Dhamma Talks - The Life Of A Sage :: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

It is said that the life of a sage is a good example of how life should be lived by all. A sage is a learned or developed person who commits himself to learning and practicing any kind of knowledge for developing his life. This kind of development throughout lifetimes, in Buddhism, is called the path of the ‘Bodhisatta’. This is found in the many stories of the previous lives of the Buddha and they also contain the methods to develop our full potential in life just as the Buddha did himself. This is one of those stories – the story of the lorikeet.

One upon a time, there was a family; the husband was a good man but his wife was not good. The couple raised two lorikeets; an older bird named ‘Rada’ and a younger named ‘Bhotthapada’. The husband tried to teach the two lorikeets good things such as guarding their property etc. One day, he went to go and to trade in another town so before leaving, he taught the two birds to take care of his wife day and night.

When the husband left, the wife behaved badly because she thought that no one would know what she was doing. When the two birds saw her actions, the younger consulted with his older brother and proposed that they should warn her not to engage in such behavior. The brother said, “No, we should not do that because then it may become dangerous for us.” The younger did not believe his brother and so went ahead and warned her. When the woman knew that her bird had been observing her actions she broke its neck and burned it in the fire. The older bird saw everything but kept quiet because it knew that when it spoke it would end up dead too.

When the husband came back and only found one bird, he questioned the remaining bird about everything. The bird said, “Usually, a sage would not say what brings harm to him, even if that speech is true - because of speaking that, he is dead in the fire.” When it finished speaking, it flew away to the forest and never come back again.

This story shows how we should speak or do whatever does not bring harm to our life. There is always a correct time and way to speak the truth. Problems nowadays arise from three forms of actions; mental, verbal, and physical. We can learn this by watching our own actions and their consequences and those of other people. This knowledge will help us screen right or wrong and know what and when we should perform actions.