Siddartha
The Buddha wasn’t always the Buddha. Before his enlightenment, Sakyamuni Buddha was Prince Siddartha Gautama. Born on the night of the full moon in May around 623 B.C. His mother, Queen Mahā Māyā, gave birth to him in the Lumbini Park at Kapilavatthu. Siddartha’s father, King Suddhodana of the Sākya clan, was eager to raise his son as a royal prince so he would one day rule the kingdom.
Joyous about Siddartha’s birth, an ascetic of high spiritual attainments named Asita (also known as, Kāladevala) visited the palace to see the royal baby. The sage was asked to predict the child’s future. The sage replied to the king telling him that his son would either grow up to become a great king and rule the kingdoms or become a great holy man.
Queen Mahā Māyā unfortunately died seven days after Siddartha’s birth. Siddartha’s aunt, Mahā Pajāpati Gotami who was also married the king, adopted the child and entrusted her own son, Nanda, to look out for young Siddartha.
Worried that Siddartha would leave the royal life one day, the king sheltered him inside the palaces and gave him every imaginable luxury. The king created an artificial environment so that everything was perfect and possible, and free of worries and suffering. The king never wanted his son to see that anything was wrong with the world so that he would continue staying in the palace and grow to become the next ruler. The king hoped Siddartha would not go out into the world and become a holy man as was predicted by the sage.
When the prince was 16 years old, his father married him to his cousin, Yaśodhara. For 29 years Siddartha enjoyed the palace life, never leaving, never seeing the outside world. The king constantly sheltered him and never let him outside the walls of the palace. Until one day, Siddartha finally made his way outside with his attendant for the first time.
Outside of his life of luxury and pleasure, Siddartha sees his first of four encounters. He sees an old man. Troubled, he asked his attendant why that man looked like that. The attendant replied, “That’s change. One does not always stay young[1].”
On his second visit outside, his second encounter Siddartha sees a sick man and asked his attendant what was wrong with him. The attendant replied, “That’s sickness. It happens to all of us1.”
Siddartha’s third encounter outside, he sees a corpse. Asking his attendant, the attendant replies, “That’s death. We will all eventually die.” Upon seeing the corpse, Siddartha realizes impermanence, suffering and death as the reality from his sheltered and luxurious life. Siddartha thought to himself, “This is my fate; to become old, sick, and die. How do I deal with these things?1”
On Siddartha’s fourth encounter, he see’s an ascetic[2] trying to overcome suffering, old age, sickness, and death. Troubled, Siddartha wanted to comprehend the nature of suffering and decided he wanted to leave the palace and go on a spiritual journey to answer his question.
Siddartha’s wife had just given birth to a baby boy, Rahula which means “fetter.” On a late summer night, Siddartha entered his room where his wife and newborn son were sleeping. This was his goodbye. He then went to the courtyard where his horse was waiting for him and fled the palace, leaving his wife, his newborn child, father, and empire behind. Siddartha realized that in order to gain anything, one must lose everything.
For the first time, Siddartha was alone in the world. At a near by river, he met an ascetic. He drew his sword and cut off his hair, traded his royal robes for the yellow robe of the ascetic and became homeless. Traveling South on the Ganges River, a prince that once had everything now had nothing. From prince to beggar, Siddartha traveled through the woods, slept on the cold ground, and begged for any scraps of food.
Siddartha didn’t have any understanding, teaching, or insight yet. He recognized the problem, but didn’t have a solution yet. He couldn’t get any help from the ancient Vedic religion at the time, a religion of ceremony and ritual. So he joined thousands of searchers, who like him, become renouncements to the world, embracing celibacy and poverty.
At the time, renouncements were a flourishing culture. Many wanted to find a way to escape the cycle of death and rebirth. The only way out was to become enlightened, to become a Buddha.
During his search of the truth, Siddartha came across his first teacher, a highly recognized guru who taught rigorous forms of yoga and meditation, and methods to tame the mind, desires and passions. Mastering all the methods and techniques of the guru, Siddartha ascended himself to these high levels of consciousness. However he knew it was impermanent and it didn’t penetrate the truth of the nature of reality, it was only a temporary escape from the problems, but it didn’t solve them.
Siddartha set out and met another accomplished guru but the results were the same. He then thought to himself, “this practice does not lead to direct knowledge or deeper awareness,” so he left his guru. He continued his search for the answers to his questions.
Asceticism was a common practice among the renouncements, punishing the body in order to attain wisdom and serenity. He subjected his body to extreme pain and hardships, doing everything he could to find his answers. Because the body was the common element of age, sickness and death, ascetics believed by punishing the body of these elements, they would be able to escape them. Siddartha met five ascetics, whom later on would become his first disciples.
For six years, Siddartha starved and punished himself in an attempt to rid himself of everything he saw as “bad,” of everything that he sees as against the way of gaining his answers. Siddartha became extremely anorexic, he ate only one grain of rice a day, drank his own urine, stood on one foot, and slept on nails – he did everything to the extreme.
Siddartha’s body was slowly withering away. In one of his stories, the Buddha said, “My limbs became like the jointed segments of vine. My spine stood out like a string of beads. My ribs jutted out like the jutting rafters of an old abandoned building. The gleam of my eyes appeared to be sunk deep in my eye sockets like a gleam of water deep in a well. My scalp shriveled and withered like a green bitter gourd. Shriveled and withered in the heat and wind.”
Siddartha tried to push his body to the extreme as much as he could, but then he realized he wasn’t gaining what he wanted. He was on the verge of dying when he remembered something; a day when he was young and his father took him to a spring ploughing festival. Siddartha sat by the river and watched the ceremonial dancing. He looked down at the grass and thought about the insects and their eggs destroyed as the field was planted, he was very saddened. His mind soon started drifting. As if by instinct, he crossed his legs into the lotus position and the natural world paid him homage. As he sat there, he felt a sense of pure joy in the world that was already broken, in this transitory world we’re all in.
Once Siddartha made this remarkable realization, he knew asceticism was not the way and that he needed to regain his strength if he wanted to continue his search. At that moment, a village maiden came up to him and offered him a bowl of rice porridge. Siddartha had failed. He had been clinging to asceticism and still hasn’t found his answer, but he knew the extreme of luxury and the extreme of asceticism were not the ways. The five ascetics who were practicing with Siddartha saw him eating, upon this sight they said, “Siddartha loves luxury. He has forsaken his spiritual practice. He has become extravagant3.” So they left Siddartha alone in disgust and disappointment.
Siddartha had put his faith in two gurus and put his body into extremes, neither had given him the answers he was seeking. Now he knew what to do. To find the answer to his questions, he would look within and trust himself.
The Buddha
After accepting the bowl of rice porridge, Siddartha took off his robes, bathed in the river, sat down under the shade of the Bodhi tree and meditated. During a full moon in the spring, before the sun would rise, Siddartha’s long search would be over.
As Siddartha sat under the Bodhi tree, he vowed not to get up until he gained enlightenment. Throughout the night, he meditated and all his former lives passed before him. He gained the power to see life, death and rebirth that all beings go through. As the morning star appeared, Siddartha said, “My mind is at peace.” He had become the Buddha[3].
The Buddha had realized that Nirvana, Enlightenment, was always there, is a part of everyone, but that our ignorance, greed and anger keep us from seeing it. All we have to do is eradicate our ignorance to be in Nirvana; that is the whole world around us. Nirvana is not a place or a destination, it is not something we can try to travel to and go to in the afterlife. Nirvana is here in the now, it is the quality of this moment.
For the next forty-nine days, the Buddha remained under the Bodhi tree enjoying the peace and joy of his realization. The Buddha contemplated whether or not he should teach the Dharma of his realization to others. He was concerned that people would not understand or believe him because they were so overpowered by ignorance, greed and anger that they would not be able to realize the path that is subtle, deep and hard to grasp.
Out of his great compassion, the Buddha traveled to the Deer Park in Sarnath[4] where he met the five ascetics he used to practice with. Seeing the Buddha walking towards them, they didn’t want to welcome him and felt uneasy, but as the Buddha got closer, the ascetics saw how radiant the Buddha was and they could not resist welcoming him. After offering the Buddha water to drink, the Buddha explained to them that he had found the path to enlightenment. The five ascetics then became his first disciples and the Buddha taught them the Four Noble Truths (Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta). This discourse is referred to as Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dharma.
The Buddha did not preach a dogma. Instead he spoke from his own experiences and hardships. He told his disciples that he had found a new way. Not a way of extreme luxury, nor a way of extreme asceticism, but a Middle Way. Like a string on a guitar that’s too tight will break and the music dies. If the string is too slack, then there’s no sound and the music dies. The middle way, tuning the string not too tight and not too slack, and there will be music for all to enjoy. The Buddha taught that the path to enlightenment lied in the Middle Way.
Finally the Buddha was able to answer the question he’d been tirelessly trying to find. The answer was the Four Noble Truths. Buddha realized that suffering, or better translated as “dissatisfaction,” is not something we can just get rid of. Instead, suffering is something we need to acknowledge and accept rather than try to push away and deny. Buddha discovered and taught us that life is unsatisfactory because there are causes, these causes are caused by our own mind. When we have wants and needs that are unattainable, we become dissatisfied and unhappy. These feelings of desire, greed, and anger are the causes we create for our own suffering[5].
Buddha’s first Noble Truth is that life is suffering, life is dissatisfying. The second Noble Truth tells us that our suffering has a cause; our wants, needs, desires, etc. The Third Truth is an important Truth; it tells us that we can be free of suffering if we can understand the cause of suffering. Buddha taught us that the problem is desire. However, there is good desire and there is bad desire. We all desire to be enlightened, but is that desire also part of the desire we need to eradicate? No. We can have desires, but we must be smart about them. We need desire to live our lives. Without desire, where will we get the motivation to succeed in school or work in order to have a successful future? Without desire how will we accomplish important tasks or projects? Therefore, without desire we cannot attain Buddhahood. Without the desire to become a Buddha, we will never accomplish our goal. Desires of greed, to harm, to lie and steal, to cheat – these are the desires we cannot have.
The Fourth and final Truth, the Buddha gave us our instructions manual, the guide to lead a life towards enlightenment; the Noble Eightfold Path – the cultivation of mindfulness, moral discipline, and wisdom.
After the Buddha explained the Four Noble Truths to the five ascetics, all five became Arhats[6]. It didn’t take long before people started hearing about a great sage. The Buddha’s disciples quickly swelled from a few hundred to a few thousand.
For the next 45 years, the Buddha taught the Dharma to a diverse range of people with different intellects and capabilities, using similes and parables in order to have everyone understand his teachings correctly in their own way.
Mahaparinirvana
In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, the Buddha at the age of 80 announced that he would soon be reaching Parinirvana[7], the final deathless state. The Buddha ate his final meal, which was an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Soon after, the Buddha became very ill and instructed his attendant Ananda to convince Cunda that his meal offering had nothing to do with his passing and that his meal would be a source of great merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha.
The Buddha asked his attendant Ananda to prepare a bed for him before two Sal trees, with his head facing north. Ananda, who served the Buddha for over 20 years, was deeply upset. “Don’t grieve, Ananda!” said the Buddha. “The nature of things dictates that we must leave those dear to us. Everything born contains its own cessation. I too, Ananda, am grown old and full of years. My journey is drawing to its close, and just as a worn-out cart can only with much additional care be made to move along, so too the body of the Buddha can only be kept going with much additional care[8].”
The Buddha asked his disciples three times if anyone had any doubts about his teachings or the disciplines. The disciples stood silent. “Not one, Ananda, has misgivings. All will eventually reach enlightenment.” The Buddha then said his final words: “Listen, Bhikkhus[9], all conditioned things are subject to decay. Strive with diligence for your liberation.”
Before Buddha’s passing, his disciples asked him, “Teacher, please don’t go. Who will be our teacher and teach us?” The Buddha replied, “Your precepts and Dharma will be your teacher.” Resting on his right side, the Buddha passed into Mahaparinirvana[10]. For the next six days, the Buddha’s body was honored with perfumes and garlands. On the seventh day, the body was taken to Mukutbandhana Chaitya[11], the sacred shrine of the Mallas. During the cremation, the last ceremony was performed by Mahakasyapa[12]. After the cremation was completed, the ashes were collected by the Mallas as relics which included a skull bone, teeth, and inner and outer shrouds. These relics are enshrined in stupas[13] across Asia.
[1] The Buddha. 2010. DVD. Directed by David Grubin. PBS Distribution.
[2] A person who practices severe self-discipline and abstention from all forms of indulgence.
[3] The Buddha. 2010. DVD. Directed by David Grubin. PBS Distribution.
[4] Saranath is a city located north-east of Varanasi in India. It is where the Buddha first taught the Dharma.
[5] Schumann, Hans Wolfgang. 1989, 33-35. The Historical Buddha: the times, life, and teachings of the founder of Buddhism. London: Arkana.
[6] Arhat: an enlightened being who has attained Nirvana.
[7] The death of a person who has attained nirvana in their lifetime.
[8] The Mahaparinirvana Sutra.
[9] Literally meaning “beggar,” a monk.
[10] The death of the Buddha.
[11] “Kusinara – Place of the Great Passing Away.” BuddhaNet – Worldwide Buddhist Information and Education Network. http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhistworld/kusinaga.htm.
[12] One of the principle disciples of the Buddha. He was foremost in ascetic practices.
[13] Stupa literally means “heap.” It is a structure containing the remains of Buddhist monks.