There was an incidence when a Bhikkhu named Mālunkyaputta, not content to lead the Holy Life, and achieve his Emancipation by degrees, approached the Buddha and impatiently demanded an immediate solution of some speculative problems with the threat of discarding the robes if no satisfactory answer was given. “Lord,” he said, “these theories have not been elucidated, have been set aside and rejected by the Blessed One – whether the world is eternal or not eternal, whether the world is finite or infinite. If the Blessed One will elucidate these questions to me, then I will lead the Holy Life under Him. If he will not, then I will abandon the precepts and return to the lay life.
“If the Blessed One knows that the world is eternal, let the Blessed One elucidate to me that the world is eternal; if the Blessed One knows that the world is not eternal, let the Blessed One elucidate that the world is not eternal – in that case, certainly, for one who does not know and lacks the insight, the only upright thing is to say: I do not know, I have not the insight.”
Calmly the Buddha questioned the erring Bhikkhu whether his adoption of the Holy Life was in any way conditional upon the solution of such problems.
“Nay, Lord,” the Bhikkhu replied.
The Buddha then admonished him not to waste time and energy over idle speculations detrimental to his moral progress, and said: “Whoever, Mālunkyaputta, should say, ‘I will not lead the Holy Life under the Blessed One until the Blessed One elucidates these questions to me’ – that person would die before these questions had ever been elucidated by the Accomplished One.
“It is as if a person were pierced by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and relatives were to procure a surgeon, and then he was to say. ‘I will not have this arrow taken out until I know the details of the person by whom I was wounded, nature of the arrow with which I was pierced, etc.’
That person would die before this would ever be known by him. “In exactly the same way whoever should say, ‘I will not lead the Holy Life under the Blessed One until He elucidated to me whether the world is eternal or not eternal, whether the world is finite or infinite…’ That person would die before these questions had ever been elucidated by the Accomplished One. “If it be the belief that the world is eternal, will there be the observance of the Holy Life? In such a case – No! If it is the belief that the world is not eternal, will there be the observance of the Holy Life? In that case also – No! But, whether the belief be that the world is eternal or that it is not eternal, there is birth, there is old age, there is death, the extinction of which in this life itself I make known.
“Mālunkyaputta, I have not revealed whether the world is eternal or not eternal, whether the world is finite or infinite.
Why have I not revealed these? Because these are not profitable, do not concern the bases of holiness, are not conducive to aversion, to passionless, to cessation, to tranquility, to intuitive wisdom, to enlightenment or to Nibbāna. Therefore I have not revealed these.
