“My mind is obedient, delivered from all worldly matters,” so said the Blessed One. “And in me there is no ill. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!” “I support myself by my own riches!” so said the herdsman Dhaniya, “and my children are healthy about me. I hear nothing wicked of them. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!” “I am no one’s servant,” so said the Perfect One, “with what I have gained I wander through the world. For me there is no need to serve. Therefore, if thou wilt, rain, O sky!” “I have cows, I have calves!” so said the herdsman Dhaniya. “I have also a bull as lord over the herds. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!” “I have no cows, I have no calves!” so said the Happy One, “—And I have no bull as lord over the herds. Therefore, if thou wilt, rain, O sky!” “The stakes are driven in and cannot be shaken,” so said the herdsman Dhaniya. “The ropes are new and well made: the cows cannot break them. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!” “Having, like a bull, rent the ropes: having like an elephant broken through the tangle,” so said the Blessed One, “I shall no more be born to death. Therefore if thou wilt, rain, O sky!” And he smiled as one at rest, enthroned above pain or change. Then all at once, from a full-wombed cloud, a shower poured down, filling both land and water. And the eyes of Dhaniya were enlightened, and seeing the true riches of the empty hand and freed soul, the herdsman spoke thus, bowing at the feet of the Perfect One. “No small gain has indeed accrued to us since we have seen the Blessed One. We take refuge in thee, O Wisest. Be thou our Master.” “He who has cows has care with his cows,” so said the Blessed One, concluding the matter. “But he who is free of these things has not care.” So Dhaniya entered the Way of Peace, and taking the vow of the householder was at rest. And now in this of Dhaniya is a thing much to be pondered. For it is observable that the Holy One said these words to him: “I have passed over to Nirvana—to the Peace.” How could this be and he yet living in the world of form? What then is the Nirvana? For, since the departing of Him who has thus Attained, the ignorant have taught the heresy which Sariputta the Great rebuked in the monk Yamaka,—even that the true Nirvana is extinction, is dispersal of all that once was the man, the ego known to himself and others, he being annihilated in death as a flame blown out in vast darkness. Yet no, and again, not so, though not in words may the Truth be fully told. Yet—if a man may attempt to throw a stone at a star, this that follows may be told of the Nirvana.