Nagabodhi

The Red Horned Thief

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What good fortune to live upon the earth.
What riches are held in the ocean’s depths.
What pleasure in wilding the sword of awareness
And meeting friends when we encounter the Aim-less Ones.

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Many years ago, Arya Nagarjuna was residing at the Suvarna Vihara. Every night a feast was provided for him and served upon the plates of purest gold. One evening as he sat down to his elegant dinner, a Brahmin from western India chanced to pass his door and peer in. However, it was more than mere curiosity that stopped the man in his tracks when he saw the gleaming golden service. For he had become a thief, and the sight of so much gold dazzled him and excited his greed.

 

Yet before he could he even begin to devise a plan to steal the treasure, a golden chalice came flying and landed in his hands. Astounded at his luck, and not caring to question it further, he tucked the chalice in his robes and beat a hasty retreat.

 

The following night he passed by Nagarjuna's door again. As the thief tried to decide the best way to get into the house unnoticed, a golden platter came sailing out the window like some great gilded bird and caught him on the shin. Dumbfounded, the thief again tucked his treasure in his robes and limped into the twilight.

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Figuring the third time is always the luckiest, the thief came again the following night, planning to make off with the entire cache. But no sooner had he approached the corner of the house and was edging toward the open door than all the remaining plates, bowls, and cups came racketing out the door and piled themselves up neatly at his feet. This time the thief was frozen in his tracks, never before in his experience of the world had such a thing happened. Who was living here? Was that person reading his mind?

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"My wealth is yours," called a friendly voice from inside the house. "No need to steal anything. Come in. Eat and drink with me. My name is Arya Nagarjuna. Stay as long as you like, and when you're ready to leave take whatever you want."

 

Utterly astonished, the thief entered the house and had supper with the saint. He had never met anyone like this, and he wanted to test out this strange being. Nagarjuna's conversation settled all the thief's doubts and awakened his faith and implicit trust in the guru.

 

In the end all he wished to take away with him was the guru's golden instruction. Nagarjuna was delighted and initiated the thief into the Guhya-samaja Tantra. Then he gave him instruction on how to meditate upon greed and find the path to self-liberation:

 

First, abandon all thought of action.

Then, at the fontanel on the crown of your head,

Visualize a large horn, translucent and red,

Radiating a ruby light.

This is the horn of desirable objects—

See them as mere concepts, delusory mental pictures.

 

Nagarjuna then filled the thief's hut with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, emeralds, and opals—every imaginable treasure was here. And the thief, content beyond measure, sat down to meditate on the guru's instructions.

 

Twelve years passed. An enormous horn grew out of the top of his skull, and it pulsed with an angry red light as though it were a living thing. His body was convulsed and shuddering. The poor thief was in torment.

 

When Nagarjuna appeared to him and asked him how he fared, his pupil described terrible suffering. The master immediately understood his problem and gave him further instruction:

 

This great horn, built cell by cell

From appearances and fixed notions,

Is destroying your happiness,

For attachment to seemingly concrete objects

Is always a cause for suffering.

 

But these objects of desire

Have no real existence.

Events have no more reality

Than clouds swirling through the sky.

How then can birth, life, or death

Harm or profit us in any way?

 

When both the knower and that which is known

Are essentially emptiness,

How can the pure nature of mind

Be affected in any way at all.

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Through Nagarjuna's words, Nagabodhi came to realize the emptiness of the nature of his being. Deeply absorbed in this awareness, within six months his red horn had completely disappeared, and he realized the indivisibility of samsara and nirvana. He attained his goal of liberation.

 

When the time came for Nagarjuna's departure from the earth plane, he summoned Nagabodhi and appointed him his successor and master of the lineage he had founded. Nagarjuna then empowered the realized thief to give his disciples the Eight Great Siddhis when the appropriate time arose.

 

These magical powers conferred on the realized one the ability to pass through earth and rock; to wield the sword of awareness; to destroy and annihilate; to create and enrich; to dispense the pill of divine vision; to apply the eye salve of omniscience; the ability to walk at blinding speeds; and the secret of the alchemy of eternal life.

 

Nagarjuna then commanded Nagabodhi to remain on Sri Parvata Mountain to work selflessly for all sentient beings until he received the revelation of the arrival of the Maitreya, the Buddha Yet to Come, who would dispense loving kindness throughout the four corners of the world.

 

It is said that he will remain there for twenty thousand years.