Censured and praised

Once the Lord was travelling with a sangha of five hundred bhikkhus from Rajgir to Nalanda. Suppiya Paribbajaka and his disciple Brahmadatta Manavaka were walking behind the bhikkhus. Throughout the journey Suppiya was criticizing the Buddha in various ways. In spite of being Suppiya’s disciple, Brahmadatta was praising the Buddha in various ways. As it became late in the evening before they could reach Nalanda, they stopped for the night on the way at a big guest-house in a town called Ambalatthika. Even during the night the bhikkhus could hear the debate between the two—one censuring the Buddha and the other praising the Buddha. The bhikkhus did not interfere. Early in the morning, bhikkhus told the Buddha about the debate between the teacher-disciple pair and their non-participation in the discussion maintaining equanimity. The Buddha commented: It was proper for you to be detached from the discussion. You would have harmed yourself, if you had become angry or sad on hearing criticism of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. The conditioning of aversion would have brought misery for you. Similarly, if you had become elated and haughty on hearing the praise you would have hurt yourself. You would have generated harmful conditioning of conceit. To maintain equanimity with wisdom in all situations is Dhamma. There are eight things that one encounters in life : praise and censure, success and failure, victory and defeat, gain and loss. But one whose mind does not waver, who remains free of sorrow, whose mind remains free of defilements, who looks after own welfare with equanimity full of wisdom—it is the best welfare for such a one.