The Time for Our Release is not for Us to Declare
Note: This story, as told by the monk Yasa in Footprints of Gautama The Buddha, picks up while the Buddha is giving a discourse to an assembly of monks in Vesali, India. The Buddha is encouraging the monks to “ceaselessly mindful of the bodily and mental feelings as they arise, examining them as wave follows wave conditioned by what has gone before, so that you do not become overwhelmed by them . . . If you are ceaselessly mindful, then thoughts of neither sensuality nor covetousness will possess you.”
A young monk commented, “Master, in spite of being mindful, thoughts do seem to wander to sensuality and covetousness. Sometimes I despair of ever being freed from these [feelings of desirous attachment].”
“My son, you cannot force your thoughts and feelings, nor all at once achieve the end,” replied the Buddha. “But by ceaseless practice, by following the rules of discipline, such as avoidance of tempting sights and sounds and meals at unseasonable hours, by contemplation of the Dharma, by meditation, you will find your thoughts and feelings do gradually come under your control.” The Master pointed to a farmer we could see from the [teaching grounds], planting his fields with rice seed. “Yesterday, when we arrived, that farmer was getting his field plowed and harrowed very quickly. Today he is putting in the seed very quickly. Tomorrow he will turn the water into the irrigation channels very quickly, and as soon as he can he will turn it off. But that farmer has no magic power or authority to declare: ‘Today let my crops spring up; tomorrow let them ear, and on the third day ripen.’ What is that makes those crops sprout, ear, and ripen?”
“It is just the due season, Master,” replied the young monk. When the due season has come, those crops will sprout, ear, and ripen.”
“And so it is with the monk who undertakes the training in the higher moral discipline, the higher concentration, and the higher insight,” the Buddha said. “He has no magic power or authority to say: ‘Let my mind be released from the asavas, the graspings, today; let it be released tomorrow; let it be released on the third day.’ No, it is the due season that releases him, not himself. It is his to undergo the training; but the time when he will find release is not for him to declare.”
Yasa
from Footprints of Gautama The Buddha