The Wisdom of the Sands Vol 2 ~ 04
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| event type | discourse |
| date & time | 5 Mar 1978 am |
| location | Buddha Hall, Poona |
| language | English |
| audio | Available, duration 1h 41min. Quality: good. |
| online audio | |
| video | Not available |
| online video | |
| see also |
|
| online text | find the PDF of this discourse |
| shorttitle | SANDS204 |
- notes
- synopsis
- Reader of the sutra: Sw Ananda Teertha.
- The sutra
- There was once a very rich man who had a son. He said to him, "My son, here is a jewelled ring. Keep it as a sign that you are a successor of mine, and pass it down to your posterity. It is of value, of fine appearance, and it has the added capacity of opening a certain door to wealth."
- Some years later he had another son. When he was old enough, the wise man gave him another ring, with the same advice.
- The same thing happened in the case of his third and last son.
- When the ancient had died and the sons grew up, one after the other, each claimed primacy for himself because of his possession of one of the rings. Nobody could tell for certain which was the most valuable.
- Each of his sons gained adherents, all claiming greater value or beauty for his own ring.
- But the curious thing was that the 'door to wealth' remained shut for the possessors of the keys, and even their closest supporters.
- They were all too preoccupied with the problem of precedence, the possession of the ring, its value and appearance.
- Only a few looked for the door to the treasury of the ancient. But the rings had a magical quality too. Although they were keys, they were not used directly in opening the door to the treasury. If was sufficient to look upon them without contention or too much attachment to one or the other of their qualities. When this had been done, the people who had looked were able to tell where the treasury was, and could open it merely by reproducing the outline of the ring. The treasures had another quality too: they were inexhaustibile.
- Meanwhile the partisans of the three rings repeated the tale of their ancestor about the merits of the rings, each in a slightly different way.
- The first community thought that they had already found the treasure.
- The second thought that it was allegorical.
- The third transferred the possibility of the opening of the door to a distant and remotely imagined future time.
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