chapter3-the great epics

The coming of the Buddha

Some 2500 years ago, in the park of Lumbini, situated in the Himalayan foothills near the Indo-Nepalese border, a baby boy was born to Queen Mahamaya. This child called Siddhartha was destined to become the Buddha, one of the greatest teachers in world history.

The life of the Buddha, known also as Gautama has fascinated people throughout history. It is said that before he was conceived, his mother, Mahamaya, dreamt of a beautiful elephant entering her side. At his birth his body was found to bear thirty-two auspicious marks. On examining the new born child, the Brahmin priests declared that the boy would one day renounce the world and become a Buddha, an enlightened being. It was predicted that as soon as he saw four signs, - an old man, a sick man, a dead man and a wandering ascetic - he would renounce the world.

Suddhodana, Siddhartha's father, took every precaution that the four signs might not come within the sight of his son. But in later youth, some years after his marriage to Yasodhara, and the birth of his young son Rahul, he was confronted with the four signs and one night he slipped away from the palace.

Taking up the life of a wondering ascetic he went in search of a teacher, and eventually associated with the greatest masters of his time. From these men he learned all that they could teach, became their equal and even surpassed them, and yet remained unsatisfied. He then began to practice severe austerities and self-mortification. It was a period of self-discovery in which he depended upon direct personal knowledge and direct personal experience. It is said that as a result of this discipline he reached a stage that when he would touch the skin of his stomach he took hold of his spine.

After six years of such practices the Buddha remembered an experience of his childhood. Once, while waiting for his father under the shade of a tree, he spontaneously entered into a state of consciousness characterised by a sense of freedom, bodily well being and happiness. With this experience, he realised that it was not by fasting and a life of extreme physical asceticism that he could achieve enlightenment and liberation. He stopped his austerities and regained his bodily health and robustness.

What was it that the Buddha was seeking for? After having seen those three sights of the old man, the sick man and the dead man, the one thing that was perplexing him was the cause of human suffering. Why do men suffer and is there a way out of this suffering?

The Buddha then set out to find out the answers to these questions. He made his way to the Bodhi tree nearby and resolved not to rise until he reached enlightenment. Mara, the evil force appeared to him to try to keep him from his goal with threats, provocations and finally enticements. To Mara, the Buddha said:

"Lust is your first army; the second is your dislike for higher life; the third is hunger and thirst; the fourth is craving; the fifth is torpor and sloth; the sixth is fear, cowardice; the seventh is doubt; the eighth is hypocrisy and obduracy; the ninth is gains, praise, honour and false glory; the tenth is exalting self, despising others; Mara these are your armies. No feeble man can conquer them, yet only by conquering them one will win bliss. I challenge you; shame on my life if defeated! Better for one to die in battle than live defeated".

Mara replied: "For seven years have I followed the Lord step by step. I can find no entrance to the All-enlightened, the watchful one. As a crow went after a stone that looked like a lump of fat, surely, here I shall find a tender morsel, and finding no sweetness there, departed thence, so like a crow attacking a rock, in disgust I leave Gautama".

Mara retreated and Buddha achieved his goal.

It was the awareness of suffering and death in this world that sent the young Siddhartha on his quest. “What”, he asked, “is the cause of suffering”? The answer that he found was that "desire is the cause of all suffering". Thus one had to eliminate desire from one's consciousness. In order to eliminate desire from one's consciousness, he proposed an eight fold path through which one could be liberated into a state free from all affliction, a state of unshakeable and perfectly unassailable peace. This state he called Nirvana. But having reached this state, is there anything left to be done in this world? Is there any aim of life to be further pursued? As it should be clear, the life of the Buddha shows clearly that the state of Nirvana and the state of activity need not be opposed to each other. For man, when liberated from desire, is motivated to act by something else. Action does not have necessarily its origin in desire. True action proceeds from Silence, and there are deeper and deeper profundities of silence, each corresponding to a greater effectivity of action. At the deepest or highest state of Silence, we find the Buddhahood. Thus was it possible for the Buddha to attain the state of Nirvana and yet act in the world, impersonal in his inner consciousness and in his action one of the most powerful personalities.

Accordingly, after attaining Nirvana at the age of 35, the Buddha spent the next 45 years of his life spreading this message. He went walking from one village to another, from one city to the next and met people of all castes and ages. At that time the Indian society had become very structured and the caste system had been codified and lost its plasticity. But the Buddha met everyone, treated everyone with the same respect and taught everyone, not according to rank or caste, but according to the person's understanding and sincerity. He spoke to kings and commoners, to rich merchants and poor peasants, to dacoits and women; he adapted his teachings, telling stories or parables to the simple folk, expounding the deepest psychological theories to the more developed and the most profound practices of meditation to the most advanced disciples.

His teaching was made up of Four Noble Truths:

The Truth of the universality of suffering

The Truth of the cause of suffering

The Truth of cessation of suffering

The way to Nirvana.

At the age of 81, the Buddha left his body and attained Samadhi.

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