3. Finding the Teaching
Without knowing anything of the Buddha, they gave up their life as wanderers and, after about twenty years, returned to their home country Magadha. This happened not long after the Buddha had set in motion the Wheel of the Dhamma at Benares.
But the two friends still had not given up hope and they decided now to do their search separately, for doubling their chances. They agreed among themselves that he who had first learned about a convincing path to the Deathless, should quickly inform the other.
At that time, when both were about forty years old, the Buddha had sent out the first batch of his disciples, sixty-one in number and all of them saints, so that they may proclaim the Teaching for the well-being and happiness of men. The Buddha himself had gone to Rajagaha where the Maharaja of Magadha soon became his follower and donated to him the Bamboo Grove Monastery (Jetavana). At that monastery he lived when Kolita and Upatissa returned to Rajagaha, staying at Sanjaya's place. One day Upatissa had gone to the town while Kolita had stayed back at their dwelling. Kolita saw his friend returning but never had he seen him like that: his entire being seemed to be transformed, his appearance was buoyant and radiant. Eagerly Kolita asked him:
"Your features are so serene, dear friend, and your complexion is so bright and clear. Should it have happened that you have found the road to the Deathless?"
Upatissa, then, replied: "It is so, dear friend, the Deathless has been found." He then reported how it happened. In town, he had seen a monk whose behavior impressed him so deeply that he addressed him and asked who his teacher was. The monk whose name was Assaji, was one of the first five disciples of the Buddha and one of the sixty one saints (arahants). Assaji replied that he was a disciple of the ascetic of the Sakya clan. When Upatissa begged him to explain his teacher's doctrine, Assaji said that he could not do so as he had been ordained only a few months ago. He could only tell him in brief the quintessence of the teaching. When Upatissa said that he would be satisfied knowing just the gist of the teaching in short, Assaji replied by way of that short stanza which was to become famous wherever the Buddha's teaching spread in the centuries and millennia that followed. This is the original Pali text and its translation:
Ye dhamma hetupabhava
tesam hetum Tathagataha
tesam ca yo nirodho
evam vadi mahasamano.
The Perfect One has told the cause
of causally arisen things
And what brings their cessation, too:
Such is the doctrine taught by the Great Monk.
In literal translation:
Of things conditionally arisen
the Thus-gone the condition told
and what is their cessation,
thus the Great Ascetic proclaimed.
When Upatissa heard this stanza, the vision of truth (the "Dhamma-eye") arose in him on the spot, and the very same happened to Kolita when he listened to the stanza retold by his friend. He, too, realized: Whatever arises is bound to vanish. The realization that was evoked by this stanza, may be called a truly mystical event. For us, these four lines do not contain an explanation explicit enough for a full understanding. The deeper and wider meaning of the stanza reveals itself only to those who have trained themselves for long in wisdom and renunciation and have reflected long upon the impermanent and the Deathless, the conditioned and the Unconditioned. This stanza will have such a revolutionary impact only on those who are so single-minded that they have become accustomed to investigate things only in those terms of the conditioned and Unconditioned. As the two friends were inwardly prepared, Assaji's stanza had the power to lead them to the attainment of stream-entry (sotapatti) which bestows the first vision of the Deathless (Nibbana) beyond the transience of phenomenal existence where death ever reigns. In a flash of awakening they had seen the Uncreated.
Here it is of interest to note that the three monks who were closest to the Buddha, Ananda and the two Chief Disciples, did not attain to stream-entry by the Buddha's own instruction, but through the guidance of others: Ananda through his Sangha-teacher, the arahant Punna Mantaniputta, Upatissa through the arahant Assaji, and Kolita even through one who was not an arahant, but only a stream-enterer. For making such an attainment possible, Kolita needed to possess strong confidence in his friend as well as in truth; and Kolita did have this confidence.
After Kolita had listened to that powerful stanza, he asked at once where the Great Ascetic, the Perfected One was staying. Hearing that he was staying nor far away at the Bamboo Grove Monastery, he wished to go there immediately. But Upatissa asked him to wait, saying, "Let us first go to Sanjaya and tell him that we have found the Deathless. If he can understand, he is sure to make progress towards the truth. But if he cannot comprehend at once, he may perhaps have confidence enough to join us when we go to see the Master. Then, on listening to the Awakened One, himself, he will certainly understand."
Thus the friends went to their former Master and said, "Listen, O Teacher, listen! A fully Awakened One has appeared in the world. Well proclaimed is his teaching and his monks live the fully purified life of ascetics. Come with us to see him!" But Sanjaya could not bring himself to join them, but, on the contrary, offered them to take over the leadership of his following, along with him, as his equals. If they accepted this, they would gain a great reputation, because spiritual teachers enjoyed, at that time, the highest respect. But the two replied that they would not mind remaining pupils for life, whether under him or under the Buddha. But they would ask him to make up his mind now, as their own decision was final. Sanjaya, however, torn by indecision, lamented: "I cannot, no I cannot! For so many years I have been a teacher and had a large following of disciples. Should I now become a pupil again, it would be as if a mighty lake were to change into a miserable puddle!" - Thus he was moved by conflicting sentiments: his longing for truth and the desire to keep his superior position contended within him. Yet, the urge to preserve his status was stronger, and he yielded to it.
At that time, Sanjaya had about five hundred disciples. When they learned that the two friends had decided to follow the Buddha, spontaneously all of them wanted to join. But when they noticed that Sanjaya remained behind, half of them wavered and returned to their accustomed habitat. Sanjaya, seeing that he had lost so many of his disciples, was stricken by grief and despair so much that, as the texts tell, "hot blood spurted from his mouth."
