A Bowl So Clean It Floats Upstream!

The ascetic Gotama was thin as a skeleton, starving, and surviving off mere grains of rice. He had become so emaciated and weak that when he went down to the river, he wasn’t strong enough to get back out - and almost got washed away. 

Realizing that this self-mortification would lead to certain death, Gotama decided to break his fast. He made his way to the foot of a great Banyan tree and sat there in meditation. 

When a devotee making an offering to the tree-spirit found this austere ascetic, they thought to give him the offering - as he might be the embodiment of that spirit! Gotama accepted the offering of sweet milk-rice pudding.

After eating he said, "If I will be awakening today, may this bowl float upstream!" He then set the bowl adrift on the Neranjara channel. The bowl dashed out across the current; cutting directly to the midpoint of the river. Then it went - floating the middle-way upstream! Eventually the Naga collected it into a whirlpool; sinking it down like the bowls of Kakusandha, Konâgamana and Kassapa! There under the water it clinks with the bowls of the three previous Buddhas of this time.