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The Affluent One

SN 7.14 Mahāsāla Sutta: The Affluent One

A shabily dressed man tells the Buddha how his sons threw him out at the instigation of their wives. The Buddha gives him a verse to recite at a big public gathering that the sons and wives will be at. The verse has a bit in it about how his staff gives him more support than his sons do. It gets recited at the gathering, the sons repent and he gets back in to the family home.

The man, now finely dressed, returns to the Buddha and gives him money out of gratitude which “the Blessed One accepted out of sympathy.”

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