It’s right Utara it’s proper to conquer angry people with non-aggression

It is normal to defeat irritable people with calmness

To conquer abusive speech with pleasant speech

To overcome plaintiff with non-grievance

To conquer wicked people with compassion

To conquer stingy people with generosity

We win over liars by telling the truth

The reason for this story

Once upon a time Utara a rigorous Buddhist and a daughter of a Phahouthon, a wealthy man of Rajkru, Reluctantly married a young man whose father is the millionaire Soumon because her husband’s family didn’t have faith in Buddhism.

Her father knew that for the past two and a half months following the wedding, she was not happy because she didn’t have a chance to go to the temple and pay respect to monks. Thus he gave her $15,000 to pay an escort called Sirima to keep her husband amused for 14 days before the end of the Buddhist lent so that Utara would have the time to do good deeds. Her husband agreed to the arrangement.

Utara was extremely happy to have an opportunity to make merit for the full 14 days. One morning while being entertained by Sirima. Her husband saw that Utara was very busy cooking food for the temple; he took pity of her and ironically laughed at her and thought how foolish she was. But Sirima took it wrongly and became mad with jealousy. Sirima rushed to the kitchen and scooped a ladle of hot boiling butter with the intention to disfigure Utara.

Seeing Sirima’s action, Utara didn’t feel any anger but spread love and kindness to Sirima and wished that herself be unharmed by the hot butter that Sirima splashed onto her. Through the power of her pure love, she felt as if it was just cold water on her face. Servants rushed to beat Sirima but Utara stopped them for doing so. She felt sorry for Sirima who reacted out of jealousy. Sirima became repentant and wanted to make an apology but Utara said to her that she should ask for forgiveness from her father, the millionaire Phahouthon and the Lord Buddha who was her father in the Dhamma.

The following morning Sirima followed Utara to the temple to offer food to the Lord Buddha and the congregation of monks. Sirima bowed to the Buddha’s feet and confessed about her wrong doing and asked for forgiveness.

The Lord Buddha then expounded the above verses and gave Dhamma teaching out of compassion for Sirima who later attained the stream of Dhamma fruition ( Sodapana) with her retinues.

This was extracted from the teaching of the Lord Buddha.