Dhamma Talks - The Life Of The Awakened One :: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

SIDDHATTHA GAUTAMA WAS BORN around the sixth century B.C., in a small kingdom of Kapilavastu just below the Himalayan foothills in northern India. His father, a king and a chief of the Shakya clan, was named Suddhodana and his mother, a queen, was named Maha Maya. One night the queen dreamed of a white elephant holding a white lotus. In the morning, she reported her dream to the king and the king invited the holy men to interpret her dream. The holy men prophesied that a great man would come to her womb and be born to her. It was the custom for any woman who got pregnant had to give birth in her homeland, so almost nine months later, the queen moved to her homeland, a kingdom of Devadaha. When she had got to the grove of Lumbini, now located in Nepal, she gave birth to a son. Then she came back to Kapilavastu. For five days there was a name-giving ceremony, when the king invited one hundred and eight holy men (Brahmins) to name and prophesy for his son. The name chosen for the child was Siddhattha that means ‘a wish fulfilled or the successful man’ and there were eight prophets, seven of them prophesied that if he became a householder, he would become a great king or an emperor, but if he goes forth from the home to a monastic life, he will become a teacher of the world, the only one youngest (Kondanya) prophesied that he would surely become the teacher of the world or a great sage. To prevent him from becoming a teacher of the world or an ascetic, his father kept him within the confines of the palace. Gautama grew up in wealth and princely luxury, shielded from the outside world, entertained by dancing girls, instructed by Brahmins, and trained in archery, swordsmanship, wrestling, swimming, and running. When he was sixteen years old, he married the princess, Yasodara or Bimpa, who gave birth to a son. He had, as we might say today, everything.

And yet, it was not enough. Something—something as persistent as his own shadow—drew him into the world beyond the castle walls. When he was twenty-nine years old, there, in the streets of Kapilavastu, he encountered four signs: a sick man, an old man, a corpse being carried to the burning grounds and holy man. These changed his life, he asked his charioteer why people became like these and when his charioteer told him that all beings are subject to sickness, old age, and death, he could not rest. He realized the three characteristics of impermanence i.e. everything changes all the time, suffering i.e. life is suffering, both physical and mental and no self which means there is no permanent entity such as soul or ego. As he returned to the palace, he passed a wandering ascetic walking peacefully along the road, wearing the robe and carrying the single bowl of a sadhu, and he wanted to investigate life and resolved to leave the palace in search of the answer to the problem of suffering. That night he visited his wife and child in a silent farewell without waking them, rode to the edge of the forest where he cut his long hair with his sword and exchanged his fine clothes for the simple robes of an ascetic.

With these actions Siddhattha Gautama joined a whole class of men who had dropped out of Indian society to find liberation. He learned about life and philosophies from teacher to teacher, from school to school. There were a variety of methods and teachers, and Gautama investigated many—theists, atheists, materialists, idealists, and dialecticians. Gautama finally settled down to work with two teachers. From Arada Kalama, who had three hundred disciples, he learned how to discipline his mind to enter the sphere of nothingness; but even though Arada Kalama asked him to remain and teach as an equal, he recognized that this was not liberation, and left. Next Siddhattha learned how to enter the concentration of mind which is neither consciousness nor unconsciousness from Udaka Ramaputta. But neither was this liberation and Siddhattha left his second teacher.

For six years Siddhattha, along with five hermits, practiced austerities and concentration. One day he sat facing the pond and saw the branch of a tree; one side in the water, another side out of the water. He thought that the side in the water was wet so it was very hard to make fire but the side out of water was dry so it was easy to make fire. He compared this to his life, that if he lived his life in luxury, it was not a way to escape from suffering so he drove himself mercilessly, eating only a single grain of rice a day and mortifying himself. His ribs stuck through his wasted flesh and he seemed more dead than alive. Five hermits, who tried to follow him, saw that action and they were his servants. One day again on the bank of Nairanjara River, he saw a musician who was playing a harp. The harp contained three strings, at that time he tried to adjust those strings; the first one was very tight and the second one was very loose so they didn’t produce the good sound, but the last one was just fine so it produced a good sound. He thought of the ways of his practice; firstly hedonism very loose and lately asceticism very tight. Then he found out the middle way between the two extremes so he refreshed himself with food and water again. His five companions left him after he made the decision to take more substantial food and to abandon asceticism. Then, Siddhattha entered a village in search of food. There, a woman named Sujata offered him a dish of milk and a separate vessel of honey. His strength returned, Siddhattha washed himself in the Nairanjara River, and then set off to the Bodhi tree. He spread a mat of grass underneath, crossed his legs and sat down.

He sat contemplating all the teachers to whom he had listened, and all the sacred texts he had studied and all the methods he had tried. Now there was nothing to rely on, no one to turn to, nowhere to go. On the eve of Visakha day he made a vow that if he didn’t get further with his practice, he wouldn’t stand up from his seat and then sat solid and unmoving and determined as a mountain, that night the demons or evils of greed, hatred and delusion came to fight with him. He fought with them until finally at the dawn of Visakha day, he overcame them and he realized that what he had been looking for had never been lost, neither by him nor by anyone else. Therefore there was nothing to attain, and no longer any struggle to attain it.

Naturally, the first question he asked himself was ‘What are the causes of the suffering and unhappiness which an individual undergoes?’ His second question was ‘How to remove unhappiness?’ To both questions he got the right answer which is the ‘Four Noble Truths’; The First Noble Truth is that life is suffering or dissatisfaction, The Second Noble Truth is that this suffering has a cause, The Third Noble Truth is that there is liberation from suffering and The fourth Noble Truth is that there is a path leading to the cessation of suffering. This is very Right path, leading to the cessation of suffering which begins with Right understanding and is called ‘The Eightfold Path.’ It gives the most importance to right understanding: If we have right understanding, right speech, action, habit, character and destiny will follow, as the proverb says ‘If you understand one, a thousand will follow. If you misunderstand one, a myriad will follow.’ So it was that Siddhattha Gautama became enlightened at the age of thirty-five, and was known from then on, as the Buddha, the Awakened One, and Shakyamuni, the sage of the Shakyas.

For seven weeks he enjoyed the freedom and tranquility of liberation. At first he had no intention to speak about his realization, which he felt would be too profound and difficult for most people to understand. But then he compared the people with four lotuses; when the first lotus comes out from the water and gets the sunshine then it blooms easily, this is like people of genius who can easily understand what they learn, the second lotus is in the water, it needs some time to grow out from the water and get the sunshine and then blooms later, this is like the people who can understand what they learn after some explanations, the third lotus just comes out from the mud, it needs times to grow out from the water and get the sunshine then it blooms later, this is like the people who can understand what they learn after striving again and again, and the fourth lotus is in the mud, it does not have the ability to grow out from the water so it is just the food of tortoises and fish, this is like the people who can not understand what they learn even though they try very hard.

Then he decided to teach the people and he thought of his two teachers, Udraka and Arada Kalama, but they had both already passed away and so he sought the five ascetics who had left him. When they saw him approaching the Deer Park in Benares they decided to ignore him, since he had broken his vows ‘I have become enlightened’, said the Buddha. Yet they found something so radiant about his presence that they rose, prepared a seat, bathed his feet and listened as the Buddha turned the wheel of the dharma, the teachings, for the first time.

The five ascetics who listened to the Buddha's first discourse in the Deer Park had a deep faith in the Buddha and requested ordination as his disciples and thus they became the nucleus of a sangha, a community of men who followed the way the Buddha had described in his Fourth Noble Truth, the Noble Eightfold Path. These bhikkhus, or monks, lived a simple life, owning only an alms-bowl, a robe, a needle, a water strainer, and a razor, since they shaved their heads as a sign of renunciation. They traveled around northeastern India, practising meditation, alone or in small groups, walking for their meals in the morning.

The Buddha's teaching, however, was not only for the monastic community. The Buddha had instructed them to bring it to all: "Go ye, O bhikkhus, for the gain of the many, the welfare of the many, in compassion for the world, for the good, for the gain, for the welfare of gods and men." For the next forty-five years the Buddha walked through the villages and towns of India, speaking in the vernacular, using common figures of speech that everyone could understand. He taught a villager to practice mindfulness while drawing water from a well, and when a distraught mother asked him to heal the dead child she carried in her arms, he did not perform a miracle, but instead instructed her to bring him a mustard seed from a house where no one had ever died. She returned from her search without the seed, but with the knowledge that death is universal.

As the Buddha's fame spread, kings and other wealthy patrons donated parks and gardens for retreats. The Buddha accepted these, but he continued to live as he had done ever since his twenty-ninth year, as a wandering teacher, walking for his own meal, spending his days in meditation. Only now there was one difference. Almost every day, after his noon meal, the Buddha taught. None of these discourses, or the questions and answers that followed, were recorded during the Buddha's lifetime.

One day, during journey to Kushinagara, the Buddha was asked by Ananda who would be the teacher or leader of the sangha when he passed away. Then he advised them to take refuge in themselves, both Dhamma, the teachings and Vinaya, the discipline, would be their teacher. Then he spoke his final words: "Now then, bhikkhus, I address you: all compound things are subject to decay; strive diligently." At the last moment, with his compassion he ordained a man, Subhatdaparibhajaka, the last disciple whom the Buddha himself ordained. After having eaten a meal of pork, he got seriously ill. And then he passed away in the town of Kushinagara, at the age of eighty, Some of the assembled monks were despondent, but the Buddha, lying on his side, with his head resting on his right hand, reminded them that everything is impermanent. At that time the last disciple,

Subhatdaparibhajaka, spoke against the sadness of the assembled monks saying that the Buddha’s passing away was good for them, now there was no one to control them and they could act as they liked. When the senior monk heard that he tried to collect the Buddha’s teachings.

it is said that in the first rainy season after the Buddha's passing away, five hundred elders gathered at a mountain cave near Rajagriha, where they held the First Council. Ananda, who had been the Buddha's attendant, repeated all the discourses, or sutras, he had heard, and Upali recited the two hundred and twenty-seven monastic rules (Patimokkha), the Vinaya, while Mahakasyapa recited the Abhidhamma, the compendium of Buddhist metaphysics or higher teachings of the Buddha. At that time, there was no language to record the Buddha’s teachings so they just memorized them from generation to generation until in King Ashoka’s time, these three collections, which were written on palm leaves, and known as the Tripitaka (literally "three baskets"), became the basis for all subsequent versions of the Buddhist canon. King Ashoka spread Buddhism out of India for the first time; to Europe, Greece (but it disappeared), Srilanka, Mynmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Lao, Vietnam, China, Japan, Korea and Tibet. Nowadays there are three main Buddhist traditions; Theravada (Elder one), Mahayana and Vajirayana (Tibetan tradition) but they are all the same, three in one, because they have the same teacher, the Buddha and the same teachings, Dhamma just as there are many kinds of sugar but they all have the same sweet taste .

References:

Rick Fields; Who Was the Buddha?

B. R. Ambedkar; THE BUDDHA AND HIS DHAMMA