THE BUDDHA AND RÁHULA 75
Sámaóera, advised him to concentrate on inhaling and exhaling, not
knowing that he was practising another object of meditation on the
instruction of the Buddha.
Venerable Ráhula was perplexed because he was given two different
objects of meditation—one by the Buddha and the other by his own
teacher. In obedience to his teacher he concentrated on “breathing” and
went to the Buddha to get his own instruction on the subject. As a wise
physician would give the needed medicine, ignoring the desires, the
Buddha first expanded his brief instruction on meditation on form and
other aggregates and then briefly enumerated certain subjects of medita-
tion with the specific evil conditions temporarily eliminated by each and
then explained the meditation on “respiration” (ánápánasati).
Acting according to the Buddha’s instructions, he succeeded in his
meditations, and, before long, hearing the Cúla Ráhulováda Sutta,^126 he
attained arahantship.
In the fourteenth year after the enlightenment of the Buddha,
Sámaóera Ráhula received his higher ordination. He predeceased the
Buddha and Venerable Sáriputta.
Venerable Ráhula was distinguished for his high standard of disci-
pline. The following four verses are attributed to him in the Theragáthá:
“Being fortunate from both sides,
they call me ‘Lucky Ráhula.’
I was the son of the Buddha
and that of the seer of truths.
Destroyed are all my corruptions.
There is no more rebirth to me.
An arahant am I, worthy of offering.
Possessed of threefold knowledge
and a seer of Deathless am I.^127
‘Blinded by sense-desires, spread over by a net,
covered by a cloak of craving,
bound by the ‘kinsman of heedlessness’
was I like a fish caught in the mouth of a funnel-net.
That sense-desire have I burnt.
The bond of Mára have I cut.
Eradicating craving, from its root,
cool am I, peaceful am I now.”
- Majjhima Nikáya, No. 147.
- vv. 297, 298. Psalms of the Brethren, p. 183.