In this issue:
When I was in college, I was befriended by a faculty member. One day he invited me to have supper at his house. I accepted his invitation.
He was a very good cook, and we chatted as he prepared our meal. However, as we chatted, I experienced a strange transformation. I had always had a polite relationship with this man, but I found myself becoming unaccountably rude to him. Even now, many years later, I recall this strange transformation in my behavior with a sense of wonder. I stayed rude during the meal, and this man never wanted to have anything to do with me thereafter.
My own behavior in this situation puzzled me. Why did I suddenly become so rude and unpleasant in a seemingly innocent situation? One day, I found the answer to that question: my friend had invited me to supper with the intention of seducing me. He said nothing about a sexual motivation in his actions, but I sensed it and reacted instinctively by behaving in a way that made me very unattractive.
In this instance, there was the appearance of the breakage of the Precepts on my part, and injured innocence on the part of my friend. However, in reality, the reverse is true: there was the appearance of anger in my behavior, but only the appearance; and my friend’s apparent innocence was not really so innocent.
This happened a few years before I found the Buddha’s Path. I did not know about the Precepts, and I had never done formal meditation. But, like all beings, I have the Buddha Nature. That night, many years ago, I instinctively acted from the Buddha Nature without having the least idea that that was what I was doing. The Buddha Nature cannot be fooled or manipulated. It can make use of anyone, and it can use rudeness as well as politeness to send Its message.
Note that I still refer to this man as “my friend.” We all suffer from spiritual ignorance; and we all possess the Buddha Nature. Why would I not still view him as my friend?—There may have been the appearance of the end of a friendship. The appearance is not the reality.