Here is the story as I remember it. It is from "The Path of Purification" in the section on psychic powers. A poor woman had two sons. Since both were born at the side of the road, she named them Big Road and Small Road. Big Road became a monk under Lord Buddha and later Small Road, following his older brother's example, also became a monk. When Small Road became a monk his older brother told him to memorize a four line verse as his first dharma teaching. Small Road was unable to memorize the verse and told his brother. His brother told him he was too stupid to be a monk and would have to leave the Monastic Order. Lord Buddha saw Small Road weeping with frustration and asked him why he was weeping. Small Road told him he was leaving the Order because he was unable to memorize the verse. Hearing this, Lord Buddha told Small Road no one needed to leave the order for this reason and set him the task of sweeping the floor of the monastery. Lord Buddha told him to think "dirt out" as he swept. Glad that he was allowed to remain a monk, Small Road enthusiastically did his sweeping meditation every day. Then one day he realized the meditation was about more than physical dirt, that the kleshas were the true defilements. With that he gained revulsion at the nature of samsara, developed equanimity to all phenomena, and attained the level of an arhat. But only Lord Buddha was aware of his transformation, to the rest of the monks he was just the floor sweeper. One day a rich patron invited Lord Buddha and all his monks to lunch. Buddha accepted the invitation and took his seat along with the other monks. But Lord Buddha did not start eating and the monks, seeing this, also did not eat. The patron asked Lord Buddha why he did not eat and he replied that not all his monks were present, Small Road was still at the monastery. So the patron sent one of his servants to the monastery to fetch Small Road. When the servant arrived, he found the monastery was filled with monks. Not knowing which monk to bring back, he returned to his master. When the patron asked Lord Buddha about this, Lord Buddha told the servant to return to the monastery and grab one of the monks by his robe as he walked by. The servant did this, and all the other monks disappeared as they were merely emanations of Small Road. The servant returned with Small Road and told the story to the assembled monks who were amazed the the monk they had all ignored had attained the level of an arhat.

The moral of the story is twofold. First never look down on anyone, they might be an arhat :-). The second is that we think there is something we lack that prevents us from becoming enlightened. If we were only smarter, could sit better, or whatever. But enlightenment is very close to us, it is merely seeing our own mind as it is. The only thing that is lacking is our diligence in practice and cultivating merit.

Bernie Simon
http://carelesshand.net/


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