Butter and Stones
At the time, there were priests who were charging money for rituals & prayers. There was one ritual in particular that promised to release a dead relative's soul from hell so he could go to heaven.
At a certain point in the prayer, the priests struck an earthen urn full of stones with a ritual hammer.
They claimed that according to their teaching, if the urn broke, and the stones were released, it was a sign that the soul was also released, and would then rise to heaven.
Of course, the brittle clay could not withstand the blow of the heavy metal hammer. So the well paid priests were assured of a successful ritual.
A young man, distraught over his uncle's death, went to the Buddha instead. He believed that the Buddha's teaching was a newer, greater, more powerful form of religion, and asked him for the ritual that would release his uncle's soul.
The Buddha told him:
"Obtain two of the ritual urns from the priests, and fill one with butter and the other one with stones."
The young man, believing he was about to get a more powerful ritual, was very happy and did as the Buddha said.
When he returned, the Buddha told him:
"Place the urns carefully in the river, so that the rim of the urn is just below the surface. Then recite the prayer the priests prescribe as usual. Strike both the urns under the water with the hammer, at the usual point prescribed in the priest's prayer."
When finished, he was to return to the Buddha and describe what happened.
The young man, very excited to be the first person to be given this wonderful new ritual, which was more effective than the old one, did exactly as he was told.
Upon his return, when the Buddha asked him to describe what he saw, the young man replied:
"I saw nothing unusual. When I smashed the urns, the stones sank to the bottom of the river and the butter was washed away on the surface of the river."
The Buddha said:
"Then you must ask your priests to pray that the butter will sink to the bottom and the stones will float to the surface!"
The young man, shocked by the obvious ridiculousness of this request replied:
"But no matter how much the priests pray, the stones will never float
and the butter will never sink."
Then the Buddha said:
"Exactly so.
And, it is the same with your uncle.
Whatever good & loving actions he has committed during his life will be that which makes him rise towards heaven. 'And whatever bad & selfish actions he has committed during his life will be that which makes him sink towards hell. His karma is his own, and must be faced...every bit of it.
There is not a thing that all the prayers and rituals of the priests can ever do to alter the results of his actions!"
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