Buddha never forgot the promise he had made to King Bimbisara. So when the time was right, he journeyed to Rajagriha. Buddha and his disciples stayed in a hill called Vulture’s Peak and King Bimbisara often went there to hear the words of Buddha. The people of the city also went, and soon the number of Buddha’ s followers grew very large.
Seeing this, Buddha’ s cousin, Devadatta, became very jealous. He felt that he was as great as Buddha and wanted to destroy him. He knew that he would need help in killing Buddha, so he went to the king’ s son and tempted him that if he helped kill Buddha, he would help kill the king so that the prince would become the king and have all the wealth and power. The prince agreed and the two of them tried many ways to murder Buddha.
One day, while Buddha was sitting in meditation, they rolled a very large boulder down the hill towards him. But just before it was going to crush him, the rock split in half, leaving Buddha unharmed.
Once Buddha was walking through the city with several of his closest disciples. Two men knew he was coming and were ready. They got an elephant and give it lots of liquor to drink. When it was quite drunk, they beat it with sticks until it was crazy with anger. Then they released it in the direction of the Buddha, hoping the elephant would trample him to death. The disciples were scared to see the elephant and ran away in fear except Ananda, Buddha’s closest companion, who stayed by his teacher’s side, holding onto Buddha’s robe. But Buddha was not scared at all, instead he felt great love and pity for the poor beast. The elephant also felt the power of Buddha’s love. It stopped charging and walked over to Buddha meekly, and then bowed down its large head at Buddha’s feet. Buddha patted the elephant gently and turned and said to Ananda, “The only way to destroy hatred is with love. Hatred cannot be defeated with more hatred.”
The Luminous Life of Buddha ( မဟာလူသား မြတ်ဗုဒ္ဓ ) Edited by SHYAM DUA TINYTOT Publication
