I had now become a sister of the Order, and betook myself early in the morning of each day with my alms-bowl to Kosambi, where I went from house to house till the bowl was full—although Satagira would only too willingly have spared me this round of begging.
One day I took my stand at the door of his palace, because the oldest nuns had advised me to subject myself to this trial also. At that moment Satagira appeared just in the gateway, avoided me, however, with a startled glance, and sorrowfully covered his face. Immediately thereafter the house-steward came out weeping to me, and begged that he might be allowed to send me everything I needed daily. But I answered him that it behoved me to obey the rule of the Order.
When I had returned from this errand and had eaten what had been given to me, with which, then, the wretched question of food was settled for the whole day, I was instructed by one of the older nuns, and in the evening I listened, in the assembly, to the words of the Master, or perhaps to those of one of the great disciples, like Sariputta or Ananda. After this was over, however, it often happened that one sister sought the company of another. "Delightful, sister, is the Sinsapa wood; glorious the clear moonlit night; the trees are in full blossom; divine odours, one seems to feel, are being wafted hither and thither. Come away then, and let us find sister Sumedha. She is a keeper of the Word, a treasure-house of the doctrine. Her discourse may well lend a double glory to this Sinsapa grove." And thereafter we would spend the greater part of such a night in thoughtful converse.
This life in the open air, this constant spiritual activity, and the lively interchange of thought, as a result of which no time was left for sad brooding over personal sorrows or for idle reveries, and finally the elevating and purifying of my whole nature by the power of the truth—all this strengthened both body and mind marvellously. A new and nobler life opened out before, and I enjoyed a calm and cheerful happiness of which a few weeks earlier I could not even have dreamt.
When the rainy season came, the building already stood prepared for the sisters, with a roomy hall for common use, and a separate cell for each one. My husband and several other rich citizens who had relatives among the nuns insisted upon fitting out these abodes of ours with mats and carpets, seats and couches, so that we were richly provided with everything needed to make life reasonably comfortable, and all the more willingly dispensed with its luxury. So this period of enforced seclusion passed quite tolerably in the regular alternation of conversation on religious questions with independent thought and contemplation. Towards evening, however, we betook ourselves, when the weather permitted, to the common hall of the monks to listen to the Master, or else he or one of his great disciples came over to us.
But when the forest, so dear to the heart of the Master, in all its freshness of renewed youth, in its hundredfold richness of leaf and splendour of flower, again invited us to transfer the calm of our solitary contemplation and our common meetings to its more open shelter, we were met by the sorrowful news that the Master was now preparing to set out on his journey to the eastern provinces. Of course we had not dared to hope that he would always remain in Kosambi; and we also knew how foolish it is to complain of the inevitable, and how little we would show ourselves worthy of the Master if overcome by grief.
So we turned our steps, late in the afternoon, quiet and composed, to the Temple of Krishna, to listen for the last time, perhaps, in years, to the words of the Buddha, and then to bid him farewell.
Standing on the steps, the Master spoke of the transitoriness of all that comes into existence, of the dissolution of everything that has been compounded, of the fleeting nature of all phenomena, of the unreality of all forms whatsoever. And after he had shown that, nowhere in this nor in the other world, far as the desire for existence propagates itself, nowhere in time or space, is there a fixed spot, an abiding place of refuge to be found, he gave utterance to that sentence which thou didst with justice call "world-crushing," and which is now verifying itself round about us—
"Upward to heaven's sublimest light, life presses—then decays.
Know, that the future will even quench the glow of Brahma's rays."
We sisters had been told by one of the disciples that after the address we were to go, one by one, to the Master, in order to take leave of him, and to receive a motto which should be a spiritual guide to us in all our future endeavours, As I was one of the youngest, and purposely kept myself in the background, I succeeded in being the last. For I grudged to any other that she should speak to the Master after I did, and I also thought that a longer and less hasty interview would be more possible if no others waited to come after me.
After I had bent myself reverently, the Master looked at me with a glance which filled my being with light to its innermost depths, and said—
"And to thee, Vasitthi, I give, on the threshold of this ruined sanctuary of the Sixteen-thousand-one-hundredfold Bridegroom,—to remember me by, and to think of under the leafy shelter of this Sinsapa wood, of which thou dost carry a leaf on, and a shadow in, thy heart,—the following motto: 'Where love is, there is also suffering.'"
"Is that all?" I foolishly asked.
"All, and enough."
"And it will be permitted me, when I have made its meaning fully my own, to make a pilgrimage to the Master and to receive a new sentence?"
"It will be permitted, if thou dost still feel the need of asking the Master."
"How should I not feel the need? Art thou not, O Reverend Master, our refuge?"
"Seek refuge in thyself; take refuge in the doctrine."
"I shall certainly do so. But thou, O Master, art the very self of the disciples; thou art the living doctrine. And thou hast said: 'It will be permitted.'"
"If the way do not tire thee."
"No way can tire me."
"The way is long, Vasitthi! The way is longer than thou dost think for, longer than human thought is able to realise."
"And if the way lead through a thousand lives and over a thousand worlds, no way shall tire me."
"Good then, Vasitthi. Farewell, and remember thy motto."
At this instant the king, followed by a large retinue, approached to take leave of the Master.
I withdrew to the rearmost circle, whence I was a somewhat inattentive spectator of the further proceedings of that last evening. For I cannot deny that I felt somewhat disappointed at the very simple motto the Master had given me. Had not several of the sisters received as their portions from him quite other and weighty mottoes for their spiritual profit: the one, the sentence relating to existence and its causes; another, that relating to nonexistence; a third, to the transitoriness of all phenomena? And I therefore thought I had received a slight, which grieved me sorely. When I had reflected further upon the matter, however, the thought occurred to me that the Master had perhaps noticed some self-conceit in me, and wished to stifle it in this way. And I resolved to be on my guard, in order not to be retarded in my spiritual growth by vanity or self-esteem. Soon I should be able to claim praise for having mastered the motto, and might then myself fetch another direct from the lips of the Master.
Full of this assurance, I saw the Buddha depart, early next morning, with many disciples—among these naturally Ananda also, who waited upon the Master and was always about him. He had, in his gentle way, invariably treated me with such special friendliness that I felt I should miss him and his cheering glance greatly, even more than I should the wise Sariputta, who helped me over many a knotty point of doctrine by his keen analysis of all my difficulties and his clear explanations. Now I was left to my own resources.
As soon as I had returned from my alms-gathering, and had eaten my meal, I sought out a stately tree which stood in the midst of a little forest meadow—the true original of that "mighty tree far removed from all clamour" of which it is said that human beings may sit under it and think.
That I now did, beginning earnestly upon my sentence. When, towards evening, I returned to the common hall I brought with me, as the result of my day's work, a feeling of dissatisfaction with myself, and a dim foreboding of what this sentence might really come to mean. But when, on the following evening, at the close of my period of contemplation, I returned to my cell, I already knew exactly what the Master had in mind when he gave me the motto.
I had certainly believed I was on the straight path to perfect peace, and that I had left my love with all its passionate emotions far behind me. That incomparable master of the human heart, however, had, beyond question, seen that my love was not by any means overcome—that, on the contrary, overawed by the mighty influence of the new life, it had but withdrawn to the innermost recesses of my heart, there to bide its time. And his desire, in directing my attention to it, was that I should induce it to come forth from its lurking-place and so overcome it. And it certainly did come forth, and with such power that I found myself at once in the midst of severe, indeed of distracting, conflicts of soul, and became aware that mine would be no easy victory.
The astonishing information that my loved one had not been killed, and in all probability yet breathed the air of this earth with me, was, it is true, now more than half a year old. But when, owing to the apparition on the terrace, that knowledge rose so suddenly within me, it was at once, as it seemed, inundated by the stormy waves of feeling it had itself stirred up, and all but went down in its own vortex. Passionate hate, longings for revenge, and malignant broodings succeeded one another in a veritable devil's dance—then came the conversion of Angulimala, the overwhelming impression made upon me by the Buddha, the new life, and the dawn of another and utterly unsuspected world whose elements were born of the destruction of all the elements of the old. Now, however, the first impetuous onrush of the new feeling was over, the great Master of this secret magic had disappeared from my ken, and I sat there alone, my gaze directed on love—on my love. Again that marvellous revelation rose clearly before me, and a boundless longing for the distant loved one, who yet sojourned among the living, laid hold upon me.
But was he really, then, among the living still? And did he love me still?
The fearful anxiety and uncertainty of such questions stimulated my longing yet further, and with the subduing of my love, with the loyal acceptance of my motto, I could make no progress. I thought ever of love, and never reached suffering and the origin of suffering.
These ever more hopeless soul struggles of mine did not remain hidden from the other sisters, and I heard, of course, how they spoke of me—
"Vasitthi, formerly the wife of the Minister, whom even the stern Sariputta ofttimes praised for her quick and sure apprehension of even the difficult points of the doctrine, is now unable to master her sentence, and it is so simple."
That discouraged me yet more, shame and despair laid hold upon me, and at last I felt I could bear this state of things no longer.