A Brahman once invited Lord Buddha to come and have a meal at his home. Buddha agreed. When he arrived at the Brahman’s house, he found that the Brahman had invited him there not for meal but to criticise and abuse him.
While the Bhraman was attacking abusing Buddha, he quietly listened to the Brahman’s verbal attacks. This went on for some time.
Finally, the Buddha said, “Do visitors come to your home often, good Brahman?” “Yes, they do,” replied the Brahman. Buddha continued, saying, “What preparations do you make for your guests when they come?”
Brahman replied, “We prepare good food for them.”
Buddha asked, “What happens if they do not arrive?”
Brahman said, “We eat the food from the feast ourselves.”
Buddha said, “Well, you have invited me for a meal but you entertained me with criticism and harsh words. It appears that you only have abusive words for me. I do not want to eat from what you have prepared for me. So please eat it yourself.” With that, the Buddha left the Brahman’s house.
Buddha realised that the feast that was given to him was not food, but verbal abuse. Rather than engaging in criticism and abusing the Brahman in the same way as he did to Buddha, he left his home. Thus, the anger was left with the man.
Buddha advised his disciples who were watching this whole scene saying that hatred never ends through hatred. One should be calm and let the person understand what he was doing.
Many times in life we face people who say bad things to us. The verbally abuse us, criticise us, and call us names. Rather than getting down to their level, we should not accept these kind of gifts from others.
Then their anger will remain with them. When we withdraw from the scene, they find themselves alone with their anger.
Soon, they will realise what they have done. They realise that we were calm even when they were abusing us. Sometimes, they will wonder how were able to face of their anger calmly and they may come to respect us.
As we go about our day and face people who are filled with anger and criticism toward us, we should look at their words calmly. Firstly, we should ask them whether their words have any truth to them. If so, we can take their words as a lesson to improve ourselves. If their words do not have any truth to them, then we should not accept their gift of anger.
We should drag ourselves down to their level. In this way, we can maintain our equanimity and peacefulness. We add calmness to their hostile environment. We should leave the gift of anger with them and go on our peaceful, merry ways. In this way, we have kept our attention on our spiritual goals and we have become a positive influence in our environment.