“You won’t find my name in any scroll, but I was there when the monk met the raindrop—and everything changed.”
I was only a novice back then, sweeping the leaves from the temple courtyard in the hills of Kosambi, where aged mango trees whispered with the breeze and the air always smelled of sandalwood and rain. I wasn’t meant to overhear what I did that day. But teachings have a way of revealing themselves when hearts are silent enough to listen.
The elder monk, known by many as Venerable Mahānāma, had lived at the monastery for decades. He came from a noble family in the city, but had given up a life of comfort to pursue the path of awakening. People came to him with questions all the time—some asking how to resist anger, some curious about rebirth. He answered them with the steady calm of someone who had long conquered his own storms.
But that rainy morning, I saw something unusual.
Mahānāma sat in the garden alone, facing a single raindrop hanging from the tip of a leaf. He watched it intently, as though it held the secrets of the universe. I knelt silently behind a pillar, hidden by vines, unsure if I was witnessing meditation—or something more.
“Tell me, little drop,” he whispered, the words barely louder than the wind, “What becomes of you when you let go?”
The raindrop shimmered, swollen by the mist. Then, as I watched, it fell—silent, soft, and unnoticed—vanishing into the soil below.
Mahānāma continued to sit in silence.
Later that day, I approached him. “Venerable Sir,” I said, bowing low, “Why did you speak to the raindrop?”
He looked at me with eyes both gentle and knowing. “Because we are not so different,” he said. “I have spent many years clinging to certainty—trying to claim I know what happens after death, grasping for control over the great questions. But the drop reminded me. Even the most certain falls.”
I was puzzled. “But Master, you teach of rebirth, of the cycle of Samsara. Don’t we know what happens?”
He shook his head slowly. “Yes—and no. The Buddha taught the Dhamma, the path out of suffering. He showed us the candle and how to light it. But not all candles give the same flame. We practice not to become all-knowing, but to become humble enough to be transformed.”
That evening, he gathered the sangha—the community of monks—and told the story. He spoke not of grand truths, but of silence, of how not knowing can be its own kind of wisdom.
He ended with a line from the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha’s sermons: “Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so too does this Dhamma have one taste—the taste of liberation.”
And in that still moment, our eyes turned not to the heavens, but to the puddle where the raindrop had vanished. It had not died—but returned to that from which all comes.
That day, I learned that it wasn’t always the loudest teaching or the longest sermon that shakes the heart. Sometimes, it was a raindrop.
I walked back to my sleeping mat under the temple’s roof, and for the first time, I didn’t fear the silence. I listened to it.
And in it, I heard the start of my own awakening.
“You won’t find my name in any scroll, but I was there when the monk met the raindrop—and everything changed.”
I was only a novice back then, sweeping the leaves from the temple courtyard in the hills of Kosambi, where aged mango trees whispered with the breeze and the air always smelled of sandalwood and rain. I wasn’t meant to overhear what I did that day. But teachings have a way of revealing themselves when hearts are silent enough to listen.
The elder monk, known by many as Venerable Mahānāma, had lived at the monastery for decades. He came from a noble family in the city, but had given up a life of comfort to pursue the path of awakening. People came to him with questions all the time—some asking how to resist anger, some curious about rebirth. He answered them with the steady calm of someone who had long conquered his own storms.
But that rainy morning, I saw something unusual.
Mahānāma sat in the garden alone, facing a single raindrop hanging from the tip of a leaf. He watched it intently, as though it held the secrets of the universe. I knelt silently behind a pillar, hidden by vines, unsure if I was witnessing meditation—or something more.
“Tell me, little drop,” he whispered, the words barely louder than the wind, “What becomes of you when you let go?”
The raindrop shimmered, swollen by the mist. Then, as I watched, it fell—silent, soft, and unnoticed—vanishing into the soil below.
Mahānāma continued to sit in silence.
Later that day, I approached him. “Venerable Sir,” I said, bowing low, “Why did you speak to the raindrop?”
He looked at me with eyes both gentle and knowing. “Because we are not so different,” he said. “I have spent many years clinging to certainty—trying to claim I know what happens after death, grasping for control over the great questions. But the drop reminded me. Even the most certain falls.”
I was puzzled. “But Master, you teach of rebirth, of the cycle of Samsara. Don’t we know what happens?”
He shook his head slowly. “Yes—and no. The Buddha taught the Dhamma, the path out of suffering. He showed us the candle and how to light it. But not all candles give the same flame. We practice not to become all-knowing, but to become humble enough to be transformed.”
That evening, he gathered the sangha—the community of monks—and told the story. He spoke not of grand truths, but of silence, of how not knowing can be its own kind of wisdom.
He ended with a line from the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha’s sermons: “Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so too does this Dhamma have one taste—the taste of liberation.”
And in that still moment, our eyes turned not to the heavens, but to the puddle where the raindrop had vanished. It had not died—but returned to that from which all comes.
That day, I learned that it wasn’t always the loudest teaching or the longest sermon that shakes the heart. Sometimes, it was a raindrop.
I walked back to my sleeping mat under the temple’s roof, and for the first time, I didn’t fear the silence. I listened to it.
And in it, I heard the start of my own awakening.
