When I Speak of my Own Free Will

“What does it mean that I speak of my own free will? 500 Bhiksus put a question to Shariputra: 'Oh great one! The Buddha speaks about the cause of the body. What can this be'?

Shariputra said: 'Oh great ones! When you yourselves gain the Right Emancipation, you yourselves will know. Why do you put such a question'? A bhiksu answered: 'Oh great one! At the time when I had not yet attained the Right Emancipation, I thought that ignorance was the cause of the body. As I so thought to myself, I attained arhatship'. One person said: 'Oh great one! When I had not yet attained the Right Emancipation, I thought to myself that ignorance and craving were the cause of the body. As I so thought to myself, I attained the fruition of arhatship'. And someone said: 'Things such as action, consciousness, body-and-mind, the six spheres, touching, feeling, craving, cleaving, existence, birth, food and drink, and the five desires are the cause of the body'. Then all the 500 bhiksus, each one saying what he understood, went to the Buddha, touched his feet, circumambulated him three times, paid him homage, drew back to one side, and each one reported what he had in his mind to the Buddha.

Shariputra said to the Buddha: ‘Oh World Honored One! Of all these people, who's that who speaks in the right way? And who is not right?’

The Buddha said to Shariputra: 'Well spoken, well spoken! Each bhiksu says nothing but what is right'.

Shariputra said: 'Oh World-Honored One! What is in your mind'?

The Buddha said: 'Oh Shariputra! I said for the sake of beings that parents are the cause of the body’.

The case is so. All of these sutras are what I spoke of my own free will.”

Read more on the Nirvana Sutra, Chapter 41, on Bodhisattva Kasyapa 2.

when I speak of my own free will.mp3