Dhamma Talks - Is The Name Important? :: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

Once upon a time, at Disapamokkha School in Takkasila city, there were 500 students. One of them was named ‘Sinner’ and the teacher liked to call him or get him to do something for him, for example, saying, “Sinner, fetch me a glass of water.” He was ashamed of his name, and he asked his teacher to change it and give him a new good name. The teacher told him to find a name which he liked, and told him that then he would change it for him.

While he was searching for a new name, in the city he saw a dead man. He asked people what the dead man’s name was. They told him, “His name was ‘Jiviko’ which means a life.” He asked them, “Why is that?” They told him, “This is just a proper noun or a name, it is not important.” Not far from there, he found an old lady, a slave, being hit. When he asked for her name, they told him, “Her name is Dhanika, which means a rich lady.” He wondered, why Dhanika wasn’t rich like her name, why she was a slave. He was quite sure that the name was not important, and on the way back to school, he met a man who asked him the way to the city. He asked this man for his name, and he told him, “My name is Pathavi”, which means ‘Traveller’. This made him quite sure that the name was not important. When he got to school, his teacher asked him, “Did you get a favourite name?” He replied, “Teacher, I don’t want to change my name, it is not important any more.” And he told what he had encountered.

The teacher instructed him, “That is right, Sinner, a name is not important. What is important is behavior or action.” He said to his teacher, “Yes, teacher, that is very true, so now I won’t look for a new name again, but I will perform good actions and behave properly.”

The moral of this story is:
“Good or bad has nothing to do with names, but it depends on actions, as a Thai proverb says, ‘do good, receive good, do harm receive harm”