Buddha’s Life and Teachings

Excerpts from two recent books: “Buddha” by Karen Armstrong (Penguin, 2004), and“Confession of a Buddhist Atheist” by Stephen Batchelor (Spiegel & Grau, 2010).

The Pali Canon “When trying to find out about the Buddha, we are dependent upon the voluminous Buddhist scriptures, which have been written in various Asian languages and take up several shelves in a library. Not surprisingly, the story of the compilation of this large body of texts is complex and the status of its various parts much disputed. It is generally agreed that the most useful texts are those written in Pali, a north Indian dialect of uncertain provenance, which seems to have been close to Magadhan, the language that Gotama himself may have spoken. These scriptures were preserved by Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand who belonged to the Theravada school. But writing was not common in India until the time of Asoka, and the Pali Canon was orally preserved and probably not written down until the first century BCE. How were these scriptures composed? It seems that the process of preserving the traditions about the Buddha’s life and teaching began shortly after his death in 483 BCE (according to the traditional Western dating). Buddhist monks at this time led itinerant lives. They wandered around the cities and towns of the Ganges plain and taught the people their message of enlightenment and freedom from suffering. During the monsoon rains, however, they were forced off the road and congregated in their various settlements, and during these monsoon retreats the monks discussed their doctrines and practices. Shortly after the Buddha died, the Pali texts tell us that the monks held a council to establish a means of assessing the various extant doctrines and practices. It seems that about 50 years later, some of the monks in the eastern regions of North India could still remember their great Teacher, and others started to collect their testimony in a more formal way. They could not yet write this down, but they developed ways of memorizing the discourses of the Buddha and the detailed rules of their Order. … Much material was probably lost, some was misunderstood, and the monks’ later views were doubtless projected onto the Buddha. We have no means of distinguishing which of these stories and sermons are authentic and which are invented. But we need not despair. The texts do contain historical material which seems to be reliable.” (Armstrong, pp. xii-xviii) “For nearly 400 years, before it was written down in Sri Lanka, the Pali Canon survived in the memories of those monks entrusted with the task of preserving the Buddha’s teaching for posterity. The sole concern of these early compilers of the Canon was to preserve the Dhamma taught by the Buddha. They appear to have had no interest in the order in which Gotama delivered his teachings, or in recording the political and social circumstances of his time. Any sense of chronology or setting was thereby lost. The surviving fragments of historical detail were scattered like needles in a huge haystack of text. Fortunately, the monks continued to recite these fragments along with everything else they had memorized, irrespective of whether they made much sense.” (Batchelor, pp. 185-186)

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Birth and family “One of the greatest obstacles to understanding the Buddha’s life is the story that Buddhism traditionally tells of it. In this well-known version, Prince Siddhattha was born as the son and heir of King Suddhodana and was raised in the luxury of royal palaces in the kingdom of Sakiya. One day, curious to know more about the realm over which he one day would rule, he made an excursion beyond the palace walls and for the first time encountered a sick person, an aging person, a corpse, and a wandering monk. These sights shocked the spoiled young man into an awareness of his own mortality. Unable any longer to lead the idle and sensuous life of a young prince, he fled the palace at night, discarded his luxurious robes and jewels, shaved his head, and became a wandering monk. After six years of strenuous meditation and asceticism, he sat beneath the Bodhi tree and realized Awakening and thus became the Buddha, the Awakened One. But this account contradicts what we know about Siddhattha Gotama in the Pali Canon. The Buddha’s father was not a king but a leading nobleman of the Gotama clan, who would have served as chairman of the Assembly in Sakiya. At most he would have been a sort of regional headman or governor. Sakiya was part of the powerful kingdom of Kosala, ruled by King Pasenadi from the capital city of Savatthi, about 80 miles to the west. … Nor does the Buddha’s first name, ‘Siddhattha,’ appear in the Canon. In the discourses and monastic texts he is referred to either as Gotama - his family or clan name - or the Bhagavat, an honorific term meaning ‘Lord,’ often translated as the ‘Blessed One.’ When speaking of himself, he tends to use the curious epithet Tathagata - the ‘One Who Is Just So.’” (Batchelor, pp. 103-104)

“Siddhattha Gotama was born in the Lumbini park, a few miles to the north [of Kapilavatthu], now just across the border inside Nepal. An inscribed pillar, erected about 150 years later by the Buddhist emperor Ashoka, still marks the spot. His mother died shortly after giving birth. The boy was nursed and raised by her sister Pajapati, who married Suddhodana, Siddhattha’s father. Although born in Sakiya, Gotama always described himself as a citizen of Kosala, the kingdom into which the ancient Sakiyan republic was already incorporated at the time of his birth. Until his death, his loyalty as a subject was to King Pasenadi in Savatthi, who ruled over a territory that extended from the northern banks of the Ganges all the way to the Himalayan foothills. To the west of Kosala lay Gandhara (much of modern Pakistan), which was then a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, the greatest power of the day. The sakiyans were farmers. They cultivated rice, millet, mustard seed, lentils, and sugarcane, and raised cattle, sheep, and goats for meat and milk. Gotama’s destiny was tied to the patchwork of fields and woodland scattered across the plains of his homeland. The buildings, from the hovels of the slaves to the grander edifices of the nobility, would have been constructed of baked mud, wood, and thatch. As the eldest son of a powerful family, Siddhattha would not have toiled daily in the fields. That would have been done by peasants and slaves. But he would have been brought up with a keen awareness of his father’s responsibility to ensure the yearly harvest on which the community’s survival depended. Kapilavatthu may have been a provincial farming town like many others, but it differed in one important respect. It was a staging post on the North Road, the major commercial and cultural artery of the day, which linked the kingdom of Magadha, south of the Ganges, with that of Kosala to the north. … Wealthy and privileged Sakiyans such as the Gotamas would have been exposed to the traffic of goods and ideas that moved between the Indian heartlands of Magadha and Kosala and the vast Persian territories to the

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west. As the son and heir of a leading nobleman, it is likely that Siddhattha would have accompanied his father to Savatthi, 80 miles to the west of Kapilavatthu, either on official or commercial business.” (Batchelor, pp. 115-116) The formative years “How did Gotama come to acquire his distinctive tone of voice and doctrines, both of which are different from the tone of voice and doctrines of the pre-existent Indian culture as found, for example, in the Upanishads? By the time he started teaching at the age of 35, Gotama appeared to have already established an informed yet critical, assured, and ironic distance from the brahmanic and other beliefs of his time. From the outset, he introduced notions that seem unprecedented among the traditions found in the Gangetic basin. The Pali Canon sheds little light on this question. Before he left home at the age of 29, there is no mention of what kind of education Gotama received, what work or other duties he undertook, what questions and concerns animated him. There is a gaping hole in the narrative. We are simply not told what he did during his formative years. And in the six years between leaving home and the awakening, all we know is that he studied with two teachers … and spent an unspecified period of time practicing self-mortification, all of which he rejected as inadequate. In despair at the failure of asceticism to resolve his dilemma, he recalls a time when he found himself sitting ‘in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree’ while his ‘father the Sakiyan was occupied’ and ‘entered and abided in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born from seclusion.’ This memory leads him to believe that such a way is the path to awakening. … The canonical account expects us to believe that all Gotama did prior to his awakening was master, then reject, two normative religious experiences of his time. It gives no importance to the philosophical and religious topics he would have discussed with his fellow ascetics, thus providing us with no sense at all of the development of his ideas.” (Batchelor, pp. 245-246) “The legends indicate that Gotama’s childhood had been spent in an unawakened state, locked away from that knowledge of suffering which alone can bring us to spiritual maturity. But in later years he recalled that there had been one moment which had given him intimations of another mode of being. His father had taken him to watch the ceremonial ploughing of the fields before the planting of the next year’s crop. All the men of the villages took part in this annual event, so Suddhodana had left his small son in the care of his nurses under the shade of a rose-apple tree while he went to work. But the nurses decided to go and watch the ploughing, and, finding himself alone, Gotama sat up. In one version of the story, we are told that when he looked at the field that was being ploughed, he noticed that the young grass had been torn up and that insects and the eggs they had laid in these new shoots had been destroyed. The little boy gazed at the carnage and felt a strange sorrow, as though it were his own relatives that had been killed. But it was a beautiful day, and a feeling of pure joy rose up unbidden in his heart. We have all experienced such moments, which come upon us unexpectedly and without any striving on our part. Indeed, as soon as we start to reflect upon our happiness, ask why we are so joyful and become self-conscious, the experience fades. When we bring self into it, this unpremeditated joy cannot last. It is essentially a moment of ecstasy, a rapture which takes us outside the body and beyond the prism of our own egotism. … The child had been taken out of himself by a moment of spontaneous compassion, when he had allowed the pain of creatures that had nothing to do with him personally to pierce him to the heart. This surge of selfless empathy had brought him a moment of spiritual release. Instinctively, the boy composed himself and sat in the asana position, with straight back and crossed legs. A natural yogin, he entered into the first jhana, a trance in which the meditator feels a calm happiness but is still able to think and reflect.” (Armstrong, pp. 66-67)

When he looked at the field that was being ploughed, he noticed that the young grass had been torn up and that insects and the

eggs they had laid in these new shoots had been destroyed. The little boy gazed at the carnage and felt a strange sorrow, as

though it were his own relatives that had been killed.

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Leaving Kapilavatthu “One night toward the end of the 6th century BCE, a young man called Siddhatta Gotama walked out of his comfortable home in Kapilavatthu in the foothills of the Himalayas and took to the road. We are told that he was 29 years old. His father was one of the leading men of Kapilavatthu and had surrounded Gotama with every pleasure he could desire. He had a wife and a son who was only a few days old. But Gotama had felt no pleasure when the child was born. He had called the little boy Rahula, or ‘fetter.’ The baby, he believed, would shackle him to a way of life that had become abhorrent. He had a yearning for an existence that was ‘wide open’ and as ‘complete and pure as a polished shell,’ but even though his father’s house was elegant and refined, Gotama found it constricting, ‘crowded,’ and ‘dusty.’ A miasma of petty tasks and pointless duties sullied everything. Increasingly he found himself longing for a lifestyle that had nothing to do with domesticity, and which the ascetics of India called ‘homelessness.’ The thick luxuriant forests that fringed the fertile plain of the Ganges river had become the haunt of thousands of men and even a few women who had all shunned their families in order to seek what they called ‘the holy life,’ and Gotama had made up his mind to join them.” (Armstrong, pp. 1-2) “It was not long after the birth of Rahula that Siddhattha decided to flee from Kosala. What drove him to do this? His own account in the Canon sheds little light on this question. He says that he decided to leave home in order to seek the ‘deathless supreme security from bondage,’ rather than seek satisfaction in mortal and transient things. But this is simply a restatement of the world-renouncing norms of the Indian ascetic tradition of the day. It seems that he underwent a deep personal crisis of some kind and was seized by ‘existential’ questions: What is this life for? What does it all mean? Why have I been born only to die? He may have realized that everything he had done up until this point had only brought him to a dead end. So he chose to abandon all that was familiar to him. This apparently desperate step could have been the only option left to him for resolving his dilemma. And he would have taken it with no assurance at all of a successful outcome. ‘Though my mother and father wished otherwise,’ he recalled, ‘and wept with tearful faces, I shaved off my hair and beard, put on the yellow robe, and went forth from the home life into homelessness.’ Thus with a bowl under his arm, probably barefoot, he headed off along the North Road. … He would have joined slow-moving caravans of ox-drawn carts, covering about 10 miles a day, passing through forests inhabited by tigers, lions, bears, and bands of indigenous people, and occasional market towns surrounded by villages and fields. During the monsoon rains, from June to September, the roads became muddy quagmires, impassable to traffic. He would have spent that time camped in parks and groves, arguing, thinking, and meditating. This pattern of walking slowly from one place to the next, then settling down for the three months of the rains, would continue until the end of his life.” (Batchelor, pp. 118-119) The dhamma of Alara Kalama “Gotama went to the neighborhood of Vesali, the capital of the Videha republic, to be initiated in the dhamma of Alara Kalama, who seems to have taught a form of Samkhya. Gotama may have already been familiar with this school, since the philosophy of Samkhya (discrimination) had first been taught by the 7th-century teacher Kapila, who had links with Kapilavatthu. This school believed that ignorance, rather than desire, lay at the root of our problems. Our suffering derived from our lack of understanding of the true Self. We confused this Self with our ordinary psychomental life, but to gain liberation we had to become aware at a profound level that the Self had nothing to do with these transient, limited and unsatisfactory states of mind. The Self was eternal and identical with the Absolute Spirit that is dormant in every thing and every body but concealed by the material world of nature. … Gotama found Samkhya congenial and, when he came to formulate his own dhamma, he retained some elements of this philosophy. It was clearly an attractive ideology to somebody like Gotama, who had so recently experienced the disenchantment of the world, because it taught the aspirant to look for holiness everywhere. … How could mortal human beings, plagued by the turbulent life of the emotions and the anarchic life of the body, rise above this disturbance and live by the intellect alone? Gotama soon came up against this problem and found that contemplating the truths of Samkhya brought no real relief, but at first he made great strides. Alara Kalama accepted him as a pupil and promised that in a very short time he would understand the dhamma and know as much as his teacher. Gotama quickly mastered the essentials, and was soon able to recite the teachings of his master as proficiently as could the other members of the sangha, but he was not convinced. Something was missing. … The teachings remained remote, metaphysical abstractions and seemed to have little to do with him personally. Try as he would, he could gain no glimmer of his real Self, which remained obstinately hidden by what seemed an impenetrable rind of praktri. … So even at this early stage in his quest, he refused to accept Alara Kalama’s dhamma as a matter of faith.” (Armstrong, pp. 44-47)

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“We know that he spent some time in the communities of two teachers: Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta. Both men taught him exercises in single-minded mental absorption, the former by concentrating on ‘nothingness,’ the latter on ‘neither-perception-nor-non-perception.’ These were probably yogic exercises designed to achieve union with Brahman, the absolute and transcendent reality of God. Gotama gained proficiency in these meditations and each teacher tried to recruit him as a fellow leader of his group. But he found that no matter how long he remained in these deep trance-like states, they failed to provide the kind of insight he sought. ‘Not being satisfied with those teachings,’ he concluded, ‘I left them and went away.’” (Batchelor, p. 123) Asceticism and self-mortification “So Gotama turned to asceticism, which some of the forest-monks believed could burn up all negative kamma and lead to liberation. He joined forces with five other ascetics and they practiced their exacting penances together, though sometimes Gotama sought seclusion, running frantically through the groves and thickets if he so much as glimpsed a shepherd on the horizon. During this period, Gotama went either naked or clad in the roughest hemp. He slept out in the open during the freezing winter nights, lay on a mattress of spikes and even fed on his own urine and feces. He held his breath for so long that his head seemed to split and there was a fearful roaring in his ears. He stopped eating and his bones stuck out ‘like a row of spindles … or the beams of an old shed.’ When he touched his stomach, he could almost feel his spine. His hair fell out and his skin became black and withered. … But all this was in vain. However severe his austerities, perhaps even because of them, his body still clamored for attention, and he was still plagued by lust and craving. In fact, he seemed more conscious of himself than ever. Finally, Gotama had to face the fact that asceticism had proved fruitless. … He and his five companions were living near Uruvela at this time, on the banks of the broad Neranjara river. He was aware that the other five bhikkhus looked up to him as their leader, and were certain that he would be the first to achieve the final release from sorrow and rebirth. Yet he had failed them. … He had tried the accepted ways to achieve enlightenment, but none of them had worked. The dhammas taught by the great teachers of the day seemed fundamentally flawed. Many of their practitioners looked as sick, miserable and haggard as himself. … He had begun to wonder if the sacred Self was a delusion. He was, perhaps, beginning to think that it was not a helpful symbol of the eternal, unconditioned Reality he sought. To seek an enhanced Self might even endorse the egotism that he needed to abolish. Nevertheless, Gotama had not lost hope. He was still certain that it was possible for human beings to reach the final liberation of enlightenment. Henceforth, he would rely solely on his own insights. The established forms of spirituality had failed him, so he decided to strike out on his own and to accept the dhamma of no other teacher. ‘Surely,’ he cried, ‘there must be another way to achieve enlightenment!’ At that very moment, when he seemed to have come to a dead end, the beginning of a new solution declared itself to him.” (Armstrong, pp. 62-65)

But all this was in vain. However severe his austerities, perhaps even because of them, his body still clamored for attention, and

he was still plagued by lust and craving. In fact, he seemed more conscious of himself than ever. Finally, Gotama had to

face the fact that asceticism had proved fruitless.

“The only other discipline he is recorded as undertaking was that of extreme self-mortification. ‘I took very little food,’ he recalled, ‘a handful each meal, whether bean soup or lentil soup or pea soup. Because of eating so little, my body reached a state of extreme emaciation. My limbs became like the jointed segments of bamboo. My backside became like a camel’s hoof. My ribs jutted out as gaunt as the crazy rafters on an old roofless barn.’ This overwrought account of self-abuse describes a man at his wit’s end, locked in conflict with the demands of his body, in search of a desperate transcendence. ‘By this racking practice of austerities,’ he realized, ‘I have not attained any higher state of mind or any distinction in knowledge and vision. Could there be another way?’” (Batchelor, p. 123)

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Recalling the rose-apple tree “Just after he had cried, with mingled optimism and despair, ‘Surely there must be another way to enlightenment!’, Gotama recalled his childhood experience. At that moment - again, unpremeditated and unsought - the memory of that childhood ecstasy rose to the surface of his mind. Emaciated, exhausted and dangerously ill, Gotama remembered the ‘cool shade of the rose-apple tree,’ which, inevitably, brought to mind the ‘coolness’ of Nibbana. Most yogins could only achieve the first jhana after years of study and hard work, but it had come to him without any effort on his part and given him a foretaste of Nibbana. Ever since he had left Kapilavatthu, he had shunned all happiness as part of his campaign against desire. During his years as an ascetic, he had almost destroyed his body, hoping that he could thereby force himself into the sacred world that was the inverse of humanity’s usual suffering existence. Yet as a child he had attained that yogic ecstasy without any trouble at all, after an experience of pure joy. As he reflected on the coolness of the rose-apple tree, he imagined, in his weakened state, the relief of being convalescent, after a lifetime of fever. Then he was struck by an extraordinary idea. ‘Could this,’ he asked himself, ‘possibly be the way to enlightenment?’ Had the other teachers been wrong? Instead of torturing our reluctant selves into the final release, we might be able to achieve it effortlessly and spontaneously. Could Nibbana be built into the structure of our humanity? If an untrained child could reach the first jhana and have intimations of Nibbana without even trying, then yogic insight must be profoundly natural to human beings. Instead of making yoga an assault upon humanity, perhaps it could be used to cultivate innate tendencies that led to ceto-vimutti, the ‘release of the mind’ that was a synonym for the supreme enlightenment.” (Armstrong, pp. 68-69) “He then remembered the time when he was sitting beneath a rose-apple tree as a child and ‘entered upon and abided in a focused state of mind accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born from seclusion.’ Such pleasure, he realized, is not something to be afraid of. It might even enable him to resolve his dilemma. But ‘with a body so excessively emaciated, it is not easy to attain that pleasure. Suppose I ate some boiled rice and bread.’ Which he then proceeded to do. This account serves the interest of those who are intent on portraying Gotama as a world-renouncing monk, who mastered then rejected the normative spiritual practices of the day. It shows that he had acquired sufficient yogic kudos to start a religious movement, but gives no sense at all of the development of his ideas. One has the impression that during these six years Gotama did nothing but experiment with forms of trance and self-punishment. There is no mention of the discussions and arguments he would have had with his fellow wanderers, no mention of the philosophical and religious topics of the moment, no mention of what hopes and anxieties animated him. It fails to explain how, when he starts teaching, his discourses have such a distinctive style, tone, and content. Gotama’s voice is confident, ironic, at times playful, anti-metaphysical, and pragmatic. Over the course of his formative years, he had achieved an articulate and self-assured distance from the doctrines and values of Brahmanic tradition. But exactly how he did this, we don’t know.” (Batchelor, pp. 123-124) Cultivating skillful states “As soon as he had mulled over the details of that childhood experience, Gotama became convinced that his hunch was correct. This was indeed the way to Nibbana. Now all he had to do was prove it. What had produced that mood of calm happiness that had modulated so easily into the first jhana? An essential element had been what Gotama called ‘seclusion.’ He had been left alone. He could never have entered the ecstatic state if his nurses had distracted him with their chatter. Meditation required privacy and silence. But this seclusion went beyond physical solitude. Sitting under the rose-apple tree, his mind had been separated from desire for material things and from anything unwholesome and unprofitable. Since he had left home six years before, Gotama had been fighting his human nature and crushing its every impulse. He had come to distrust any kind of pleasure. But, he now asked himself, why should he be afraid of the type of joy he had experienced on that long-ago afternoon? That pure delight had had nothing to do with greedy craving or sensual desire. Some joyful experiences could actually lead to an abandonment of egotism and to the achievement of an exalted yogic state. The secret was to reproduce the seclusion that had led to his trance, and foster such wholesome states of mind as the disinterested compassion that had made him grieve for the insects and the shoots of young grass. At the same time, he would carefully avoid any state of mind that would not be helpful or would impede his enlightenment. He had, of course, already been behaving along these lines by observing the ‘five prohibitions’ which had forbidden such ‘unhelpful’ activities as violence, lying, stealing, intoxication and sex. But now, he realized, this was not enough. He must cultivate the positive attitudes that were the opposite of these five restraints. Ahimsa (harmlessness) could only take one part of

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the way. Instead of simply avoiding violence, an aspirant must behave gently and kindly to everything and everybody. He must cultivate thoughts of loving-kindness to counter any incipient feelings of ill will. It was important not to tell lies, but it was also crucial to engage in ‘right talk’ and make sure that whatever you said was worth saying. Besides refraining from stealing, a bhikkhu should positively rejoice in taking whatever alms he was given, expressing no personal preference, and should take delight in possessing the bare minimum. … Once this ‘skillful’ behavior became so habitual that it was second nature, the aspirant, Gotama believed, would ‘feel within himself a pure joy,’ similar to if not identical with the bliss that he had felt as a boy under the rose-apple tree.” (Armstrong, pp. 69-71)

Instead of simply avoiding violence, an aspirant must behave gently and kindly to everything and everybody. He must cultivate thoughts of loving-

kindness to counter any incipient feelings of ill will. It was important not to tell lies, but it was also crucial to engage in ‘right talk’ and make sure that whatever you said was worth saying. Besides refraining from stealing, a bhikkhu should positively rejoice in taking whatever alms he

was given, expressing no personal preference, and should take delight in possessing the bare minimum.

Under the bodhi tree “In one of the oldest portions of the scriptures, we read that after Gotama had been deserted by his five companions and had been nourished by his first meal, he set off toward Uruvela. When he reached Senanigama beside the Neranjara river, he noticed ‘an agreeable plot of land, a pleasant grove, a sparkling river with delightful and smooth banks, and, nearby, a village whose inhabitants would feed him.’ This, Gotama thought, was just the place to undertake the final effort that would bring him enlightenment. If he was to reproduce the calm content that had modulated so easily into the first jhana under the rose-apple tree, it was important to find a congenial spot for his meditation. He sat down, tradition has it, under a bodhi tree, and took up the asana position, vowing that he would not leave this spot until he had attained Nibbana. This pleasant grove is now known as Bodh Gaya and is an important site of pilgrimage. … It was late spring. Scholars have traditionally dated the enlightenment of Gotama at about the year 528 BCE, though recently some have argued for a later date in the first half of the 5th century. The Pali texts give us some information about what happened that night, but give nothing that makes much sense to an outsider who has not been through the Buddhist regimen. They say that Gotama mused upon the deeply conditional nature of all life as we know it, saw all his past lives, and recovered that ‘secluded’ and solitary state he had experienced as a child. He then slipped easily into the first jhana, and progressed through ever higher states of consciousness until he gained an insight that forever transformed him and convinced him that he had freed himself from the round of samsara and rebirth. But there seems little new about this insight, traditionally known as the Four Noble Truths and regarded as the fundamental teaching of Buddhism. … If there is any truth to the story that Gotama gained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in a single night, it could be that he acquired a sudden, absolute certainty that he really had discovered a method that would, if followed energetically, bring an earnest seeker to Nibbana. He had not made this up. It was not a new creation or an invention of his own. On the contrary, he always insisted that he had simply discovered ‘a path of great antiquity, an ancient trail, traveled by human beings in a far-off, distant era.’” (Armstrong, pp. 80-82) “Beneath the Bodhi tree Gotama realized that attachment to any place was a dead end. Even monasticism and religious behavior can become dead ends. ‘Those who hold training as the essence,’ he would say later, ‘or who hold virtue-and-vow, pure livelihood, celibacy, and service as the essence - this is one dead end. And those with such theories and such views as there is no fault in sensual desires - this is another dead end. By not penetrating these two dead ends, some hold back and some go too far.’ In a shifting, contingent, and unpredictable world, the practice of such a middle path is a juggling act. There is no guarantee that having found it, one will not lose it again. This way of life that might once have been liberating can turn into another dead end if one clings to it too

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tightly. As a way of life, a middle path is an ongoing task of responsiveness and risk, grounded on a groundless ground. Its twists and turns are as turbulent and unpredictable as life itself. How do you find this middle path? In Turning the Wheel of the Dhamma, Gotama showed how one enters the stream of the middle path through the practice of the Four Noble Truths. In keeping with the principle of conditioned arising, each truth is the condition that gives rise to the next: fully knowing suffering leads to letting go of craving; letting go of craving leads to experiencing its cessation; and those moments of cessation open up the free and purposive space of the eightfold path itself. Rather than seek God - the goal of the brahmins - Gotama suggested that you turn your attention to what is most far from God: the anguish and pain of life on this earth. In a contingent world, change and suffering are inevitable. Just look at what happens here: creatures are constantly being born, falling ill, growing old, and dying. These are the unavoidable facts of our existence. As contingent beings, we do not survive. And when I am honest with myself, when I drop all my stoic conceits, this is unbearable. To embrace the contingency of one’s life is to embrace one’s fate as an ephemeral but sentient being.” (Batchelor, pp. 155-156)

“An essential part of the truth he had ‘realized’ under the bodhi tree was that to live morally was to live for others. He would spend the next 45 years of his life tramping tirelessly through the cities and towns of the Ganges plain, bringing his Dhamma to gods, animals, men and women. There could be no limits to this compassionate offensive. But who should be first to hear the message? … He recalled the five bhikkhus who had practiced the penitential disciplines with him. They had fled from him in horror when he had taken his first meal, but he could not allow this rejection to cloud his judgment. Hearing that they were now living in the Deer Park outside Varanasi (the modern Benares), he began his journey, determined to set the Wheel of the Dhamma in motion and, as he put it, ‘to beat the drum of the deathless Nibbana.’” (Armstrong, pp. 96-97) First discourse in the Deer Park “So he left his tree in Uruvela and went to Baranasi, where he knew that some of his former companions, a group of five brahmins from Sakiya, were staying in a Deer Park near the village of Isipatana (the modern town of Sarnath). … Gotama started teaching his ideas in the Deer Park. He had to find a way of translating his insight into ‘this-conditionality, conditioned arising’ into a practice and way of life. He resolved this in Turning the Wheel of Dhamma, the first discourse he gave in the Deer Park, in which he presented his seminal teaching of the Four Noble Truths. In that discourse he unambiguously described his awakening as the result of having recognized, performed, and completed four tasks:

1. Fully knowing suffering;2. Letting go of craving;3. Experiencing cessation of craving;4. Cultivating an eightfold path.

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The Buddha stayed with his five companions in the Deer Park for the three months of the Rains. Much of this time would have been spent discussing the implications of the ideas he was teaching. He attracted a small number of followers, most of whom were the family and friends of a young brahmin merchant called Yasa. Now that he had disciples, he was faced with the question of how to establish a community. He had to address the practical issues of livelihood and survival. How could he create the conditions that would enable his ideas to take root in the competitively charged atmosphere of the time and survive his death? He would need benefactors: people powerful enough to protect his community and wealthy enough to provide for its needs.” (Batchelor, pp. 135, 153, 164-165) “The Buddha continued his journey to Varanasi, an important city and a center of learning for the brahmins. The Buddha did not linger in the town, however, but went straight to the Deer Park in the suburb of Isipatana, where he knew that his five former companions were living. When these bhikkhus saw him approaching they were alarmed. As far as they knew, Gotama, their old mentor, had abandoned the holy life and reverted to luxury and self-indulgence. They could no longer greet him as before, with the respect due to a great ascetic. But they were good men, dedicated to ahimsa, and did not want to hurt his feelings. Gotama, they decided, could sit with them for a while, if he wished, and rest after his long walk. But when the Buddha came closer, they were completely disarmed. Perhaps they too were struck by his new serenity and confidence, because one of the bhikkhus ran forward to greet him, taking his robe and his bowl, while the others prepared a seat, bringing water, a footstool and towel, so that their old leader could wash his feet. The Buddha came straight to the point. They should not really call him friend any more, he explained, because his old self had vanished and he had a wholly different status. He was now a Tathagata, a curious title whose literal meaning is ‘Thus Gone.’ His egotism had been extinguished. They must not imagine that he had abandoned the holy life. Quite the reverse was true. There was a compelling conviction and urgency in his speech that his companions had never heard before. ‘Listen!’ he said, ‘I have realized the undying state of Nibbana. I will instruct you! I will teach you the Dhamma!’ The Buddha then preached his first sermon. It has been preserved in the texts as the Dhammacakkappavattana-Sutta, The Discourse that Set Rolling the Wheel of the Dhamma, because it brought the Teaching into the world and set in motion a new era for humanity. Its purpose was not to impart abstruse metaphysical information, but to lead the five bhikkhus to enlightenment. … We do not know what he actually said to the five bhikkhus that day. It is most unlikely that the discourse that is called the First Sermon in the Pali texts is a verbatim report of his preaching on that occasion.” (Armstrong, pp. 98-100, 103) The “no-self” doctrine “Three days after the five bhikkhus had become ‘stream-enterers,’ the Buddha delivered a second sermon in the Deer Park, in which he expounded his unique doctrine of anatta (no-self). He divided the human personality into five ‘heaps’ or ‘constituents’ (khandhas): the body, feelings, perceptions, volitions (conscious and unconscious) and consciousness, and asked the bhikkhus to consider each khandha in turn. The body or our feelings, for example, constantly changed from one moment to the next. They caused us pain, let us down and frustrated us. The same had to be said of our perceptions and volitions. Thus each khandha, subject as it was to dukkha, flawed and transitory, could not constitute or include the Self sought by so many of the ascetics and yogins. Was it not true, the Buddha asked his disciples, that after examining each khandha, an honest person found that he could not wholly identify with it, because it was so unsatisfactory? He was bound to say, ‘This is not mine; this is not what I really am; this is not my self.’ But the Buddha did not simply deny the existence of the eternal, absolute Self. He now claimed that there was no stable, lower-case self either. The terms ‘self’ and ‘myself’ were simply conventions. The personality had no fixed or changeless core. Every sentient being was in a state of constant flux. He or she was merely a succession of temporary, mutable states of existence. The Buddha pressed this message home throughout his life. The more he thought, in the mindful, yogic way he had developed, the clearer it seemed that what we call the ‘self’ is a delusion. In his view, the more closely we examine ourselves, the harder it becomes to find anything that we can pinpoint as a fixed entity. The human personality was not a static being to which things happened. Put under the microscope of yogic analysis, each person was a process. The Buddha liked to use such metaphors as a blazing fire or a rushing stream to describe the personality. It had some kind of identity, but was never the same from one moment to another. At each second, a fire was different. It had consumed and re-created itself, just as people did. In a particularly vivid simile, the Buddha compared the human mind to a monkey ranging through the forest: ‘it grabs one branch, and then, letting that go, seizes another.’ What we experience as the ‘self’ is really just a convenience-term, because we are constantly changing. … The Buddha’s teaching of anatta did not seek to annihilate the self. He simply denied that the self had ever existed. It was a mistake to think of it as a constant reality. … Anatta, like any Buddhist teaching, was not a philosophical doctrine but was primarily pragmatic. Once a disciple had acquired, through yoga and mindfulness, a ‘direct’ knowledge of anatta, he would be delivered from

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the pains and perils of egotism, which would become a logical impossibility. … The Buddha tried to make his bhikkhus see that they did not have a ‘self’ that needed to be defended, inflated, flattered, cajoled and enhanced at the expense of others. Once a monk had become practiced in the discipline of mindfulness, he would see how ephemeral what we call the ‘self’ really was. He would no longer introject his ego into these passing mental states and identify with them. He would learn to regard his desires, fears and cravings as remote phenomena that had little to do with him.” (Armstrong, pp. 110-113)

The Buddha tried to make his bhikkhus see that they did not have a ‘self’ that needed to be defended, inflated, flattered,

cajoled and enhanced at the expense of others. Once a monk had become practiced in the discipline of mindfulness, he would

see how ephemeral what we call the ‘self’ really was.

Meeting King Bimbisara “When Gotama arrived [in Rajagaha] from Kapilavatthu around 450 BCE, he would have found himself in one of the most populous and thriving cities of the day. The kingdom of Magadha was ruled from here by Bimbisara, a powerful and respected monarch. As part of an alliance with Kosala, its major political rival, Bimbisara had married King Pasenadi’s sister, Princess Devi. According to the Sutta Nipata (one of the oldest sections of the Pali Canon), the king of Magadha saw, from the roof of his palace, Gotama walking calmly through the streets of the city. He ordered his retainers to find out who that person was and where he was staying. He then took a chariot to the Pandava Hill in order to meet him. He said: ‘You are young and tender, in the prime of your life, a nobleman of good birth who should be adorning an army, at the head of a team of elephants. I would be happy to grant you position and wealth. Tell me: where were you born?’ Gotama explained that he was a native of Kosala, of the Solar lineage, from the Sakiyan clan, a people who lived on the flanks of the Himalayas. But he rejected the king’s offer. ‘I am secure in my renunciation of the world,’ he told Bimbisara. ‘My mind delights in the struggle to which I am committed.’” (Batchelor, pp. 122-123) “In late December, the Buddha set out for Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha, accompanied by these thousand new bhikkhus. Their arrival caused a stir. People in the cities were hungry for new spirituality, and as soon as King Bimbisara heard that a man who claimed to be a Buddha was encamped outside the city in the Sapling Grove, he went to visit him with a huge entourage of brahmin householders. When they heard the Buddha preach, all the householders - the Pali text tells us that there were 120,000 of them - became lay followers, and last of all, King Bimbisara prostrated himself before the Buddha and begged to be received as a lay disciple too. It was the start of a long partnership between the Buddha and the king, who invited him to dinner that night. During the meal, the king gave the Sangha a gift that would have a decisive influence on the development of the Buddhist Order. He donated a pleasure-park (arama) known as the Bamboo Grove of Veluvana, just outside Rajagaha, as a home for the Sangha of Bhikkhus. The monks could live there in a quiet, peaceful place that was at the same time accessible to the city and to the people who would need to consult them. The gift of the Bamboo Grove set a precedent, and wealthy donors often gave the Sangha similar parks in the suburbs, which became the regional headquarters of the wandering bhikkhus.” (Armstrong, pp. 128-129) Sariputta and Moggallana join the Sangha “The Buddha remained in the new arama for two months, and it was during this time that his two most important disciples joined the Sangha. Sariputta and Moggallana had both been born into brahmin families in small villages outside Rajagaha. They renounced the world on the same day, and joined the sangha of the Skeptics, led by Sanjaya. But neither attained full enlightenment, and they made a pact that whichever of them achieved Nibbana first would tell the other immediately. At the time of the Buddha’s visit the two friends were living in Rajagaha, and one day Sariputta saw Assaji (one of the original five bhikkhus) begging for alms. He was at once struck by the

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serenity and poise of the monk and was convinced that this man had found a spiritual solution, so he hailed him in the traditional way, asking Assaji which teacher and dhamma he followed. Pleading that he was a mere beginner in the holy life, Assaji gave only a brief summary of the Dhamma, but that was enough. Sariputta became a ‘stream-enterer’ on the spot, and hurried to tell Moggallana the news. His friend also became a ‘stream-enterer,’ and they went together to the Bamboo Grove to ask the Buddha for admission to the Sangha, taking, to Sanjaya’s chagrin, 250 of his disciples with them. When the Buddha saw Sariputta and Moggallana approaching, he instinctively knew how gifted they were. ‘These will be my chief disciples,’ he told the bhikkhus. ‘They will do great things for the Sangha.’ And so it proved. The two friends became the inspiration for the two main schools of Buddhism that developed some 200 to 300 years after the Buddha’s death. The more austere and monastically inclined Theravada regard Sariputta as a second founder. He was of an analytical cast of mind and could express the Dhamma in a way that was easy to memorize. But his piety was too dry for the more populist Mahayana school, whose version of Buddhism is more democratic and emphasizes the importance of compassion. The Mahayana has taken Moggallana as their mentor.” (Armstrong, pp. 129-131)

Back to Kapilavatthu “At about this time, the Pali texts tell us, the Buddha made a visit to his father’s house in Kapilavatthu, but they give us no details. The later scriptures and commentaries, however, flesh out the bare bones of the Pali text, and these post-canonical tales have become part of the Buddha’s legend. They tell us that Suddhodana heard that his son, now a famous Buddha, was preaching in Rajagaha, and sent a messenger to him, with a huge entourage, to invite him to pay a visit to Kapilavatthu. The invitation was passed on to the Buddha, who set out for his home town with 20,000 bhikkhus. The Sakyans put the Nigrodha Park outside Kapilavatthu at the bhikkhus’ disposal, and this became the Sangha’s chief headquarters in Sakka. … The next day, Suddhodana was scandalized to see his son begging for food in Kapilavatthu. How dared he bring the family name into such disrepute! But the Buddha sat his father down and explained the Dhamma to him, and Suddhodana’s heart softened. He immediately became a ‘stream-enterer,’ even though he did not request ordination in the Sangha. He took the Buddha’s bowl from him and led him into the house, where, during the meal that was prepared in his honor, all the women of the household became lay disciples, with one notable exception. The Buddha’s former wife remained aloof, still, perhaps understandably, hostile to the man who had abandoned her without saying good-bye. The Pali texts record that at some unspecified time after this visit to Kapilavatthu, some of the leading youths of Sakka made the Going Forth and joined the Sangha, including the Buddha’s 7-year-old son Rahula, who had to wait until he was 20 before he was ordained, and three of the Buddha’s kinsfolk: his cousin, Ananda; his half-brother, Nanda; and Devadatta, his brother-in-law. … Ananda, a gentle, scrupulous man, became the Buddha’s personal attendant during his last 20 years. Because Ananda was closer to the Buddha than anybody else and was with him almost all of the time, he became extremely knowledgeable about the Buddha’s sermons and sayings, but he was not a skilled yogin. Despite

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the fact that he became the most learned authority on the Dhamma, without the ability to meditate, he did not attain Nibbana during the Buddha’s lifetime.” (Armstrong, pp. 131-133) “Gotama returned to Kapilavatthu and reconciled himself with his family. His father, Suddhodana, was converted to his ideas. His 8-year-old son, Rahula, became a novice. The following year, several Sakiyan noblemen - including his cousins Ananda, Anuruddha, and Devadatta - joined the order of monks. … Numerous Sakiyans asked to join the community, including his stepmother and aunt, Pajapati. He refused her request but she persisted. She shaved her head, donned yellow robes, and together with several other women from Sakiya, followed him to Vesali, where she once more pleaded with him to ordain her. This time he accepted and agreed to establish an order of bhikkhuni (nuns). This was the first time in India that women were received into an order of wandering mendicants as spiritual equals with monks. (Batchelor, pp. 165-166) Jeta’s Grove “One day Anathapindika, a wealthy banker from Savatthi, came to Rajagaha on business. He was immediately impressed with what Gotama was saying and became a follower. Before returning to Kosala, he asked Gotama whether he could offer him a residence in Savatthi where he and his monks could spend the Rains. By accepting this offer, Gotama agreed to return to his homeland and establish a base for his community in King Pasenadi’s capital. … Anathapindika spared no expense in designing a luxurious park for Siddhattha Gotama in the Kosalan capital of Savatthi. For an exorbitant sum he purchased a wooded grove outside the city from Pasenadi’s brother (or cousin) Prince Jeta. Beneath the canopy of trees, he constructed ‘dormitories, attendance halls, heated halls, storerooms, toilets, outdoor and indoor walking areas, wells, bathrooms, ponds and sheds,’ at the heart of which stood Gotama’s Scented Hut. ... Jeta’s Grove became Gotama’s base. Once it was completed, he spent a total of 19 Rains and delivered 844 discourses there, incomparably more than anywhere else. As his monks grew older and the community expanded, Jeta’s Grove became more of a residential monastery and administrative headquarters of the order than merely a shelter for the three months of monsoon. Since the long, stable middle period of Gotama’s career coincides with his tenure at Savatthi, Jeta’s Grove would have been where Gotama’s ideas were refined, organized, memorized, communally recited, and then disseminated. It became the nerve center of Gotama’s mission, the hub to which his other groves and projects were connected.” (Batchelor, pp. 165-167) “Anathapindika spared no expense in setting up a base for the Buddha. He searched hard for a suitable place, and eventually decided on a park owned by Prince Jeta, heir apparent to the throne of Kosala. … Then Anathapindika made Jeta’s Grove ready for the Sangha. He had ‘open terraces laid out, gates constructed, audience halls erected, fire rooms, storehouses and cupboards built, walks leveled, wells prepared, baths and bathrooms installed, ponds excavated and pavilions made.’ This would become one of the most important centers of the Sangha. Yet these were very elaborate arrangements for men who had embraced ‘homelessness.’ Within a short space of time, the Buddha had acquired three large parks, at Rajagaha, Kapilavatthu and Savatthi, where the monks could live and meditate, surrounded by lotus pools, lush mango trees and shady cloisters of palms. … But the monks were not living in luxury. Though ample, the accommodation was simple and the huts sparsely furnished, as befitted followers of the Middle Way. Each bhikkhu had his own cell, but this was often just a partitioned-off area containing only a board to sleep on and a seat with jointed legs. The bhikkhus did not live in these aramas year-round, but still spent most of their time on the road.” (Armstrong, pp. 137-139) Meeting King Pasenadi “The key to unraveling both the character of Siddhattha Gotama and the chronology of his life lies, I believe, in his relationship with King Pasenadi of Kosala. At the time of their first recorded meeting, Gotama would have been about 40 years old - the same age as the king. In appearance, he would have looked no different from the many other monks of the time, who wandered along the dusty roads of North India, begging for their sustenance in the villages and towns scattered across the vast, fertile Gangetic Plain. … King Pasenadi, on the other hand, would have awoken that morning in his sumptuous apartments in the city of Savatthi. Had he stepped out onto the upper terrace of his palace, he would have beheld, across the rooftops of the mud and wooden dwellings of his capital, the broad sweep of the Aciravati River, the busy fishing villages along its shore, and the fields and forest beyond. … Below the king’s quarters, in the courtyard of the palace, caparisoned elephants would be waiting to carry the royal party from the bustling city to the monastic retreat of Jeta’s Grove a mile away. The procession would have left

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around mid-morning, bearing gifts and ample food to offer the community of monks and nuns for their sole meal at midday. Once the formalities of the meal were over, King Pasenadi would have made his way to the Gandhakuti, the ‘Scented Hut,’ where Gotama lived and received visitors. The king considered himself to be an intellectual and a patron of learning. On becoming king, Pasenadi made a point of visiting the itinerant preachers who came to Savatthi in order to question them about their doctrines and attainments, ask their advice, and, if pleased, offer them his protection and support. Now it was Gotama’s turn.” (Batchelor, pp. 104-106) The King and the Buddha “The two men exchanged greetings, chatted cordially for a while, then King Pasenadi sat down and came straight to the point: ‘So, Master Gotama, how can you, who are still so young and have only recently left home, possibly say that you are a sage?’ Gotama, I imagine, would have looked at the pompous monarch in the eye, a faint, ironic smile darting across his face: ‘There are four things, Your Majesty, that should not be disparaged on account of their youth: a fire, a snake, a warrior, and a monk. If a tiny flame gains a stock of fuel, it becomes a conflagration. A little snake chanced upon in a village or forest may attack and kill the person who does not heed it. A warrior prince might likewise one day seize your throne and thrash you. And if you tamper with a virtuous monk, you will risk remaining childless and heirless like the stump of a Palmyra tree.’ By identifying himself (a monk) with these potentially dangerous forces, Gotama implied that he and his teaching might also be a threat to the established order of things. He played on the king’s fears and superstitions. Like every monarch of the time, Pasenadi would know that other members of his family were almost certainly vying for his throne behind his back. Moreover, since the king had yet to produce an heir, his own lineage was far from secure. Gotama did not beat around the bush. He impressed his authority on the king. And the gambit paid off. Instead of flying into a rage, Pasenadi was favorably struck by Gotama’s reply and asked to be accepted as a follower. This was a key moment in Gotama’s career. After he had spent five or more years of teaching and building up a following across North India, the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Kosala, the man to whom Gotama had owed fealty his entire adult life, had deigned to come and see him. With the support of Pasenadi, Gotama’s tenure at Savatthi was now assured. There, at Jeta’s Grove, he would spend every Rains for the next 25 years, where he would deliver the majority of his discourses, where he would work out the details of his monastic life. Pasenadi became a regular visitor at Jeta’s Grove. Over time, the monk and the tyrant became friends and, eventually, through marriage, relatives.” (Batchelor, pp. 106-107) “King Pasenedi of Kosala was impressed by the friendship and cheerfulness of life in the Buddhist aramas. It was in marked contrast to that of the court, he told the Buddha, where selfishness, greed and aggression were the order of the day. But in the arama, he saw bhikkhus ‘living together as uncontentiously as milk with water and looking at one another with kind eyes.’ In other sects, he noticed that the ascetics looked so skinny and miserable that he could only conclude that their lifestyle did not agree with them. ‘But here I see bhikkhus smiling and courteous, calm and unflustered, living on alms, their minds remaining as gentle as wild deer.’ When he sat in council, the king remarked wryly, he was constantly interrupted and even heckled. But when the Buddha addressed a huge crowd of monks, none of them even coughed or cleared his throat. The Buddha was creating an alternative way of life that brought the shortcomings of the new towns and states into sharp focus.” (Armstrong, p. 141) The Four Noble Truths “The Four Truths are injunctions to do something rather than claims to be believed or disbelieved. Gotama described how each truth presents its own challenges: suffering is to be fully known; craving is to be let go of; cessation is to be experienced; and the path is to be cultivated. The Four Truths are suggestions to act in certain ways under particular circumstances. … The Four Noble Truths are pragmatic rather than dogmatic. They suggest a course of action to be followed rather than a set of dogmas to be believed. The four truths are prescriptions for behavior rather than descriptions of reality. The Buddha compared himself to a doctor who offers a course of therapeutic treatment to heal one’s ills. To embark on such therapy is not designed to bring one any closer to ‘the Truth’ but to enable one’s life to flourish here and now, hopefully leaving a legacy that will continue to have beneficial repercussions after one’s death. Whether one embarks on such a path is entirely one’s own choice. By practicing the truths in this way, the ‘sage’ is able to ‘tame’ the fickle and restless self just as a farmer works a field, a fletcher makes an arrow, and a carpenter shapes a piece of wood. The aim is not the attainment of nirvana but cultivation of a way of life that allows every aspect of one’s humanity to flourish. Gotama called this way of life an ‘eightfold’ path: i.e., appropriate vision, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and

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concentration. Such a path embraces how we see and think about ourselves and the world, how we respond to others through our words and deeds, how we provide for ourselves and others through our work, and how we focus our attention through the practice of mindfulness and concentration. Gotama began and ended his teaching career by stressing the importance of this eightfold path. It is the first thing he spoke of in his first discourse Turning the Wheel of Dhamma, and it was the last thing he spoke of to his final disciple, Subhadda, while lying on his deathbed in Kusinara 45 years later. He presented the eightfold path as a middle way that avoids the dead ends of infatuation and mortification, both of which he dismissed as ‘uncivilized.’ A dead end is a path that goes nowhere. To pursue one is to keep banging my head against a wall. No matter how much energy I devote to indulging my appetites or punishing myself for my excesses, I keep coming back to the same place I started. One minute I am thrilled and excited by something, but in the next I am in a funk of self-doubt and boredom where nothing interests me. I veer between these two poles, going around and around in circles. Indulgence and mortification are dead ends in that they lead to an inner paralysis, which blocks the capacity to live abundantly.” (Batchelor, pp. 153-155)

“The first of these verities was the noble truth of suffering (dukkha) that informs the whole of human life. The second truth was that the cause of this suffering was desire (tanha). In the third noble truth, Gotama asserted that Nibbana existed as a way out of this predicament. And finally, he claimed that he had discovered the path that leads from suffering and pain to its cessation in the state of Nibbana. There seems nothing strikingly original about these truths. Most of the monks and ascetics of North India would have agreed with the first three, and Gotama himself had been convinced of them since the beginning of his quest. If there is anything novel, it was the fourth truth, in which Gotama proclaimed that he had found a way to enlightenment, a method which he called the Eightfold Path. … But it must be understood that the Four Noble Truths do not present a theory that can be judged by the rational intellect alone. The Buddha’s Dhamma was essentially a method, and it stands or falls not by its metaphysical acuity or its scientific accuracy, but by the extent to which it works. The truths claim to bring suffering to an end, not because people subscribe to a salvific creed and to certain beliefs, but because they adopt Gotama’s program or way of life. … The Buddha never claimed that his knowledge of the Four Noble Truths was unique, but that he was the first person, in this present era, to have ‘realized’ them and made them a reality in his own life. He found that he had extinguished the craving, hatred and ignorance that hold humanity in thrall. And even though he was still subject to physical ailments and other vicissitudes, nothing could touch his inner peace or cause him serious mental pain. His method had worked. ‘The holy life has been lived out to its conclusion!’ he cried out triumphantly at the end of that night under the bodhi tree. ‘What had to be done has been accomplished; there is nothing else to do!’” (Armstrong, pp. 81-84) On mindfulness “As a preliminary to meditation, came the practice that he called ‘mindfulness’ (sati), in which he scrutinized his behavior at every moment of the day. He noted the ebb and flow of his feelings and sensations, together with the fluctuations of his consciousness. If sensual desire arose, instead of simply crushing it, he took note of what had given rise to it and how soon it faded away. He observed the way his senses and thoughts interacted with the external world, and made himself conscious of his every bodily action. He would become aware of the way he

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walked, bent down or stretched his limbs, and of his behavior while ‘eating, drinking, chewing, and tasting, in defecating, walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, waking, speaking and keeping silent.’ He noticed the way ideas coursed through his mind and the constant stream of desires and irritations that could plague him in a brief half-hour. He became ‘mindful’ of the way he responded to a sudden noise or a change in the temperature, and saw how quickly even a tiny thing disturbed his peace of mind. This ‘mindfulness’ was not cultivated in a spirit of neurotic introspection. Gotama had not put his humanity under the microscope in this way in order to castigate himself for his ‘sins.’ Sin had no place in his system, since any guilt would simply be ‘unhelpful’: it would imbed an aspirant in the ego that he was trying to transcend. … Gotama was not observing his human nature in order to pounce on his failings, but was becoming acquainted with the way it worked in order to exploit its capacities. He had become convinced that the solution to the problem of suffering lay within himself, in what he called ‘this fathom-long carcass, this body and mind.’ Deliverance would come from the refinement of his own mundane nature, and so he must investigate it and get to know it as intimately as an equestrian learns to know the horse he is training.” (Armstrong, pp. 72-73)

Mindfulness accepts as its focus of inquiry whatever arises in one’s field of awareness, no matter how disturbing or painful it might be. One neither seeks nor expects to find some greater

truth lurking behind the veil of appearances. What appears and how you respond to it: that alone is what matters

“Gotama spoke of mindfulness (sati) as being grounded in whatever occurs in one’s body, feelings, and mind as well as in the world about one. Mindfulness is to be aware of what is happening, as opposed to either letting things drift by in a semiconscious haze or being assailed by events with such intensity that one reacts before one has even had time to think. Mindfulness focuses entirely on the specific conditions of one’s day-to-day experience. It is not concerned with anything transcendent or divine. It serves as an antidote to theism, a cure for sentimental piety, a scalpel for excising the tumor of metaphysical belief. … There is nothing so lowly or mundane that it is unworthy of being embraced by mindful attention. Mindfulness accepts as its focus of inquiry whatever arises in one’s field of awareness, no matter how disturbing or painful it might be. One neither seeks nor expects to find some greater truth lurking behind the veil of appearances. What appears and how you respond to it: that alone is what matters.” (Batchelor, p. 130) On suffering and desire “But the practice of mindfulness also made him more acutely aware than ever of the pervasiveness of both suffering and the desire that gave rise to it. All these thoughts and longings that crowded into his consciousness were of such short duration. Everything was impermanent. However intense a craving might be, it soon petered out and was replaced by something quite different. Nothing lasted long, not even the bliss of meditation. The transitory nature of life was one of the chief causes of suffering, and as he recorded his feelings, moment by moment, Gotama also became aware that the dukkha of life was not confined to the major traumas of sickness, old age and death. It happened on a daily, even hourly basis, in all the little disappointments, rejections, frustrations and failures that befall us in the course of a single day: ‘Pain, grief and despair are dukkha,’ he would explain later, ‘being forced into proximity with what we hate is suffering, being separated from what we love is suffering, not getting what we want is suffering.’ True, there was pleasure in life, but once Gotama had subjected this to the merciless scrutiny of mindfulness, he noticed how often our satisfaction meant suffering for others. The prosperity of one person usually depends upon the poverty or exclusion of somebody else. When we get something that makes us happy, we immediately start to worry about losing it. … Mindfulness also made Gotama highly sensitive to the prevalence of the desire or craving that is the cause of this suffering. The ego is voracious and continually wants to gobble up other things and people. We almost never see things as they are in themselves, but our vision is colored by whether we want them or not, how we can get them, or how they can bring us profit. Our view of the world is, therefore,

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distorted by our greed, and this often leads to ill will and enmity, when our desires clash with the cravings of others. … When we say ‘I want,’ we often find ourselves filled with envy, jealousy and rage if other people block our desires or succeed where we have failed. Such states of mind are ‘unskillful’ because they make us more selfish than ever. Desire and hatred are thus the joint cause of much of the misery and evil in the world. … As Gotama observed the way one craving after another took possession of his mind and heart, he noticed how human beings were ceaselessly yearning to become something else, go somewhere else, and acquire something they do not have. It is as though they were continually seeking a form of rebirth, a new kind of existence. Craving (tanha) manifests itself even in the desire to change our physical position, go into another room, have a snack or suddenly leave work and go find somebody to talk to. These petty cravings assail us hour by hour, minute by minute, so that we know no rest. We are consumed and distracted by the compulsion to become something different.” (Armstrong, pp. 73-75)

Everything was impermanent. However intense a craving might be, it soon petered out and was replaced by something different. Nothing lasted long,

not even the bliss of meditation. The transitory nature of life was one of the chief causes of suffering, and as he recorded his feelings, moment by

moment, Gotama became aware that the dukkha of life was not confined to the major traumas of sickness, old age and death. It happened on a daily, even hourly basis, in all the little disappointments, rejections, frustrations

and failures that befall us in the course of a single day.

“To fully know suffering goes against the grain of what I am primed to desire. Yet a contingent, impermanent world does not exist in order to gratify my desires. It cannot provide the non-contingent, permanent well-being I crave. A place where things happen that I do not want to happen is not a place where everything is likely to turn out all right in the end. I struggle to order my life in accord with my longings and fears, but have little if any control over what will befall me even in the next moment. The aim of mindfulness is to know suffering fully. It entails paying calm, unflinching attention to whatever impacts the organism, be it the song of a lark or the scream of a child, the bubbling of a playful idea or a twinge in the lower back. You attend not just to the outward stimuli themselves, but equally to your inward reactions to them. You do not condemn what you see as your failings or applaud what you regard as success. You notice things come, you notice them go. Over time, the practice becomes less a self-conscious exercise in meditation done at fixed periods each day and more a sensibility that infuses one’s awareness at all times. Mindfulness can have a sobering effect on the restless, jittery psyche. The stiller and more focused it becomes, the more I am able to peer into the sources of my febrile reactivity, to catch the first stirring of hatred before it overwhelms me with loathing and spite, to observe with ironic detachment the conceited babbling of the ego, to notice at its inception the self-demeaning story that could tip me into depression. And I am not the only one who suffers. You suffer too. Every sentient creature suffers. When my self is no longer the all-consuming preoccupation it once was, when I see it as one narrative thread among myriad others, when I understand it to be as contingent and transient as anything else, then the barrier that separates ‘me’ from ‘not me’ begins to crumble. The conviction of being a closed cell of self is not only delusive but anesthetic. It numbs me to the suffering of the world. To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love.” (Batchelor, pp. 156-157) On compassion “Compassion, he was convinced, would also give the aspirant access to hitherto-unknown dimensions of his humanity. When Gotama had studied yoga with Alara Kalama, he had learned to ascend to a higher state of consciousness through the four successive jhana states. Each trance had brought the yogin greater spiritual insight and refinement. Now Gotama transformed these four jhanas by fusing them with what he called ‘the immeasurables.’ Every day in meditation he would deliberately evoke the emotion of love - ‘that huge, expansive and immeasurable feeling that knows no hatred’ - and direct it to each of the four corners of the world. He did

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not omit a single living thing - plant, animal, demon, friend or foe - from this radius of benevolence. In the first ‘immeasurable,’ which corresponded to the first jhana, he cultivated a feeling of friendship for everybody and everything. When he had mastered this, he progressed to the cultivation of compassion with the second jhana, learning to suffer with other people and things and to empathize with their pain, as he had felt the suffering of the grass and the insects under the rose-apple tree. When he reached the third jhana, he fostered a ‘sympathetic joy’ which rejoices at the happiness of others without reflecting upon how this might redound upon himself. Finally, when he attained the fourth jhana, in which the yogin was so immersed in the object of his contemplation that he was beyond pain or pleasure, Gotama aspired to an attitude of total equanimity toward others, feeling neither attraction nor antipathy. This was a very difficult state, since it required the yogin to divest himself completely of that egotism which always looks to see how other things and people can be of benefit or detriment to oneself. It demanded that he abandon all personal preference and adopt a wholly disinterested benevolence. Where traditional yoga had built up in the yogin a state of impervious autonomy, so that the yogin became increasingly heedless of the world, Gotama was learning to transcend himself in an act of total compassion toward all other beings, infusing the old disciplines with loving-kindness.” (Armstrong, pp. 77-78)

Every day in meditation he would deliberately evoke the emotion of love - that huge, expansive and immeasurable feeling that

knows no hatred - and direct it to each of the four corners of the world. He did not omit a single living thing - plant, animal, demon,

friend or foe - from this radius of benevolence.

“On one occasion, the Buddha and his attendant Ananda visited a monastery and discovered a sick monk lying uncared for in his own excrement and urine. They fetched some water, washed the monk, lifted him up, and settled him on a bed. Then Gotama berated the other monks in the community for not caring for their fellow. ‘When you have neither father nor mother to care for you,’ he said, ‘you need to care for one another. Whoever would tend to me, should tend to the sick.’ In identifying himself with those in pain, he affirmed that the key to awakening lies in one’s embrace of and response to the suffering of others.” (Batchelor, pp. 157-158) On letting go “‘Letting go’ is one of the keynotes of the Buddha’s teaching. The enlightened person did not grab or hold on to even the most authoritative instructions. Everything was transient and nothing lasted. Until his disciples recognized this in every fiber of their being, they would never reach Nibbana. Even his own teachings must be jettisoned, once they had done their job. He once compared them to a raft, telling the story of a traveler who had come to a great expanse of water and desperately needed to get across. There was no bridge, no ferry, so he built a raft and rowed himself across the river. But then, the Buddha would ask his audience, what should the traveler do with the raft? Should he decide that because it had been so helpful to him, he should load it onto his back and lug it around with him wherever he went? Or should he simply moor it and continue his journey? The answer was obvious. ‘In just the same way, bhikkhus, my teachings are like a raft, to be used to cross the river and not to be held on to,’ the Buddha concluded. ‘If you understand their raft-like nature correctly, you will even give up good teachings (dhamma), not to mention bad ones!’ His Dhamma was wholly pragmatic. Its task was not to issue infallible definitions or to satisfy a disciple’s intellectual curiosity about metaphysical questions. Its sole purpose was to enable people to get across the river of pain to the ‘further shore.’ His job was to relieve suffering and help his disciples attain the peace of Nibbana. Anything that did not serve that end was of no importance whatsoever.” (Armstrong, pp. 101-102) “To know, deep in your bones, how everything you experience is fleeting, poignant, and unreliable undermines the rationale for trying to grasp hold of, possess, and control it. To fully know suffering begins to affect how you relate to the world, how you respond to others, how you manage your own life. For how can I seek lasting solace in something that I know is incapable of providing it? Why would I stake all my hopes for happiness on something

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that I know will finally let me down? To embrace this suffering world challenges my innate tendency to see everything from the perspective of self-centered craving. Craving is not something I can willfully discard, no matter how hard I tell myself to stop. In keeping with the principle of conditioned arising, to be free from craving requires the removal of the conditions that produce it. In the Buddha’s analysis, the root of craving lies in the conception that lasting, non-contingent happiness is to be found in a fleeting, contingent world. As you come to realize how impossible this is, craving starts to subside and fall away of its own accord. … Just as embracing suffering may lead to the letting go of craving, so the letting go of craving can lead to moments of quiet repose when the craving stops. Thus the second truth, letting go of craving, leads to the third truth, experiencing cessation. You come to a point when you know for yourself, without a flicker of doubt, that your response to life need not be driven by your craving for things to be the way you want them to be. You realize that you are free not to act on the prompts of craving. This is the freedom of which Gotama spoke: the freedom from the imperatives of desire and hate. An experience of such stopping may last only a few moments. It might just be a flash of conviction that I do not have to lead my life from the familiar standpoint of grasping and rejecting. Or it could be an experience of deep inner repose and clarity achieved through sustained meditation. Or it might be a lucid calm that suddenly overcomes me in the midst of turmoil and stress, enabling me to respond to others in ways that surprise me. Instead of fearing an encounter with a person I dislike, I find myself reaching out to him or her. Instead of consoling someone in pain by reciting some received wisdom, I find myself addressing the person’s condition in my own distinct voice.” (Batchelor, pp. 158-160)

On nirvana “The word nibbana means ‘cooling off’ or ‘going out,’ like a flame. The term for the attainment of Nibbana in this life in the texts is sa-upadi-sesa. An Arahant had extinguished the fires of craving, hatred and ignorance, but he still had a ‘residue’ (sesa) of ‘fuel’ (upadi) as long as he lived in the body, used his senses and mind, and experienced emotions. There was a potential for a further conflagration. But when an Arahant died, these khandha could never be ignited again, and could not feed the flame of a new existence. The Arahant was, therefore, free from samsara and could be absorbed wholly into the peace and immunity of Nibbana. But what did that mean? We have seen that the Buddha always refused to define Nibbana, because we have no terms that are adequate for this experience that transcends the reach of the senses and the mind. Like those monotheists who preferred to speak of God in negative terms, the Buddha sometimes preferred to explain what Nibbana was not. It was, he told his disciples, a state ‘where there is neither earth nor water, light nor air; neither infinity or space; it is not infinity of reason but nor is it an absolute void … it is neither this world or another world; it is both sun and moon.’ That did not mean that it was really ‘nothing.’ It became a Buddhist heresy to claim that an Arahant ceased to exist in Nibbana. But it was an existence beyond the self, and blissful because there was no selfishness. Those of us who are unenlightened, and whose horizons are still constricted by egotism, cannot imagine this state. But those who had achieved the death of the ego knew that selflessness was not a void. Nibbana was, the Buddha said, ‘the extinction of greed, hatred and delusion.’ It was the Third Noble Truth.” (Armstrong, pp. 181-182)

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“By paying attention to what was happening within and around him, Gotama woke up to this vast open field of contingently arising events. His awakening was not the result of intellectual theorizing alone but of sustained, focused attention to the texture and fabric of experience. The ground he reached also included the new perspective on life that opened up within him through his exposure to conditioned arising. For those ‘who delight and revel in their place,’ he continued, ‘it is also hard to see this ground: the stilling of compulsions, the fading away of craving, detachment, stopping, nirvana.’ Something deep within Gotama seems to have stopped. He was freed not to live in the world from the closed perspective of his place. He could remain fully present to the turbulent cascade of events without being tossed around by the desires and fears it evoked within him. A still calm lay at the heart of this vision, a strange dropping away of familiar habits, the absence, at least momentarily, of anxiety and turmoil. He had found a way of being in this world that was not conditioned by greed, hatred, or confusion. This was nirvana. The way was now open for him to engage with the world from the perspective of detachment, love, and lucidity.” (Batchelor, pp. 130-131)

The Buddha had no time for doctrines or creeds. He had no theology to impart, no theory about the root cause of dukkha, no tales of an Original

Sin, and no definition of the Ultimate Reality. He saw no point in such speculations. Buddhism is disconcerting to those who equate faith with belief in certain inspired religious opinions. A person’s theology was a

matter of total indifference to the Buddha.

On God and theology “From the texts of the Pali Canon, I became familiar with the metaphysical questions the Buddha refuses to comment upon. These are some of the ‘big’ questions to which religions claim to provide the answers: Is the universe eternal or not eternal? Is it finite or infinite? Is the mind the same as or different from the body? Does one continue to exist after death or not? The Buddha dismisses such questions, because to pursue them would not contribute to cultivating the kind of path he teaches. He compares a person who is preoccupied with such speculations to a man who has been wounded by a poisoned arrow but refuses to have it removed until he knows ‘the name and clan of the person who fired it; whether the bow was a longbow or a crossbow; whether the arrow was hoof-tipped, curved or barbed.’ The only legitimate concern for such a person would be the removal of the arrow. The rest is irrelevant. … On the few occasions in the Canon where Gotama explicitly addressed the question of God, he is presented as an ironic atheist. The rejection of God is not a mainstay of his teaching and he did not get worked up about it. Such passages have the flavor of a diversion, a light entertainment, in which another of humanity’s irrational opinions is gently ridiculed and then put aside. … Gotama was not a theist but nor was he an anti-theist. ‘God’ is simply not part of his vocabulary.” (Batchelor, pp. 99, 179) “The Buddha had no time for doctrines or creeds. He had no theology to impart, no theory about the root cause of dukkha, no tales of an Original Sin, and no definition of the Ultimate Reality. He saw no point in such speculations. Buddhism is disconcerting to those who equate faith with belief in certain inspired religious opinions. A person’s theology was a matter of total indifference to the Buddha. To accept a doctrine on somebody else’s authority was, in his eyes, an ‘unskillful’ state, which could not lead to enlightenment, because it was an abdication of personal responsibility. He saw no virtue in submitting to an official creed. ‘Faith’ meant trust that Nibbana existed and a determination to prove it to oneself. The Buddha always insisted that his disciples test everything he taught them against their own experience and take nothing on hearsay. A religious idea could all too easily become a mental idol, one more thing to cling to, when the purpose of the dhamma was to help people to let go. … Hence there were no abstruse theories about the creation of the universe or the existence of a Supreme Being. … He told one monk, who kept pestering him about philosophy, that he was like a wounded man who refused to have treatment until he learned the name of the person who had shot him and what village he came from. He could die before he got this useless information. In just the same way, those who refused to live according to the Buddhist method until they knew about the creation of the world or the nature of the Absolute would die in misery before they got an answer to these unknowable questions. What difference did it make if the world was eternal or created in time?

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Grief, suffering and misery would still exist. The Buddha was concerned simply with the cessation of pain. ‘I am preaching a cure for these unhappy conditions here and now,’ the Buddha told the philosophically inclined bhikkhu, ‘so always remember what I have not explained to you and the reason why I have refused to explain it.’” (Armstrong, pp. 100-103)

The Kalama Sutta presents a vision of the Buddha’s teaching that goes against the grain of much Buddhist orthodoxy. Rather than deference to tradition and lineage, it celebrates self-reliance; rather than belief in doctrine, it stresses the importance of testing ideas to see if they

work; and rather than insisting on a metaphysics of rebirth and karma, it suggests that this world might indeed be the only one there is.

The Kalama Sutta “One of the most striking Pali texts I came across was called the Kalama Sutta, a discourse the Buddha gave to the Kalama people, in the town of Kesaputta in the kingdom of Kosala. The Kalama people are confused. They tell Gotama how when different teachers arrived in Kesaputta, they ‘expound and explain only their own doctrines; the doctrines of others they despise, revile and pull to pieces.’ They ask his advice on how to distinguish between those who are speaking the truth and those who are not. And the Buddha replies: ‘It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been heard by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a sacred teaching; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias toward a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability. … Kalamas, when you know for yourselves: these things are bad, these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill: then abandon them.’ This unambiguous call for the valuing of uncertainty and the need to establish the truth of things for oneself rather than rely on the authority of others struck a deep chord within me. The Buddha encourages the Kalamas to observe for themselves the consequences of greed, hatred, and stupidity on human beings, so they can judge for themselves what thoughts and acts lead to harm and suffering and which do not. His sole criterion for evaluating a doctrine is whether it causes or mitigates suffering. Even more startling is a statement toward the end of the text, where he tells the Kalamas of the benefits of such an approach: ‘Suppose there is no hereafter and there is no fruit of deeds done well or ill. Yet in this world, here and now, free from hatred, free from malice, safe and sound, and happy, I keep myself.’ The Kalama Sutta presents a vision of the Buddha’s teaching that goes against the grain of much Buddhist orthodoxy. Rather than deference to tradition and lineage, it celebrates self-reliance; rather than belief in doctrine, it stresses the importance of testing ideas to see if they work; and rather than insisting on a metaphysics of rebirth and karma, it suggests that this world might indeed be the only one there is.” (Batchelor, pp. 98-99) “We see the way the Buddha preached to lay people in his famous sermon to the Kalamans, a people who lived on the northernmost fringe of the Ganges basin and who had once run a tribal republic, but were now subject to Kosala. Gradually, they were being drawn into the new urban civilization and were finding the experience unsettling and undermining. When the Buddha passed through their town of Kesaputta, they sent a delegation to ask his advice. One teacher after another had descended upon them, they explained. But each monk and brahmin expounded his own doctrine and reviled everybody else’s. Not only did these dhammas contradict one another, they were also alien, coming as they did from the sophisticated mainstream culture. ‘Which of these teachers was right and which wrong?’ they asked. The Buddha replied that he could see why the Kalamans were so confused. As always, he entered completely into their position. He did not add to their confusion by reeling off his own Dhamma, and giving them one more doctrine to contend with, but held an impromptu tutorial to help the Kalamans work things out for themselves. He started by telling them that one of the reasons for their bewilderment was that they were expecting other people to tell them the answer, but when they looked into their own hearts, they would find that in fact they knew what was right already. ‘Come, Kalamans,’ he said, ‘do not be satisfied with hearsay or taking truth on trust.’ People must make up their own minds on questions of morality. Was greed, for example, good or bad? ‘Bad, Lord,’ the Kalamans replied. Had they noticed that when somebody is consumed by desire and

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determined to get what he wants, that he is likely to kill, steal or lie? Yes, the Kalamans had observed this. And did not this type of behavior make the selfish person unpopular and, therefore, unhappy? And what about hatred, or clinging to what were obviously delusions instead of trying to see things as they really were? Did not these emotions all lead to pain and suffering? Step by step, he asked the Kalamans to draw upon their own experience and perceive the effect of the ‘three fires’ of greed, hatred and ignorance. By the end of their discussion, the Kalamans found that in fact they had known the Buddha’s Dhamma already.” (Armstrong, pp. 147-149) Urban leader, social critic “Buddhist art usually depicts the Buddha sitting alone, lost in solitary meditation. But in fact the greater part of his life, once he had begun to preach the Dhamma, was spent surrounded by large, noisy crowds of people. When he traveled, he was usually accompanied by hundreds of bhikkhus, who tended to chatter so loudly that occasionally the Buddha had to plead for a little quiet. His lay disciples often followed the procession of monks along the roads, in chariots and wagons loaded with provisions. The Buddha lived in towns and cities, not in remote forest hermitages. But even though the last 45 years of his life were passed in the public eye, the texts treat this long and important phase rather perfunctorily, leaving the biographer little to work with. … The Buddhist scriptures record the Buddha’s sermons and describe the first five years of his teaching career in some detail, but after that the Buddha fades from view and the last 20 years of his life are almost entirely unrecorded. The Buddha would have approved of this reticence. The last thing he wanted was a personality cult, and he always insisted that it was the Dhamma and not himself that was important. He used to say, ‘He who sees me sees the Dhamma, and he who sees the Dhamma sees me.’ Furthermore, after his enlightenment nothing else could really happen to him. He had no ‘self,’ his egotism had been extinguished, and he was known as the Tathagata, one who had, quite simply, ‘gone.’ … He was still living in the world, but inhabited another sacred dimension, too, which monotheists would call the divine presence.” (Armstrong, pp. 122-123) “I have had to be on guard against the widespread image of Gotama as a world-renouncing monk, a contemplative mystic whose sole aim was to show his followers the way to final liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. This picture obscures his role as a social critic and reformer, as one who rejected key religious and philosophical ideas of his time, who ridiculed the priestly caste and its theistic beliefs, who envisioned an entirely new way in which people could lead their individual and communal lives. Siddhatta Gotama compared himself to a man who had gone into a forest and discovered ‘an ancient path traveled upon by people in the past.’ On following it, the man came to the ruins of ‘an ancient city, with parks, groves, ponds, and ramparts, a delightful place.’ The man then went to the local king, told him of his discovery, and then encouraged the monarch ‘to renovate the city so it would become successful, prosperous and filled with people once again.’ Gotama explained that this ‘ancient path’ is a metaphor for the middle way to which he had awoken. Yet rather than presenting the middle way as a path that leads to nirvana, he presented it as a path that leads to the restoration of a city. He saw his teaching, the Dhamma, as the template for a civilization. He was fully aware that in order to realize his goal of restoring that ancient city, he would need more than the enthusiastic support of monks and nuns. He would require the cooperation of men such as King Pasenadi of Kosala.” (Batchelor, pp. 109-110) To Vulture’s Peak “On leaving his homeland of Sakiya for the last time, the elderly and frail Siddhattha Gotama headed south to Rajagaha in the footsteps of his friend and patron King Pasenadi of Kosala. Sariputta, his chief disciple, appears to have been waiting for him at Vesali, the capital of Vajji. It was at this time that Gotama’s former attendant Sunakkhatta, a nobleman of Vesali who had left the monastic order, denounced him to the Vajjian parliament as one who ‘does not have any superhuman states,’ who teaches a doctrine ‘hammered out by reasoning, following his own line of inquiry as it occurs to him,’ the only result of which is that it leads one to stop craving. ‘Sunakkhatta is angry,’ said Gotama to Sariputta. ‘Thinking to discredit me, he actually praises me.’ … Gotama and his followers decided to leave Vesali and the Vajjian republic. They headed south, took a ferry across the Ganges into Magadha, then followed the North Road to its terminus at Rajagaha. That long walk from Sakiya via Vesali to Rajagaha in the sweltering pre-monsoon weather would have taken them at least a month if not more. On reaching the Magadhan capital, they chose to stay in the caves on Vulture’s Peak, which would have afforded some respite from the oppressive heat. … He asked Ananda to summon all the remaining monks in Rajagaha to Vulture’s Peak, where he delivered what would be his final address to them. He urged his monks to hold regular assemblies, to preserve

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harmony, to respect the elders of the community. Moreover, they should value the solitude of forest dwellings, maintain mindfulness at all times, be kind and benevolent to each other, share the alms they received, and pursue the eightfold path.” (Batchelor, pp. 214-216) To Pataligama “Slowly, with a large entourage of monks, the Buddha journeyed through Magadhan territory, first to Nalanda, and then to Pataligama (the modern Patna), later the capital of the great Buddhist king Asoka (c. 269-232 BCE), who would create a monarchy that eschewed violence and tried to embody the compassionate ethic of the Dhamma. The Buddha noticed the great fortresses that were being built by the Magadhan ministers in preparation for the coming war with the Vajjians, and prophesied the city’s future greatness. There a delegation of lay disciples put a rest house at the Buddha’s disposal, laying down carpets and hanging a great oil lamp, and the Buddha sat up all night preaching the version of the Dhamma that had been adapted to the needs of the laity.” (Armstrong, pp. 172-173) “By the time Gotama and Ananda reached the ferry port of Patali, the first clouds of monsoon would have started to gather, making the heat and humidity nearly intolerable. Gotama noticed that fortifications were being erected along the riverfront. He was told that Prime Minister Vassakara was overseeing the construction of a fortress to protect the town against the Vajjians. Gotama realized that a new city was being founded. Then Vassakara himself called on the monks and invited them for a meal the next day. At the conclusion of that feast, their host declared that he would name the gate through which Gotama left Patali as the ‘Gotama Gate.’ … Patali was located at the confluence where the Son River, from the South, and the Gandak River, from the north, joined the Ganges, making it ideally suited for comerce, military expeditions, and the administration of an empire. It would soon replace the mountain stronghold of Rajagaha as the capital of Magadha. One hundred and fifty years later, as Pataliputra (son of Patali), it would become, under Emperor Ashoka, the first capital of a unified India. But all of that lay in the future. Gotama’s immediate concern was to cross the Ganges and go back to Vesali for the Rains, before continuing his return journey to his homeland of Sakiya.” (Batchelor, pp. 216-217) To Vesali “Finally the Buddha arrived at Vesali. At first everything seemed as it had always been. He lodged in a mango grove belonging to Ambapali, one of the town’s leading courtesans. She came out to greet the Buddha with a fleet of state carriages, sat at his feet to listen to the Dhamma, and invited him to dine. Just as he had given his consent, the members of the Licchavi tribe who were living in Vesali sallied forth in a body to invite the Buddha themselves, riding in a splendid procession of brilliantly colored carriages. It was a marvelous sight, and the Buddha smiled when he saw it, telling his bhikkhus that now they had some idea of the magnificence of the gods in heaven. The Licchavis sat around the Buddha, who ‘spurred them on, inspired and encouraged’ them with talk of the Dhamma. At the end of the discourse, the Licchavis issued their invitation to dinner, and when the Buddha told them that he was already engaged to eat with Ambapali, they did not lose their good humor, but snapped their fingers, crying ‘Oh the mango girl has beaten us, the mango girl has outwitted us!’ That night, at dinner, the courtesan donated the mango grove to the Sangha, and the Buddha stayed for a while there, preaching to his bhikkhus. There was the usual bustle, glamour and excitement around the Buddha and, at its heart, the constant exhortation to an intense interior life of mindfulness and meditation.” (Armstrong, p. 173) “It would have taken Gotama three days to walk from the northern shore of the Ganges to Vesali. Word of his impending arrival in the city preceded him. On learning that he had reached the village of Koti, the courtesan Ambapali drove down in her luxurious carriage to meet him. That grand lady, who had once been the mistress of King Bimbisara and had a son by him, invited Gotama to stay at her mango grove in Vesali and take his meals there. Just as she was leaving, a group of young noblemen rode into Koti on their chariots. They seemed to be involved in an elaborate, perhaps erotic, game with Ambapali. Each youth was clothed, made-up, and ornamented in a different color. Some were in all green, some in all yellow, some in all red, some in all white. ‘Look at them,’ said Gotama to his monks, ‘the gods have arrived.’ They too asked Gotama to dine with them when he got to the city the next day. ‘But I’ve promised Ambapali to take my meal with her,’ he replied. In unison, the young men snapped their fingers and sang: ‘Beaten by the mango woman! Cheated by the mango woman!’ Then they raced back to the city.” (Batchelor, p. 218)

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Farewell to the monks in Vesali “The Buddha left Vesali with his monks and took up residence in the nearby village of Beluvagamaka. After they had stayed there a while, he suddenly dismissed his monks: they should go back to Vesali and put up for the monsoon retreat wherever they could. He and Ananda would stay on in Beluvagamaka. A new solitude had entered the Buddha’s life, and from this point he seemed to shun the larger cities and towns and to seek out ever more obscure locations. It was as though he were already beginning to leave the world. After the bhikkhus had left, the Buddha became seriously ill, but with great self-control he suppressed the pain and overcame his sickness. It was not right for him to die yet and attain the Ultimate Nibbana (parinibbana), which would complete the enlightenment he had won under the bodhi tree. First he must bid the Sangha farewell. The Buddha, therefore, recovered, left his sickroom, and came out to sit with Ananda on the porch of the hut in which he was staying. His illness had shaken Ananda to the core. But he had found comfort in one thought: the Buddha would not die until he had made some practical arrangements about the succession and the government of the Sangha, which would have to change once the master had departed. The Buddha sighed. ‘What does the Sangha expect of me, Ananda?’ he asked patiently. The bhikkhus all knew everything he had to teach them. There was no secret doctrine for a few chosen leaders. ‘I am an old man, Ananda, 80 years old,’ the Buddha said. ‘My body can only get about with the help of makeshifts, like an old cart.’ The one activity that brought him ease and refreshment was meditation, which introduced him to the peace and release of Nibbana. And so it must be for every single bhikkhu and bhikkhuni. ‘Each of you must make himself his island, make himself and no one else his refuge. The Dhamma - and the Dhamma alone - was his refuge.’ The Sangha needed no one to govern it, no central authority. The whole point of the Buddhist lifestyle was to achieve an inner resource that made such dependence quite ludicrous. … It was too late, the Buddha told the now contrite Ananda, for his attendant to beg him to live on. He must now speak to the Sangha and bid his monks a formal farewell. In the great painted hall of the Vesali arama, he spoke to all the bhikkhus who were residing in the neighborhood. He had nothing to tell them. ‘I have only taught you things that I have experienced fully for myself,’ he said. He had taken nothing on trust and they too must make the Dhamma a reality for themselves. … Above all, they must live for others. The holy life had not been devised simply to benefit the enlightened, and Nibbana was not a prize which any bhikkhu could selfishly keep to himself. They must live the Dhamma ‘for the sake of the people, for the welfare and happiness of the multitude, out of compassion for the whole world, and for the good and well-being of gods and men.’” (Armstrong, pp. 174-175, 178) “And when the Rains began, Gotama chose to spend that time alone in a village called Beluva, outside the city walls, and told his monks: ‘Go anywhere in Vesali where you have friends or acquaintances or supporters and spend the Rains there.’ In the course of the Rains, Gotama was ‘attacked by a severe sickness, with sharp pains as if he were about to die.’ He recovered but was badly weakened. ‘I am worn out,’ he said to Ananda. ‘My body is only kept going by being strapped up like an old cart.’ Ananda urged him to make a final statement about the order of monks. ‘What does the order of monks expect of me?’ he retorted. ‘I have taught the Dhamma without making any distinction between “outer” and “inner” teachings. I am not someone who has a closed fist in regard to what I teach. … Ananda: you should live as islands to yourselves, being your own refuge, with no other as your refuge, with the Dhamma as an island, with the Dhamma as your refuge, with no other refuge.’ … Once the Rains were over, Gotama asked Ananda to summon all the monks in Vesali to the Gabled House, where he would bid them farewell. He incited them to ‘learn, practice, and cultivate’ the eight-fold path he had discovered, ‘so that out of compassion for the world, this way of life may endure for a long time and be for the happiness and benefit of many.’ He concluded by announcing that he did not expect to live for more than a few months.” (Batchelor, p. 219) At Cunda’s table “The next morning, after the Buddha and Ananda had begged for their food in the town, the Buddha turned round and gazed for a long time at Vesali. It was the last time that he would ever see it. They then took the path to the village of Bhandagama. From this point, the Buddha’s wanderings seemed to be heading off the map of the civilized world. After he had stayed for a while in Bhandagama, instructing the bhikkhus there, the Buddha traveled with Ananda slowly northward, through the villages of Hatthigama, Ambagama, Jambugama and Bhoganagama (all of which have disappeared without trace) until he arrived at Pava, where he lodged in the grove belonging to one Cunda, the son of a goldsmith. Cunda did homage to the Buddha, listened attentively to his instruction and then invited him to an excellent dinner, which included some sukaramaddava (‘pigs’ soft food’). Nobody is quite sure what this dish really was: some of the commentaries say that it was succulent pork already on sale in the market

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(the Buddha never ate the flesh of an animal that had been killed especially for him). Others argue that it was either a form of minced pork or a dish of the truffle mushrooms enjoyed by pigs. Some maintain that it was a special elixir, which Cunda, who was afraid that the Buddha would die and attain his parinibbana that day, believed would prolong his life indefinitely. At all events, the Buddha insisted on eating the sukaramaddava and told the bhikkhus to eat the other food on the table. When he had finished, he told Cunda to bury what was left, since nobody could digest it. This could simply be an adverse appraisal of Cunda’s culinary skills, but some modern scholars have suggested that the Buddha realized that the sukkaramaddava had been poisoned. They see the loneliness of the Buddha’s end and the remoteness of the location as a sign of a distance between the Buddha and the Sangha and believe that, like the two old kings, he too died a violent death. The Pali texts, however, do not even consider this appalling possibility. The Buddha’s request that Cunda bury the food was strange, but he had been ill for some time and expected to die shortly. That night he began to vomit blood and was gripped by a violent pain, but yet again he mastered his illness and set off with Ananda to Kusinara.” (Armstrong, pp. 178-180) “When Gotama left Vesali, only his Sakiyan cousins and a Kosalan monk accompanied him. Since he was gravely ill, it is likely that some younger monks went with them as litter-bearers. They headed northwest, along the North Road, in the direction of Sakiya, and passed through the villages of Bhanda, Hatthi, Amba, Jambu, and Bhoganagara, none of which are identifiable today. It is only when they got to the town of Pava that we can locate them on a modern map: in Fazilnagar, 80 miles northwest of Vaishali. Fazilnagar is a charmless Indian town of dilapidated concrete buildings, with a single street of shops and sagging stalls that sell everything from bridal accessories to tractor parts. I head down a dark alley off the main street until I reach an open area dominated by a great mound of packed earth. … Inside this mound is the stupa that marks the spot where Gotama received his final meal of tenderized pork at the house of a man called Cunda the Smith. From the moment it was offered to him, it seems that Gotama suspected something was amiss with the food. ‘Serve the pork to me,’ he told his host, ‘and the remaining food to the other monks.’ When the meal was over, he said to Cunda: ‘You should now bury any leftover pork in a pit.’ Then he ‘was attacked by a severe sickness with bloody diarrhea, which he endured mindfully without any complaint.’ His only response was to say to Ananda: ‘Let us go to Kusinara,’ which, under the circumstances, sounds like ‘Let’s get out of this place.’” (Batchelor, pp. 219-220) Death in the sal grove “The Buddha and Ananda, two old men, crossed the Hirannavati river with their crowd of bhikkhus, and turned into a grove of sal trees on the road that led into Kusinara. By now the Buddha was in pain. … As he lay dying, the Buddha gave directions about his funeral. His ashes were to be treated like those of a cakkavatti. His body should be wrapped in a cloth and cremated with perfumed woods, and the remains buried at the crossroads of a great city. … The funeral arrangements were just too much for Ananda. His plight during these last days reminds us of the immense gulf that separates the unenlightened from the Arahant. Ananda knew all about Buddhism intellectually, but this knowledge was no substitute for the ‘direct knowledge’ of the yogin. It could be of no help to him when he started to experience the pain of the loss of his master. … When the Buddha heard about Ananda’s tears, he sent for him. ‘That is enough, Ananda,’ he said. ‘Don’t be sorrowful; don’t grieve.’ Had he not explained, over and over again, that nothing was permanent but that separation was the law of life? ‘And Ananda,’ the Buddha concluded, ‘for years you have waited on me with constant love and kindness. You have taken care of my physical needs, and have supported me in all your words and thoughts. You have done all this to help me, joyfully and with your whole heart. You have earned merit, Ananda. Keep trying, and you will soon be enlightened too.’ But Ananda was still struggling. ‘Lord,’ he cried, ‘do not go to your Final Rest in this dreary little town, with mud walls; this heathen, jungle outpost, this backwater.’ … The texts show that the early Sangha was embarrassed by the obscurity of Kusinara and the fact that their Teacher died far away in the jungle. The Buddha tried to cheer Ananda, pointing out that Kusinara had once been a thriving city and the great capital of a cakkavatti. … He had always told his followers to look not at him but at the Dhamma. He himself had never been important. Then he turned to the crowd of bhikkhus who had accompanied him on this last journey, and reminded them yet again that ‘All individual things pass away. Seek your liberation with diligence.’ Having given his last advice to his followers, the Buddha fell into a coma.” (Armstrong, pp. 183-187) “On arriving in Kusinara, Gotama told Ananda to take him to the sal grove of the local Malla people on the edge of the town. Once there, he asked him to prepare a bed between two sal trees. Knowing that he did not have long to live, Gotama explained how he should be cremated and what should be done with his remains. This was all too much for Ananda, who broke down in tears. ‘Do not weep and wail,’ said Gotama. ‘Have I not told you that all

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things pleasant and delightful are subject to change? How could it be that something compounded should not pass away?’ Ananda was not placated. ‘Don’t die here,’ he pleaded, ‘in this miserable little town of wattle-and-daub, in this jungle in the back of beyond! If we could make it to a city like Rajagaha or Savatthi or Baranasi, your supporters there would provide for your funeral in the proper style.’ I imagine Gotama dismissing this absurd suggestion with a tired wave of his hand. After the townsfolk of Kusinara had gone to the sal grove to pay their final respects, a wanderer called Subhadda appeared and asked Ananda if he could be allowed to see Gotama. Ananda refused. But Gotama overheard them and bade Subhadda to come to his side. Subhadda said, ‘Tell me who among the teachers of our time have realized the truth?’ Gotama dismissed the question. ‘Never mind whether all, or none, or some of them have realized the truth. I will teach you the Dhamma.’ He then instructed Ananda to receive Subhadda into the order of monks. It was late at night. Gotama turned to the small group of monks present and said: ‘If anyone has an outstanding doubt about what I have taught, now is the time to ask.’ The monks remained silent. ‘If you are silent out of respect for me, then at least ask one another.’ Still no one said a word. Gotama said: ‘Then you must all be awakened. Listen: conditioned things break down, tread the path with care!’ Then he too fell quiet. Those were his last words.” (Batchelor, pp. 223-224)

List of Places Baranasi (Varanasi) (now Benares) - The holy city of the brahmins on the northern shore of the Ganges. Kapilavatthu (now Piprahwa) - The principal town of the Kosalan province of Sakiya where the Buddha was raised as a child.Kosala - The Indian kingdom to the north of the Ganges in the time of the Buddha. Its capital was Savatthi and its king

Pasenadi.Kusinara (now Kushinagar) - One of the two principal towns of the province of Malla. The place where the Buddha died.Magadha - The Indian kingdom to the south of the Ganges at the Buddha’s time. Its capital was Rajagaha and its king

Bimbisara.Malla - Eastern province of the kingdom of Kosala to the south of Sakiya. Its principal towns were Kusinara and Pava. Patali (now Patna) - Ferryport on the south bank of the Ganges in the kingdom of Magadha. By the end of the Buddha’s life it

was being developed into a fortified town, the future capital of Emperor Ashoka.Pava (now Fazilnagar) - One of the two principal towns of the province of Malla. The place where the Buddha ate his last

meal.Rajagaha (now Rajgir) - Capital city of the kingdom of Magadha. A busy commercial center with hot springs that provided a

constant source of water. A gathering place for monks and ascetics, who debated their doctrines in its parks, retreated to its hills for solitude, and wandered its streets begging for alms.

Sakiya - Eastern province of the kingdom of Kosala where the Buddha was born. Its capital was Kapilavatthu.Savatthi (now Sravasti) - Capital city of the kingdom of Kosala. Jeta’s Grove was nearby. Savatthi was probably the most

advanced of all the cities in the Ganges basin in the late 6th century BCE. Built on the south bank of the Rivati river, at the junction of two trade routes, and inhabited by some 70,000 families.

Uruvela (now Bodh Gaya) - The place in the kingdom of Magadha where the Buddha achieved awakening.Vesali (now Vaishali) - Capital city of Vajji, the last surviving republic of the Buddha’s time.

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List of Terms Ahimsa - “Harmlessness.” The ethic adopted by many of the ascetics of North India to counter the aggression of the new

states.Asana - The correct position for yogic meditation, with straight back and crossed legs.Anatta - “No-Soul.” The doctrine that denies the existence of a constant, stable and discrete personality.Arahant - An “Accomplished One” who has attained Nibbana.Arama - Pleasure-park donated to the Buddhist Order for a settlement.Bhikkhu - An “almsman,” a mendicant monk who begs for his daily food.Cakkavatti - The World Ruler or Universal King of Indian folklore, who would govern the whole world and impose justice

and righteousness by force. Dhamma - The teaching of the Buddha. The truths and practices to which the Buddha’s teaching refers. Originally: the natural

condtion of things, their essence, the fundamental law of their existence.Dukkha - “Awry, flawed, unsatisfactory.” Often simply translated as “suffering.”Jhana - A yogic trance. Meditative absorption. Traditionally, there are 8 jhanas. The first 4 are achieved through concentrating

on a formal object. The next 4 through concentrating on a formless object.Kamma - Actions, deeds. Khandha - “Heaps, bundles, lumps.” The constituents of the human personality in the Buddha’s theory of anatta. The

five “heaps” are body, feelings, perception, volition and consciousness. Mahayana - The “Greater Vehicle” of Buddhism, which encourages the bodhisattva’s aspiration to become a Buddha for the

sake of all beings. Nirvana (Nibbana) - The “blowing out” of the “fires” of greed, hatred, and delusion. The extinction of self which brings

enlightenment and liberation from pain.Parinibbana - The “Final Nibbana.” The final rest of an enlightened person achieved at death, since he or she will not be

reborn into another existence. Praktri - Nature; the natural world in the philosophy of Samkhya.Samsara - The painful and repetitive cycle of death and rebirth. The transience and restlessness of mundane existence.Sangha - Originally a tribal assembly. Later a sect professing the dhamma of a particular teacher. Finally, the Buddhist Order

of Bhikkhus.Sutta - A religious discourse.Tanha - The “craving” or “desire” which is the most powerful cause of suffering. Theravada - Literally “the teaching of the elders.” The school of Buddhism found today in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia that

is based on the Pali Canon.

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