King Kali


by Venerable Master Hsuan Hua

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Limitless kalpas ago, Shakyamuni Buddha was in the mountains cultivating the practice of patience. You may wonder, "Since there aren't any people in the mountains, with whom was he being patient? No one came into conflict with him or had any dealings with him, and so how could he cultivate patience?" His cultivation of patience did not necessarily involve being insulted. He simply endured things people cannot bear. For instance, in the mountains there are many mosquitoes, and they bite people all the time. When the mosquitoes came to bite him, the Buddha, a Patient Immortal, he was patient and didn't drive them away. First of all, he wanted to practice patience; and secondly, he was afraid that if he drove them away, he would terrify them. That's an example of how he was patient with small creatures. As to larger creatures, if snakes came to bite him, he would bear it. If wolves, bears, tigers, and leopards came wanting to tear into him, he endured it. He practiced patience toward all the animals, since there were no people there.

One time, King Kali came to the mountain to hunt. He brought a large group of people with him. There were ministers, generals, and quite a few women, including the queen and the ladies-in-waiting from the palace. During the sport, each of the men went off in pursuit of whatever kind of animal he spotted. The women didn't hunt, so they wandered around amusing themselves on the mountain. In the course of their explorations, they saw a very strange creature. The hair on his head was matted together like a rug, and his beard was very long. His fingernails were several inches long and had curled into several loops at the ends of his fingers. As soon as the women saw him, they exclaimed, "What kind of monster is that?" Many of them were frightened and wanted to run away.

But then the "monster" (they couldn't tell if it was an animal or a human being) spoke to them. He said, "Don't be afraid of me. I won't eat you."

The women said, "Oh, it's not a monster. He can talk like a human being." Then the ones who had started to run away came back, for people tend to be curious. They said, "Let's go see how he can talk."
They asked him, "What are you doing here?"
He answered, "I'm cultivating."
"What does 'cultivating' mean?" they asked.
He replied, "No matter what kind of trouble people give me, I endure it. I am cultivating the practice of patience."

Once he had said a few sentences, the women were no longer afraid, and they thought, "He talks. He's a person like us." They drew closer and closer until they had surrounded the Patient Immortal.

Meanwhile, King Kali had finished hunting and came back to look for his women. He was a long way off, but because there weren't any other sounds on the mountain, he could hear them chattering with someone. As the King approached, he saw the person had long hair and a long beard. However, he wasn't a hippie. You shouldn't be misled to think hippies are like the Patient Immortal. The Patient Immortal specialized in being patient, whereas hippies specialize in being impatient, in breaking the rules and doing every kind of disreputable thing there is to do.

As soon as the King saw the strange man talking with his women, he became jealous and thought, "You freak, you must have some special skill to be able to confuse my women like that. In the royal palace they are well behaved, but now they've fallen in love with you!" Feeling incredibly jealous, he exploded, "Hey, you freak! What are you doing here?"

The Patient Immortal replied, "I'm cultivating patience."
"What do you mean 'patience'?" the King bellowed.
"Patience means that if people scold me, I bear it. If people beat me, I bear it. No matter how badly people treat me, I still bear it."

King Kali said, "I don't believe a word you say. You are simply tricking people. How can anyone in the world stand it if people scold or beat him?"

The Patient Immortal said, "Not only can I stand people scolding or beating me, even if someone were to kill me, I could bear it."

King Kali fumed, "Did you hear that? He's lying right to my face. He says he would stay patient even if someone killed him. Okay, I'm not going to kill you now, but do you really think you can remain patient?"

"You can give it a try," the Patient Immortal said.

King Kali replied, "Oh, so I can try you out, can I? Even if I didn't have your permission, I would still try you out. Do you think I don't dare? Hah! You say you could bear even someone trying to kill you. Well, I'm not going to kill you now."

Then what did he do? He took out his sword, sliced off one of the cultivator's ears and asked him, "Does that hurt or not?"

The Patient Immortal replied, "It doesn't matter."

King Kali raged, "You are a liar! I don't believe that when I cut off your ear, you didn't get angry. It had to hurt terribly, and yet you still say, 'It doesn't matter'. Okay, I'll cut your other ear off." And he did. "How about now? Does it still not matter to you?"

The Patient Immortal replied, "Of course it doesn't matter."

That made the King even angrier. "You lie right to my face and say it doesn't matter that I've cut off your ears. All right, I'll cut off your nose." Then he cut off the Patient Immortal's nose and asked, "What about now? You'd better hurry up and tell the truth. Don't keep lying. What I can't stand most is that you are obviously full of anger, but you say you're not. That's a lie."

The Patient Immortal said, "It still doesn't matter. It's not important that I don't have a nose."

The King said, "Fine, you don't mind not having a nose. I'll chop off one of your hands. There. Are you angry now?"

The Patient Immortal said, "I'm not angry."

"Wonderful," said the King, "you're not angry, so now I'll chop off your other hand and see how you take it. I want to help you accomplish your work in the Way. You cultivate patience, and no one else would dare challenge you like this. I'm an Emperor, and even if I killed you, I wouldn't commit any crime." Then he hacked off his other hand. "How about now? You must be very happy. Both your hands are gone, and you definitely aren't angry, right?"

The Patient Immortal said, "Of course not. You really do understand me. I'm not angry."

That enraged King Kali even more. "There isn't anyone in the world who wouldn't be angry if both his hands were cut off. Well, then, I'll chop off one of your feet." He did so, and asked, "Now aren't you sorry? You've cultivated patience to the point that now you don't have any hands, and you are missing a foot. You've only got one foot left. Right now if you tell me the truth, I can still let you off easy. Really, are you angry or not?"

The Patient Immortal said, "I'm not angry. If my feet are gone, they're gone. Do what you like."

King Kali said, "He's lying through his teeth!" and he cut off his other foot. "How about now?" he asked. "You're missing both ears, your nose, both hands and both feet. Are you angry?"

The Patient Immortal said, "I'm not angry."

The King was beginning to feel that something strange was happening. He said to himself, "This person must have some kind of deviant dharma. I've cut off so much of his flesh, but it doesn't hurt him, and he still says he's being patient." He started to wonder, "Is he really being patient, or is he faking it?" He turned to the cultivator and asked, "You say you're being patient, but ultimately what proof is there that you're really patient? You've got to have some proof. Maybe I should take out your heart and see if there's any anger in it or not." He'd already chopped off the Patient Immortal's hands and feet, and now he wanted to take out his heart and look at it!

The Patient Immortal, who was Shakyamuni Buddha cultivating patience, said, "If you want to look at my heart, go right ahead. But now I'll give you some proof. You have cut off my four limbs. If I have any anger, then in the future I will not become a Buddha. Instead, I will fall into the hells, become a hungry ghost, or become an animal. If I don't have any anger, then the ears you cut off will grow back, and the nose you cut off will become the way it was before you cut it off. Not only that, my four limbs will also return to being just as they originally were. That's if I don't have any anger. If I was angry, then I won't be able to return to the way I was." After he said that, in fact his ears did grow back, and so did his nose, his hands, and his feet.

When King Kali saw that, he shouted, "It's a monster! It's a monster! Quick, cut him down with your swords! I won't be able to handle him myself." He commanded his generals to chop the Patient Immortal to bits. Right at that moment, what do you think happened? Wei Tou Bodhisattva and the Dharma-protecting spirits were outraged, and said, "You're really going too far!" Then the heavens thundered and pelted down hail on King Kali's head. The King said, "This monster is using spiritual penetrations! His powers are so great, what can I do?"

The Patient Immortal said, "It's not that I'm using spiritual penetrations; the good Dharma-protecting spirits are punishing you."

The King said, "What should I do?"

The Patient Immortal said, "Quickly repent. If you don't repent, you're in for trouble."

King Kali said, "Please help me repent. I'm afraid it won't work if I do it myself."

And so the Patient Immortal asked the good Dharma-protecting spirits not to punish King Kali. He said, "Dharma protectors, good spirits, don't blame him. He's just a stupid, foolish person. Not only am I not angry with him, but what is more, after I become a Buddha, I will first save this person who cut off my four limbs. I'm going to save him first."

After the Patient Immortal made that vow, King Kali was very moved. He said, "This cultivator is truly great. I treated him so badly, but he is still going to save me first!" Then the King began to cry bitterly, and he said, "After you become a Buddha, I definitely want to be your Number One great disciple. I want to be first." Consequently, when Shakyamuni Buddha realized the Way, he first took across Ajnatakaundinya, whose name means "understanding the basic limit." This disciple had previously committed such heavy offenses against his teacher, and yet his teacher still treated him so well and wanted to save him first. Therefore, in Buddhism, enmity and kindness don't present any problems that cannot be resolved.

After hearing this account, we should think it over. Are we able to be like Shakyamuni Buddha was when he cultivated patience? If someone cut off your hands, feet, ears, and nose, could you remain patient? I hope you could not. Why is that? It's because if you could be patient, then someone would have to cut you up like that. If no one cut you up and you said you could be patient, would it be true or false? There's no way to tell! That's one problem. I also hope you could be patient. If you could be patient, that would indicate you were just like Shakyamuni Buddha when he was practicing as the Patient Immortal. That is why I have those hopes for you.

You may say, "But I don't want to be a Patient Immortal like Shakyamuni Buddha was then. I'd like to be a King Kali. If there were someone practicing patience, I would cut off his hands and feet, slice off his ears, and sever his nose. After that, I hope he would vow to save me first after he became a Buddha. That way I would save a lot of effort in cultivating the Way, and I could certify to the fruition."

That kind of thinking is not reliable, and it's not even logical. Why is that? If you really met someone like Shakyamuni Buddha, it might work. But ordinary people cannot be compared to the Sages. If you were to cut off the hands, ears, or nose of an ordinary person who had not certified to the fruition, he would feel pain. As soon as he felt the pain, he would get angry. Once he became angry, when he died, it's to be feared he would become an asura. As an asura, he would want to kill you, and then the resentment between the two of you would increase day by day. For that reason, don't imitate King Kali.

It's a good thing the king encountered Shakyamuni Buddha, who made the vow to save him first. Otherwise, what he did to the Patient Immortal wwould have been very dangerous. What if Shakyamuni Buddha hadn't made that vow? How could the King have been sure that Shakyamuni Buddha would make the vow to save him first? He wouldn't have any control over it. He wouldn't be able to count on it. And so, instead of acting like King Kali, you'd better think of another method.

"How should I be?" you may ask. You should be without patience.

"If I should be without patience, then why are you telling people to be patient?" you may wonder. "If I shouldn't have any patience, then why are you even bringing the subject up? If there's not supposed to be any patience, then why did the Buddha talk about the Paramita of Patience?"

Being without patience is true patience. Not having any patience is real patience. No patience is genuine patience.

You may ask, "How do you explain that? When the Dharma Master speaks the Dharma, it's not reasonable. He says whatever he wants."

What's meant by 'being without patience'? It means you are patient, but you don't feel like you are being patient. You don't think, "Oh, I'm being patient. I was patient that time." That's an attachment. You should be patient as if you weren't being patient. Having patience should be 'as if not having any':

Having as if not having;
Being real as if being unreal.

For instance, suppose someone scolds you, and you think, "I'll be patient with his scolding." In your mind there's still a "scolding." If you are 'as if without patience,' then you basically don't even know that you are being scolded; it's as if it weren't happening. Then there's no patience involved. That is what's meant by no patience. If you have the concept of "patience," then you have an attachment.

"I don't believe it," you say.

Well, if you don't believe it, then believe what you want.

"It's not that I don't believe it, but Shakyamuni Buddha still remembered that when he was practicing as a Patient Immortal, King Kali cut off his limbs. He hadn't put it down. He was still attached. If he wasn't attached, then why did he remember it?"

His remembering was not remembering, and your understanding is not understanding. That is the general meaning of patience. Sometimes it's easy to be patient once or even twice, but by the third time, one loses patience. As soon as one loses patience, one loses all the merit and virtue acquired from being patient before. That's why it's said:

One spark of fire
Burns up a forest of merit and virtue.


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