I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was journeying along a road in the Kosalan country with Ven. Nāgasamāla as his junior companion. Ven. Nāgasamāla, while going along the road, saw a fork in the path. On seeing it, he said to the Blessed One, “That, lord Blessed One, is the route. We go that way.” When this was said, the Blessed One said, “This, Nāgasamāla, is the route. We go this way.”
A second time… A third time, Ven. Nāgasamāla said to the Blessed One, “That, lord Blessed One, is the route. We go that way.” And for a third time, the Blessed One said, “This, Nāgasamāla, is the route. We go this way.”
Then Ven. Nāgasamāla, placing the Blessed One’s bowl & robes right there on the ground, left, saying, “This, lord Blessed One, is the bowl & robes.”
Then as Ven. Nāgasamāla was going along that route, thieves–jumping out in the middle of the road–pummeled him with their fists & feet, broke his bowl, and ripped his outer robe to shreds.
So Ven. Nāgasamāla–with his bowl broken, his outer robe ripped to shreds–went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, bowed down to him and sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One, “Just now, lord, as I was going along that route, thieves jumped out in the middle of the road, pummeled me with their fists & feet, broke my bowl, and ripped my outer robe to shreds.”
Then, on realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One on that occasion exclaimed:
When traveling together,
mixed together
with a person who doesn’t know,
an attainer-of-wisdom,
on realizing that the person is evil,
abandons him
as a milk-feeding heron,
a bog.
Read this translation of Udāna 8.7 Dvidhapatha Sutta. A Fork in the Path by Bhikkhu Ṭhanissaro on DhammaTalks.org. Or read a different translation on SuttaCentral.net, or Ancient-Buddhist-Texts.net. Or listen on SC-Voice.net. Or explore the Pali on DigitalPaliReader.online.
Or read a translation in Deutsch, Srpski, Español, Bahasa Indonesia, Italiano, 日本語, မြန်မာဘာသာ, Nederlands, Norsk, Português, Русский, or සිංහල. Learn how to find your language.