Blessing Twenty:
Restraint from Drinking Intoxicants
Restraint from Drinking Intoxicants
F.5 Ex.MahÄdhana: a millionnaire reduced to rags (DhA.iii.129ff.)
In the time of Lord Buddha there was a family of bankers who had 80 million to their name. The son was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and his parents loved him so much that when they got older they pleaded with him just to live off the family inheritance and never to earn his living. They said, âYou are our only child. Even if you were to spend the money all your life, there is so much you would surely never manage to use it all up. So just take it easy. It would be much better then the stress of earning a living.â
The son didnât like working for a living anyway, so he agreed wholeheartedly. He settled down to the onerous task of spending his parentsâ fortune and passed the time playing the guitar or singing songs.
In another nearby town there was a daughter born to another bankersâ family and her parents loved her so much that when they got older they pleaded with her in just the same way, just to live off the family inheritance and never to earn her living. They said, âYou are our only child. Even if you were to spend the money all your life, there is so much you would surely never manage to use it all up â so please take it easy. It would be much better then the stress of earning a living. You could live nearby us so we wonât get lonely in our old age.â The daughter agreed and whiled away her time spending her parentsâ fortune.
When both the daughter and the son came of age, both families looked for a worthy partner for their child. They found a worthy partner in each other and so their marriage was arranged. This couple was amply provided for but they had no idea how to manage their wealth. At the time when the parents on both sides of the family passed away the couple had been left with a total inheritance of 160 million â the millionaire boy would seek audience with the king three times a day.
In that town there was a group of drunkards. They would get drunk and chatter idly and dream of ways to be able to get free drinks their whole life long, because they thought alcohol was the greatest drink in the world. One day, they came up with the idea of persuading some wealthy person to become an alcoholic like themselves â then they would be able to manipulate that millionaireâs wealth. They did their homework and found out how rich the millionaire boy was. They found out that he went for royal audience three times a day and what route he took on the way back from the palace with his retinue. The next day the drunkards waited nearby the millionaire boyâs usual route and acted like they were having tremendous fun. When they saw the millionaire boy, they toasted him shouting, âMay you live to be a hundred years old.â The millionaire asked his man-servant (who was a drunk himself) what the group was doing. The manservant said, âthe men are drinking a drink called âalcoholâ (which at that time was not well known)â. The millionaire asked what alcohol was. The man-servant replied, in the manner of alcoholic, âIt is the most delicious drink in the world. If you were to have just a sip of alcohol, you would feel very lively. You will be a new person. Itâll reduce cholesterol. If you have high blood pressure, it will reduce your blood pressure. If you have low blood pressure, it will raise your blood pressure. Itâs good for you in every way.â
The millionaire boy said, âIf that is the case, bring some alcohol for me to try!â
He thought he would only have a sip, but the taste was so seductive he felt intoxicated. All the drunkards gathered around him cheering him on to drink more and that is exactly what he did. He drank more and more until he wasnât himself any more. The drunkards smirked to themselves. The millionaire boy kept on paying for more drinks â drinks for himself and drinks for all the other cronies too â because itâs no fun to drink all alone. You have to have company when you are drinking, so that you can chat and boast and tell tall stories. And just getting drunk wasnât enough â he would go out buying expensive flower garlands and would invite musicians and dancers to perform for him and would always reward them with lavish prizes. He would do the same thing every day. Before long all that was left of his fortune were empty treasure chests. The treasurer came to advise the millionaire boy that there was not nothing left of his fortune of 80 million. The millionaire boy asked âDoesnât my wife have some money to her name?â The treasurer answered, âYes sir! She does still have some wealth.â
Therefore as soon as the millionaire boy got his hands on his wifeâs fortune he continued his drunken extravagance as before, until eventually the fortune was exhausted again. Now in order to raise some cash, he was reduced to selling all his beautiful estates. To slake his thirst, he sold off his orchards, his coach and horses, trinkets around the house and eventually the house itself.
In the beginning they asked the permission of the new owner to stay on in their former house. Their handsome looks became forlorn. In their old age they were driven from the house by the new owners. So they had to wander from one house to another looking for refuge. Eventually they had to resort to a begging bowl to feed themselves.
One day the Lord Buddha, with Änanda as his attendant, passed through that town and seeing the husband and wife begging for the monks left-overs by the monkâs refectory, the Buddha smiled to himself. Seeing the Buddha smile, Änanda asked the reason. The Buddha replied, âÄnanda! Look at this millionaire son formerly rich, but who has squandered 160 million and who must now take his wife around begging for a living in the city.â
âIf this millionaireâs son hadnât squandered his wealth, but in his youth had invested in business, he would be the richest man in the city by now, because he has a lot of merit in his past. If he had renounced the world in his youth he would have become an arahant. If his wife had renounced the world as a nun in her youth. She would have become a non-returner [anÄgÄmi].â
âIf this millionaireâs son had squandered his wealth only in his youth, but in middle age had invested his wealth in business, his previous merits would have caused him to become the second richest man in the city. If he had decided to renounce the world in the middle age he would have become a non-returner [anÄgÄmi], and his wife if she had ordained as a nun, would have become a once-returner [sakÄŦdÄgÄmi].â
âIf this millionaireâs son had squandered his wealth in his youth and his middle age, but had invested his wealth in his old-age, his previous merit would have caused him to become the third richest man in the city and if he had decided to renounce the world in his old age, he would have become a once-returner [sakÄŦdÄgÄmi]. If his wife had ordained as a nun, she would have become a âstream-enterer [sotÄpana].â
âUnfortunately, this couple have completely squandered their wealth and have lost their opportunity to cultivate to path for Nirvana. Änanda! Foolish people who fail to cultivate virtue in their lives, and who fail to earn their living when they are young, will become forlorn like an aging heron, living in a dried-up pond with no more fish to prey upon. They hadnât cultivated virtue in their youth â nor earned their living either. In their old age all they can do now is reminisce with regret about their former wealth like an arrow that falls to earth when its momentum has run out.
Therefore the harm of alcohol apart from it destroying the drinker also ruins the lives of the rest of the drinkerâs family, destroys our wealth and security and obscures the pathway to Nirvana. This is the harmfulness of alcohol â therefore if you have alcohol in your possession stop drinking it, pour it away and discard the bottles. Make sure your home is alcohol free.
F.6 Ex. Choice of which Precept to break
There were once a man and a wife who lived near the mountains. One day the husband left home and went to live in a cave in the mountains to keep the Five Precepts. After a while, his wife began to miss him and went to him in his cave, threatening to kill herself if he continued with the âFive Precepts nonsenseâ. The man found the threat rather worrisome, so offered to break one of the Precepts in order to save the life of his wife. The wife brought him a cow, a young woman and a bottle of liquor and told him to take his pick of which Precept to break. The man thought that to kill the cow would be destructive â and equally to rape the young womanâ so he settled for drinking the liquor because it didnât seem to bring harm to anyone else. After one sip of the liquor he found it good and drank the whole bottle. Inebriated, he killed the cow and raped the young girl too. The moral of the story is that abstaining from alcohol serves to preserve the intactness of all the other four Precepts!
