WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW ABOUT THE BUDDHA

Based on the Pali Canon: 100 BCE

 

THE CONTEXT into which the Buddha was born in about 560 BCE.

There were two main spiritual traditions in Northern India at the time of the Buddha’s birth:

            The Vedic Tradition, out of which Hinduism grew, developed out of the spiritual practices brought into India by a race of Aryan tribesmen from Central Asia about 2,500 BCE. They spoke an early form of Sanskrit and brought with them a deep belief in the atman, or soul, which they believed to be the real, immortal self of each being.  They taught that man’s spiritual journey was to strip back the coverings of the atman to reveal the true self. Brahmins, or priests, regulated all phases of this journey.

The Yogic Tradition, in which individuals or small groups of people would renounce the world, and in the solitude of mountains, caves, and forests seek a direct knowledge of higher spiritual states without the intercession of a priesthood. Yogis variously practiced bodily castigations, shamanistic ceremonies, and privations of food and sleep. Upon being born spiritually “free”, man becomes caught up or bound to the material or natural world.

                       

TEXT SOURCE: The Pali Canon was written down during 1st Century BCE and consists of three

 parts:

1. Sutras (Scriptures or hundreds of teachings of the Buddha)

2. Vinaya (book of rules for monks or followers)

3. Abhidharma (commentary on the teachings)

 

MYTHS: We have to strip away layer after layer of myths in the traditional accounts of the Buddha, or the Awakened One. The myths represent attempts by followers to fill in the unknowns with information they wanted to be true: like the miracles they attributed to him.

 

The land on which Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha (meaning “the Awakened One”), walked is now buried under about 8 feet of the dusty remains of civilization after civilization laid down over the 2,500 years since.

 

The Buddha’s father was a minor nobleman, like a party chairman in the Sakiya clan. Nothing is known of Siddhartha Gautama’s early life, except for a pleasant episode of trance-like meditation he experienced as a youth and that he remembered later as an adult. He married in his late teens, as was the custom, and fathered a child, Rahula, at age 27-28.

 

At age 29 Gautama left home and took up life as a wandering monk. He traveled southeast on what is now called the North Road, in northern India, near Nepal. He became an ascetic, renouncing “the good life”, eating maybe only a handful of soup or porridge a day. He had five companions, also renunciants.

 

We believe Gautama briefly had two meditation teachers as a young man.

At Bodh Ghaya, in Maghada, remembering the pleasure of his meditative experience as a teenager, he sat down under a rose water or pipal tree and entered a meditative state. One night, during this meditation, he awoke to the idea that everything is conditioned, everything depends on something else, which also depends on something else. The chicken depends on the egg, which depends on the seeds (ovum and sperm), water, sunlight, and food, all of which depend on something else. This was a deeply rebellious idea that went against all the teachings of the time, which were that everything depends on its place in the framework of existence (its family, friends, religion, location, etc.). He became aware of cause and effect: everything has a cause and is followed by an effect. This radical idea was unsteady ground for the people, because it meant that they would have to give up constantly thinking about the past and the future: instead, they would just have to be present. This requires mindfulness training.

 

So, the Buddha was a radical iconoclast: he tore down the sacred idols of his time. He rejected the Vedic religious tradition of India, with its rituals and its priestly class, and its belief in a soul.

 

After he awakening, he traveled on to Varanasi, where he taught in the Deer Park at Isipatana. He gathered once again his old traveling companions, who now recognized his newly attained wisdom. As time went on he gathered more and more followers.

 

During the first few months and years of his teaching life, the Buddha formulated his principal teaching, the Four Noble Truths:

 

1. Knowing suffering that comes from craving or desire

2. Letting go of the craving that causes suffering

3. Experiencing this letting go of craving

4. Following an Eightfold Path (description will follow in a later lesson)

 

He traveled the North Road over the next 40 years. In about 480 BCE, at age 80, he became ill with some kind of intestinal disease, causing him great pain and rapid wasting. Finally, at Kusinigara, he lay down and died. Before he died, when asked if he had any more teachings, he is said to have replied, “No, I have given you all of it; now go and be a lamp unto yourself”.

 

His body was cremated and his ashes divided among his followers. Shortly thereafter the first meeting of followers was held in the Seven Leaf Cave, 150 miles southeast of Kusinigara. Here Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and attendant, was invited to repeat the Buddha’s teachings.

 

These teaching were passed down orally for the next 3-400 years until they were finally written down. This became known as the Pali Canon, named for the spoken language in which it was passed down. The early written account was probably in formal Sanskrit, but does not survive to today. The earliest account we have today is from a Chinese translation from the Sanskrit, which had been kept in a Tibetan temple.

 

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