We have arrested
most of the accused, including Ramakrishna,'’ he said.
The district administration is looking to resolve the case quickly, as several SC/ST and Vokkaliga organi- sations are staging dharnas and processions
countering each other, which could lead to serious clashes. The district Deputy
Commissioner P.C. Jaffer said, “We are working to bring back harmony to
the village.'’
–
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