47.



The relation of husband and wife was not designed merely for their convenience. It has a deeper significance than the mere association of two physical bodies in one house. Husband and wife should take advantage of the intimacies of their association to help each other in training their minds in the holy teaching.

An old couple, an "ideal couple" as they were called, once came to Buddha and said, "Lord, we were married after we had been acquainted in childhood and there has never been a cloud in our happiness. Please tell us if we can be remarried in the next life."

The Buddha gave them this wise answer:--"If you both have exactly the same faith, if you both received the teaching in exactly the same way, if you perform charity in the same way and if you have the same wisdom, then you will have the same mind in the next birth."

1