CHAPTER ONE

 

INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

 

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to give up your home, your family, friends, and all of your material wealth? What kind of person would leave his wife and family? What could motivate someone to do such a thing? In today's society, deadbeat fathers are not uncommon and their motivations are as varied as they are. However, there is one who left all behind because he believed there was a higher morality and who because of that higher morality, entered upon a most singular quest: To find a way to rid humankind of its suffering. His name was not Abraham, Moses, Jesus, or Columbus, or Magellan. Nor was it Pasteur, Salk, or Pauling. Nor was it Mahatma Gandhi or Lhamo Dondrub. Who was this individual? His name was Shakyamuni (Siddhartha) Gautama and he would be called The Buddha. The word, Buddha is Sanskrit and means 'the awakened one.

Scholars have questioned the historical existence of such luminaries as Moses, Zoraster, and Jesus. And like those, scholars also have questioned if there was a historical person called The Buddha. And with time and the advent of modern archaeology evidence has indicated the historical existence of each of these important world-changing figures.

Siddhartha Gautama was born to King Suddhodhana and Queen Maya, rulers of the Sakyas, a tribe of the Gautamas in northern India (today's Nepal) in Lumbini Park at some point during the Sixth Century, BCE. The exact date is not known. It is known that his mother died shortly after his birth and his maternal aunt, Prajapati Gautami, raised him. At age twelve, as was the custom of the day for young Hindu boys, Prince Siddhartha took the Vow of Allegiance to the religion of his fathers. After which he was sent away to the learned priests to learn the Vedas. At the end of four years, he returned home to his father's palace whereupon, the sixteen-year-old prince was married to his beautiful young cousin, Princess Yosodhara.

For several years the couple lived within the confines of the royal palace in wondrous luxury, sheltered from all that might be unpleasant. It was not long after their only child was born, a son named Rāhula, that Siddhartha, now twenty-nine went through a series of events that would forever and profoundly change his life and would lead to the Night of the Great Renunciation.

Briefly, these events, four in all, dealt with what the young Prince saw as the human condition of his day, and unfortunately would still find to be true in today's world. The first event involved a man writhing in pain, the second involved a crippled old man, the third was a funeral procession, and the fourth involved a beggar monk. No one provided the young Prince with satisfactory answers to his question, why the suffering? After experiencing each of these, the young prince determined to leave his wife and infant son and meditate upon the human condition of pain, old age, and death. With the renunciation of the life of luxury and material substance, Siddhartha began his journey ¾a journey that would change the world!

We would be remiss not to include here some information about the famous Bo Tree revelations. After seven long years of wandering from place to place, monk after monk, priest after priest, wise man after wise man, Siddhartha gave up the idea of self-immolation and extreme asceticism and accepted the fact that they do not lead to wisdom and they most certainly did not lead to a lessening of mankind's suffering.

It was while resting under a wild fig tree on the bank of the Neranjarā near Gaya in what is now called Bihar, that he formulated what has come to be called "The First Law of Life"- From good must come good, and from evil must come evil. After seven days of meditation under this fig tree that is now called the Bo Tree (Tree of Wisdom), Siddhartha went to Isipatana (modern Sarnath) near Benares. There at Deer Park before several of his former colleagues, he delivered his first sermon. It is said that the following episode occurred after this dynamic sermon:

"Are you a god?" asked a young monk.

"No," answered Siddhartha.

"Then, are you a saint?"

"No," came the reply

"If you aren't a god and not a saint, then what are you?"

"I am awake," replied Siddhartha.

 

From then on, Siddhartha Gautama was called Buddha, The Awakened, or The Enlightened. We have included this episode here as a disclaimer to any notion that Siddhartha viewed himself as divinity or viewed himself to be the Son of God.

For nearly a half-century, Buddha went about teaching his philosophy to all that would listen. And at this point, we cannot resist pointing out a fact that is not always emphasized about the Buddha-that he taught all persons regardless of their station in life and regardless of their gender.

Another example from the historical Buddha illustrates an additional important aspect of Buddhism, one with which this book has as its focus.

The story has it that three well-known ascetics, fire-worshippers, listened to the Buddha. One of these, Uruvilva Kasyapa became a follower. Siddhartha and his entourage went to the city of Rajagriha, the capital of Magadha. He had promised King Bimbisara that he would return if he attained bodhi and receive him as his disciple. The King, upon learning of Siddhartha's arrival, went with his counselors and various generals to the place of encampment. There they saw the ascetic Uruvilva Kasyapa with Siddhartha and wondered if he had joined the Enlightened. Uruvilva prostrated himself at the feet of the Buddha thus answering their concerns. On hearing the Buddha, after this incident, King Bimbisara and many of his people became lay followers. And this is the point. One may adopt the Buddhist path without becoming a monk or nun just as one may become a Catholic without becoming a priest or a nun.

By the time the Buddha died at the age of eighty at Kusinārā (located in modern Uttar Pradesh), Buddhism had become an effective moral force in India, a moral force that has lasted nearly three thousand years. With a resurgence of Hinduism in India, Buddhism quickly spread to other countries: Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, China, Korea, Tibet, and Japan. Today it enjoys nearly 535 million members worldwide. In the United States, there are several Buddhist Centers with a total membership of 317,000.

Wherever you go, there you are! [1] A simple statement, yet so true that many people hearing it for the first time almost involuntarily laugh out loud. And yet, here you are, thumbing through these pages. Perhaps it is just an idle curiosity that you have or perhaps it is some long-forgotten desire to learn a little more about Buddhism. And just maybe, lurking in the oasis of your memory there is a hint as to the real reason you are where you are doing what you are doing. So you think you want to be a Buddhist? And you are being bombarded by many unanswered questions, some clearly defined and others vague and unspecified. Some of what you have read is perhaps too complicated, too vague, or too esoteric for your tastes. What follows is an attempt to answer some of those questions and provide you with some basic information about Buddhism.

A Buddhist follows the teachings of Buddha. A Buddhist may be male or female; rich or poor, powerful or powerless, yellow, black, brown or white-skinned. There are no social or status distinctions made in the teachings of Buddha. There are monks, nuns, and lay persons. All accept the fundamental principles taught by the Buddha. As accepting as this sounds, there are still differences among the various schools of Buddhism, however, these differences are more on emphasis and localization than on the actual teachings of the Buddha. And for our purposes here, a summary of these schools is all that is necessary.

The oldest school that is still thriving today is called Therāvada, literally the "teachings of the elders" and is considered to be the closest to the original teachings of the historical Buddha. Tradition claims that after the death of the Buddha (480 B.C.E.), the first Buddhist Council was called and at this meeting, the sermons delivered by the Buddha and memorized by the bhikkhus (monks) were written down as suttas (Sanskrit: sutra). These sutras or discourses were eventually arranged according to length and subject coming together in three different sets of books called the Tripitaka. The Therāvada, also known as the Pali-school [2] or Hinayana (hina=lesser; yana=vehicle). Sometimes referred to as "The Lesser Vehicle," the Hinayana school is the most conservative and focuses on the attainment of Enlightenment by the experienced practitioner. Its emphasis is the monastic life and the adherence to those precepts necessary for that life and that means leaving the civilian life with all its attendant material worldliness. Its objective is to bring about an understanding of the impermanence of all things, especially the human body and all its components, to slowly remove the many attachments to the body, attachments to things of this world, and attachments to thoughts, ideas, and desires.

The next school of Buddhism is called Mahayana (maha=great; yana=vehicle). Vehicle, as it is used here, means the teachings of the Buddha as the "vehicle" or path to end all suffering. Mahayana, perhaps the larger movement in Buddhism, claims to be for everyone. Enlightenment is still very much its goal, however, it adds a greater focus on Compassion and the Way of the Bodhisattva. It consists of practices that anyone may follow in either the monastic or lay life. This is a sharp difference from the Hinayana approach, which tends to emphasize the ideal of one's end of suffering or cycle of re-birth, one's salvation.