Little Rahula was quite mischievous. Whenever people came to visit the Buddha at the Abode of the Bamboo Grove, Rahula would tell them that the Buddha had gone to Vulture Peak Mountain or was somewhere else, and he would laugh as they ran back and forth. One day when the Buddha heard about this, he went out to see him. Rahula took out a basin of water and washed the Buddha's feet. After that, the Buddha pointed to the water in the basin and asked Rahula "Do you want to drink the water?"

Rahula replied, "No, I don't, because it's dirty."

"You are just like the water," said the Buddha. "You are a novice but you don't behave properly. You like to trick and make fun of others, and the poisons in your mind are just like the dirt in the water."

The Buddha told him to throw the water out. When he came back, the Buddha asked him, "Can you eat with the basin?"

"No, I can't," Rahula replied, "because it's a basin for washing feet and it's dirty."

"You are just like the basin. You are a novice, but you do not study hard enough to purify your mind, words and deeds. There is filth in your mind, so you can't put my teachings into your mind, just like you can't put food in the dirty basin."

The Buddha suddenly kicked the basin, which startled Rahula. The Buddha then asked Rahula again, "Are you afraid that I might break it?"

"No. It's only a basin, so it's perfectly all right if you break it."

"You don't care about the basin, just as no one cares about you. You are a novice now, but you are still mischievous. Gradually, no one will like you. What's worse, you will fall into the Three Lower Realms of Animals, Hungry Ghosts and Hell when you die."

Rahula felt ashamed and apologized sincerely for his behavior and became diligent in following the Buddha's teachings. he changed his ways and became a new person.

One day, Rahula came back from one of the Buddha's sermons and found that his room had been occupied by a visiting monk. His robe and bowl had been thrown outside the room. Just at this time, it started to rain hard and Rahula had no place to go but the washroom.

As the rain kept falling, insects, snacks and other aninmals started to come out of their holes to avoid being drowned. Some of them crawled into the washroom, which really frightened him. Then, he heard the Buddha calling him. He came out and saw the Buddha standing outside of the washroom. Rahula ran and embraced him, crying out his fear, loneliness and helplessness. The Buddha patted him lightly on his back and told him softly to go to his own room. The original rule was that novices and monks could not share a room, in order to encourage the novices to be independent. But because of this incident, the Buddha changed the rule so that a novice and a monk could share for two nights, thus helping novices to adjust to their new environment. A mentor should help his disciple, and since Rahula's mentor was Sariputra, Sariputra told Rahula to stay with him.