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The Conduct Leading to Buddhahood The Chapter on an Elephant The Perfection of Ethics (2nd) The Dragon Bhūridatta’s Conduct “Then again when I was Bhūridatta, a dragon of great psychic power, together with Virūpakkha the Great King I went to a heavenly realm. There I saw gods wholly given over to pleasure. For the sake of going to that heaven, I undertook the observance of ethics. After tending to my physical needs, and eating enough to get by, I resolved on the four factors, and lay down atop a termite mound, thinking: ‘My outer skin and inner, flesh, sinews and bones: whoever has use for these, they are already given, please take them.’ While lying there the ingrate Ālampāyana grabbed me. He threw me in a basket and made me perform in places all over. Though thrown in a basket and crushed by his hands, I did not get upset with Ālampāyana, for fear of breaking my ethics. To give up my own life was as light as a blade of grass. To transgress my ethical principles was like overturning the earth. In a hundred successive lives I would give up my own life. I would not even violate my ethics for the sake of the four continents. For the sake of protecting ethics, and fulfilling my perfection of ethics, I did not let my mind change, even when thrown in a basket.”