The Story of the Monk Cakkhupala
Chapter 1: Twin Verses • Verse 1
Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
While residing at the Jētavana Monastery in Sàvatthi, the Buddha spoke this verse, with reference to Cakkhupàla, a blind monk.
On one occasion, Monk Cakkhupàla came to pay homage to the Buddha at the Jētavana Monastery. One night, while pacing up and down in meditation, the monk accidentally stepped on some insects. In the morning, some monks visiting the monk found the dead insects. They thought ill of the monk and reported the matter to the Buddha.
The Buddha asked them whether they had seen the monk killing the insects. When they answered in the negative, the Buddha said, 'Just as you had not seen him killing, so also he had not seen those living insects. Besides, as the monk had already attained arahatship he could have no intention of killing, so he was innocent.'
On being asked why Cakkhupàla was blind although he was an arahat, the Buddha told the following story:
Cakkhupàla was a physician in one of his past existences. Once, he had deliberately made a woman patient blind. That woman had promised to become his slave, together with her children, if her eyes were completely cured.
Fearing that she and her children would have to become slaves, she lied to the physician. She told him that her eyes were getting worse when, in fact, they were perfectly cured. The physician knew she was deceiving him, so in revenge, he gave her another ointment, which made her totally blind.
As a result of this evil deed the physician lost his eyesight many times in his later existences.