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Once upon a time, in a fishing village, there lived a group of loyal and honest villagers. There was a fisherman who took his son to the lake for fishing. He threw the hook into the bottom of the lake. After waiting for a while, he felt the heaviness of the fishing rod in his hand. The fisherman was happy and assumed that a big fish might have been hooked. He thought that since there were so many fishes in the lake if the villagers knew that he had caught a big fish, everyone would definitely join him in fishing too. As such, no more fishes would be left in the lake for him to catch. The fisherman came up with a plan. He asked his son to run home to his mother and find a way to quarrel with someone to distract the villagers from noticing him fishing.
After much thinking, the fisherman's wife picked some leaves to wear as earrings, painted her eyes black and went outside of the house. A friend saw her strange appearance and asked her if she was suffering from any mental issues. Questioning how she could dress up like that. The fisherman's wife took this opportunity to quarrel with her friend and said that she would go to the village chief to reason it out and asked her friend to compensate her for the loss of her reputation. The villagers all went to the village chief's house to see how the matter would be resolved. The village chief ruled that anyone who saw her appearance would doubt her sanity. Therefore, she should be punished as she had disturbed the peace and order of the village.
As for the fisherman, he was afraid that the fishing line would break if he forcibly pulled it up, and the fish would slip away. Therefore, he went into the lake to catch the fish with his bare hands. He didn't expect that it would turn out to be a twig. The fisherman was very annoyed. When he was about to pull the twig away, both the twig and hook stabbed into his eyes, leaving him in excruciating pain.
The fisherman ended up losing on both ends due to momentary greed. Not only was his wife fined by the village chief for her silly acts, but his eyes were injured too. This fisherman was Devadatta. Devadatta followed the Buddha and became a monk during Buddha's lifetime. He was a brilliant person, but he had too many afflictions. He was like a piece of wood burned at both ends, and nothing good could be extracted from the middle. Devadatta always tried to establish new religious sects to compete with the Buddha. As a result, he lost his wealth and material enjoyment. Devadatta also did not attain any religious cultivation achievement because he failed to abide by the precepts, which was also a dukkha action that resulted in a loss on both ends.
Translated by Michelle Lee
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