(This is a simile that I have heard Theravada monks use, any offence is self inflicted)
Throw a stone at a dog, it will run scared or start chasing the stone. Throw stone at a lion, it will look for who threw the stone.
Disciples of the Blessed one seek for ‘Vijja’.
It is from the tika to VISM (see page 519 PoP).
“Just as a lion directs his strength against the man who shot the arrow at him, not against the arrow, so the Buddhas deal with the cause, not with the fruit. But just as dogs, when struck with a clod, snarl and bite the clod and do not attack the striker, so the sectarians who want to make suffering cease devote themselves to mutilating the body, not to causing cessation of defilements” (Vism-mhþ 533)
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