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Bhavnabodh - Anitya Bhavana
food in the house, receiving which the beggar was all pleased. He then reached under the shade of a tree on the outskirts of the village, cleaned a little space
and putting nearby his old pitcher of water and his tattered and dirty quilt, he finished his unusual sweet lunch and sat completely satisfied and pleased. Then putting a stone as his pillow he lay down and in no time feeling intoxicated by the unusual good lunch he had, his eyes were closed and he fell into good sleep.
In his sleep he dreamt that he had acquired great royal prosperity and he was wearing costly clothes and ornaments, in his kingdom he had earned a fame of a highly victorious ruler, his band of obedient servants were serving him and his attendants were praising him and he was sleeping on a rich bed in a beautiful mansion and heavenly women were massaging his feet and servants were waving fans carrying fragrant wind. Thus this beggar experienced an unusual happy dream full of all worldly pleasures and enjoyments and he was overpowered by happiness of the dream and began to feel the dream as a real life. Just at this moment the sun was covered by dark clouds, the lightning flickers started and the darkness spread out everywhere and the signs of heavy rains appeared. A strong loud thunder was heard and this thunder rudely woke up the beggar suddenly from his beautiful dream and he was caught with fear.
When he woke up, to his utter dismay, he did not find anything of his dream, there is no kingdom or the city he dreamt of, nor any mansion or his dreamt rich bed, nor any damsels or attendants, nor the dreamt ornaments and beautiful dresses, neither fragrance giving fans' none to follow his commands, nor his pride of wealthy acquisitions and unusual fame. Instead, he finds himself and his tattered bed and old worn out pitcher of water exactly where he put them before sleeping. Thus he appeared as he was with dirty and tattered clothing on his body and a beggar in reality with no increase or decrease in his real life. Thinking about this vast difference in this wakeful life and the dream he dreamt, he felt awefully dejected. The dream which brought him unusual pleasures was no more. He said to himself, 'I did not enjoy the pleasures of the dream and what I gained in real life is the unhappiness and dejection of losing the dream pleasures.' Thus this poor beggar experienced mental depression.
Lesson :- Just as the beggar in the above example saw all worldly pleasures and happiness in a dream and he felt he really enjoyed them and was pleased with them, the ignorant people in this world feel great satisfaction and enjoyment in dreamlike worldly pleasures but as the dream pleasures appeared to be false to the beggar when he woke up from the sleep, the enlightened and philosophically minded persons realise worldly pleasures like dream pleasures of the beggar. As the beggar felt dejected when he woke up, without enjoying the dream pleasures similarly the ignorant people search for worldly pleasures and feel they are worth enjoying but like that woken up beggar, they in the end suffer miseries, unhappiness and disappointments and they invite their own downfall. They gain nothing but dejection, repentance and deterioration. As none of the dream objects is true in real life, none of the objects of pleasure and happiness in worldly life is really true. Both of them, the dream world and the world of our ordinary wakeful life, are fading and shortlived with attendant fears of misery and unending unhappiness. Thinking this way, the intelligent and right reflecting persons search for the good of the living soul.
Thus with the example of a beggar's wakeful life and dream life, the teaching a lesson of nonattachment on Anitya Bhavana - the soul-saving contemplation of the transience of worldly objects, the first picture of the first lesson of this book "Bhavana Bodh" comes to an end.
