despicable display of cowardice? Surely no other disciple of the
Buddha is as pathetic as I am. Just one inept disciple like myself
is enough to weigh heavily on the sãsana – should there be any
more, the burden would be enormous. How am I going to tackle
this fear of ghosts that’s just made me look so foolish? Hurry up!
Take a stand, right this minute! It is better to die now than to
postpone this decision any longer. Never again can I allow this
fear of ghosts to trample on my heart. This world has no place for
a monk who disgraces himself and the religion he represents.”
With this self-admonition fresh in his mind, the monk
made a solemn vow:
“I will not leave this place until I’ve overcome my fear of
ghosts. If I have to die trying, then so be it! If I can’t defeat this fear,
then I don’t deserve to continue living in such disgrace. Others
might follow my bad example, becoming useless people them-
selves, thus further increasing the burden on the sãsana.”
So he vowed to himself that, from that moment on, he
would remain in that cemetery day and night as a way of dealing
sternly with his fear. He focused on the corpse before him, com-
paring it with his own body, seeing that they were both composed
of the same basic elements. As long as consciousness is there in
the heart to hold everything together, then that person, or that
animal, continues to live. But as soon as consciousness departs,
the whole combination of elements begins to disintegrate, and is
then referred to as a corpse.
It was clear that his notion about the dog being a ghost was
shamefully absurd; so he resolved that he would never again lend
any credence to thoughts of being haunted by ghosts. As this inci-
dent clearly showed, his mind simply haunted itself with ghostly
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
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