The Story of Monk Ravati

The Story of Monk Ravati

The following story is written based on a teaching on ‘Lay Ju-dre’ (Law of Cause and Effect) given by Bartsham Lama Ugyen Namdrol (popularly known as Lama Daupo) at Namseling, Thimphu in December 2019 when we visited him one evening.

Everything in this universe is bound by the law of cause and effect. There is no result without the cause. Everything that happens is a result of an interplay of many causes and conditions. In fact, if you analyse this, this is very scientific. It means there is no magic. It is in your hand to create the causes and conditions for the results that you want.

 

All the good and the bad that happen to us are a result of various causes. We call this ‘karma’. But at the same time, karma is not something fixed. We can change our karma through our own actions in this life – for good or bad.

To drive home the above point about the law of karma (lay ju dre in Dzongkha), Lama narrated the following story. He said that the same story is found in the well-known book, ‘The Words of My Perfect Teacher’ written by Patrul Rinpoche (1808 – 1887).

Lama Ugyen Namdrol on the right side in red (popularly known as Lama Daupo) and Lama Namgyal, two of the seniormost disciples of late Dudjom Rinpoche from Bartsham (Picture taken in Nepal sometime in 2018 during the marriage ceremony of Dudjom Yangsi Tenzin Yeshe Dorji and his consort).

Long ago, there lived a monk called Ravati. He was on retreat, far away from human settlement, in a dense stretch of woodland up on a mountain side. On that particular day, he was outside his hut dyeing his monk’s robes with saffron.

At the same time, a farmer living in a village below the forest was searching for a cow that had gone missing. He searched for it everywhere, but could not find her. 

Tired and weary from combing the forest in search of his cow, he sat down to rest. Just then, his eyes caught sight of smoke rising up from the thick forest above the village.

Thinking to himself that it might be the cow thief cooking his cow meat, he went in the direction of the smoke with renewed energy. 

As he arrived there, he saw Monk Ravati stoking his fire beneath a big pot on the improvised oven. 

The farmer's suspicions were further aroused, and he strongly felt that Ravati was cooking his cow's meat in the big pot. 

The farmer asked Ravati, “What are you doing here boiling something in a big pot like that?”

“I’m just dyeing my robes,” the monk replied.

The farmer said that he had lost his cow and enquired if he had come across it by chance. 

The monk said he had not seen any cows or calves around there.

The farmer then said that he actually suspected that Ravati might have killed the cow and was cooking the meat in the cauldron.

This shocked the good monk. He sighed and said, “Oh dear, how can you say that to me? I cannot do such a thing even in my wildest dreams. If you don’t believe me, please open the lid and see what is inside.”

The layman raised the lid off the cauldron of dye and looked inside. “It’s meat!” he cried. "It is my cow's meat. You have killed her and you are cooking it now."

Ravati was shocked, but when he looked inside the cauldron, he too saw what was inside as meat. But he refused to admit that he had killed the cow and was now cooking her meat. So, other people were called from the village. They all looked inside the cauldron and saw the lost cow's meat being cooked.

The farmer led the monk off and handed him over to the local king for punishment.  “Sir, this monk stole my cow and killed it.  Please punish him”, he requested. 

The king had Ravati thrown into a jail for his crime.

However, several days later it happened that the farmer found his missing cow. The farmer regretted his action and went back to see the king and said, “Sir, the monk did not steal my cow after all; I found her. Please release him from jail.”

The king took note of the request and he meant to release the monk from jail immediately. But he got distracted and forgot to have him freed. For six months he did nothing about it.

Then one day a group of the monks’ disciplines approached the king.

“Ravati is a pure and innocent monk,” they said to the king. “Please set him free”.

The king went to release the monk, and when he saw Ravati’s debilitated condition, he was filled with great remorse.

“I meant to come sooner, but I left it so long,” he exclaimed. “I have committed a terrible mistake!”

“No harm has been done,” said the monk. “It was all the fruit of my own deeds.”

“What kind of deeds?” asked the King.

Ravati was an accomplished monk with many disciples. He was clairvoyant and could recollect his past life.

He said to the King, “During a past life, I was a thief, and once I stole a calf and killed it. When the owner came after me, I ran off, leaving the butcher's knife next to an ascetic who happened to be meditating in a thicket."

"The owner took the ascetic and threw him into a pit and kept him there for six days. It is due to the ripening of this karma that people saw me as the killer of the cow and had to remain in jail for six months this time, although the cow was found and reported to your honour. As the fully matured effect of my action, I have already been through numerous lives of suffering in the lower realms. The sufferings I have now just experienced in this life were the last of them.”

"So it is believed, the power of karma for the evil that you do, will never leave you. The same goes for the good that you do", said the Lama.