Dhammapada Stories - Law of Kamma

King Suppabuddha was indeed not an admirer of the Buddha. He had not forgotten how the Buddha, while he was still a prince, had abandoned his beloved daughter Yasodhara for the renunciant’s life.

One day, knowing that the Buddha and his disciples would be entering the city for almsfood, the king got drunk, and the wine in his veins made him brave enough to go and block the Buddha’s way.

He would not let the Buddha pass, saying that he, the king, could not make way for someone younger than he was. Not protesting, the Buddha and his disciples turned back. King Suppabuddha then ordered one of his men to spy on the Buddha and report back to him whatever the Buddha said.

Once back at their monastery, the Buddha said to Ananda, “The king has created bad kamma by blocking the way of the Buddha and soon he will have to pay for it.”. This was reported to the king who became determined to prove that the Buddha didn’t know what he was talking about.

He commanded all of his attendants and guards to be extra vigilant in protecting him, while he himself would take special precautions. The news of the king’s increased efforts to protect himself from harm reached the monastery where the Buddha was staying. The Buddha said that it didn’t matter whether the king lived in a tower, in the sky, in an ocean, or in a cave, because he couldn’t escape the result of his kamma. Nobody could.

Several days after the road incident, the king was sitting in his room when he heard his favorite horse neighing and kicking about wildly. He became so worried that he immediately went to see what the matter was, forgetting what the Buddha had predicted for him. As he rushed out of his room, he tripped and fell down some stairs and died.

When he was reborn, he was reborn in hell. So no matter how hard he tried, the foolish king was unable to escape the effects of his evil kamma. That is how the law of kamma works.

Not in the sky, nor in the middle of the ocean, nor in the cave of a mountain, nor anywhere else, is there a place where one cannot be overcome by Death.