The Life of the Buddha

Siddhartha Gotama, Prince of the Shakyas, awakened to Buddhahood more than twenty-five hundred years ago. What does that extraordinary event mean for us now, all these centuries later? Does his life and enlightenment have relevance for our own lives, for our own spiritual journeys? In hearing the story of Prince Siddhartha, of how he became a Buddha, we can consider different levels of meaning and significance.

The most familiar level is the Buddha as a particular person in history. He lived in a small kingdom near what is now the border of Nepal and India in the fifth and sixth centuries BCE. At the age of thirty-five he had a remarkable spiritual awakening. When we know the elements of his life story, we relate in a very human way, under­standing his struggles, his quest, and his enlightenment from the perspective of one human being to another.

On another level, we can view the Buddha as a fundamental ar­chetype of humanity, an expression of the fully awakened mind, ex­emplifying the potential for enlightenment that is in us all. On this archetypal level, the Buddha’s life is not simply the strivings and realization of a particular individual, but rather the unfolding of a great mythological journey. “Mythological” here does not mean un­real or imaginary. The power of myth universalizes the personal and so helps us view our own life experiences in a larger and more pro­found context. Through understanding the Buddha’s journey, we connect with our own deepest aspirations. We may have begun to follow the same path, motivated by the same questions: What is the true nature of our lives? What is the root cause of our suffering? Can we be free?

At Siddhartha’s birth, a sage predicted that either he would become a world monarch or he would renounce the world and become a Buddha, an Awakened One. The Bodhisattva’s father (Bodhisattva is the word for a being destined for perfect enlightenment; this is how the Buddha is referred to prior to his awakening), wishing for his son to become a worldly ruler like himself, surrounded Siddhar­tha with all the pleasures of the senses, occupying him entirely with the delights of the world. The king provided the young prince with different palaces for each of the seasons, with musicians, dancers, and beautiful companions to entertain him. The king did everything within his power to banish all unpleasantness from Siddhartha’s life.

At the age of twenty-nine, the prince decided to leave the palace grounds and explore the life of the city around him. Remembering the early prophecy, the king worried that Siddhartha might encounter something disturbing and thus be prompted to question his life of luxury, so he ordered all unpleasant sights to be removed. He had the buildings freshly painted, flowers and incense placed all about, and everyone who was suffering hidden away. But the Bodhisattva’s calling was not so easily denied.

It is said that heavenly messengers, celestial beings, appeared to him as he rode throughout the city. The first of these messengers appeared as an old person, stricken with infirmities. The second messenger appeared as a person suffering greatly with disease. The third appeared as a corpse. The prince was startled at each encoun­ter, because in his protected young life he had never come into con­tact with old age, sickness, or death. Seeing these aspects of life for the first time touched him deeply. He questioned his charioteer about what he was seeing and whether everyone was subject to this fate. The charioteer replied that it is inevitable for all who take birth to grow older, to get sick, and to die. The last of the heavenly messen­gers appeared to the prince as a wandering monk. Questioned again, the charioteer answered that this was someone who had renounced the world in order to seek enlightenment and liberation.

These four heavenly messengers awakened within the Bodhi­sattva the energy of countless lifetimes of practice; they awakened within him both the deep sense of inquiry about the sufferings of life and the recognition that freedom is possible. Siddhartha reflected, “Why should I, who am subject to decay and death, also seek that which is subject to decay and death? What is it that’s born? What is it that dies?”

After encountering the four heavenly messengers, the Bodhisattva left the palace with all its pleasures and comforts in order to seek liberation. Siddhartha first went to different teachers of concentra­tion meditation and mastered all the levels of meditative absorption. Yet even after attaining the highest levels of concentration, he real­ized he was still not free. He saw that even the highest of these states was not the Unconditioned, that which is beyond birth and death.

He then spent six years practicing various kinds of austerities and ascetic disciplines, mortifying the body in an effort to subdue the ego. For long periods, it is said, he ate only one grain of rice a day, becoming so emaciated that when he tried to touch his belly, his hand would grasp his backbone. So extreme was his asceticism that he would collapse from fatigue and hunger. After six years of such practice, he realized that this was not the path to freedom, to the end of suffering. Siddhartha gave up this extreme ascetic discipline and, taking some food, nourished himself for the third great event in the sacred journey.

Having regained his strength, the Bodhisattva sat beneath the Bodhi Tree with the resolve that he would not get up until he had attained supreme enlighten­ment. As he sat there with unwavering resolve and determination, all the forces of Mara, of illusion and ignorance, assailed his mind.

After the hosts of Mara were dispersed, the Bodhisattva spent the three watches of the night con­templating various aspects of the dharma. With his power of concen­tration, he surveyed the succession of his innumerable past lives and understood their insubstantiality—the endlessness of being born in a particular situation, having all kinds of experiences, growing old, dying, and being reborn, over and over again.

In the second watch of the night, the Bodhisattva contemplated the law of karma. He saw the destinies of beings, and how, because of their own actions, they are reborn either in various happy planes of existence or in planes of suffering. Compassion arose in the Bodhi­sattva when he saw that all beings desire happiness and yet, out of ignorance, often do the very things that cause suffering.

In the third watch of the night he saw how the mind becomes attached, and how through attachment there is suffering. He understood the possibility of deconditioning that attachment and coming to a place of freedom. And just at the moment of dawn, when the morning star appeared in the sky, his mind realized the deepest, most complete illumination. After attaining the great enlightenment, the Buddha expressed this verse in his heart (Dhammapada, verses 153–54):

I wandered through the rounds of countless births,
Seeking but not finding the builder of this house.
Sorrowful indeed is birth again and again.
Oh, housebuilder! You have now been seen.
You shall build the house no longer.
All your rafters have been broken,
Your ridgepole shattered.
My mind has attained to unconditioned freedom.
Achieved is the end of craving.

The Buddha saw that in this world of samsara, of constant appear­ing and disappearing, being born and dying, there is great suffering. Craving, the builder of this house of suffering (the mind and body), was discovered; the defilements of mind, the rafters, were broken; the force of ignorance, the ridgepole, was shattered; and thus the Bodhisattva realized nirvana, the unconditioned. In attaining the great enlightenment, he experienced the completion and fulfillment of his long journey, a fulfillment of the potential shared by all human beings. He had become the Buddha, the Awakened One. He then spent the next seven weeks in the area of the Bodhi Tree, contemplat­ing different aspects of the truth. Having completed his own journey of liberation, he now wondered whether it was possible to share with others the profound dharma he had realized.

According to legend, a celestial being, a Brahma god, came down from the highest heaven realm and urged the Buddha to teach the dharma for the welfare of all beings, out of compassion for all be­ings. He asked the Buddha to survey the world with his eye of wis­dom, stating that there were many beings with but little dust in their eyes who would be able to hear and understand the truth. The Buddha did as the Brahma god asked, and out of deep compassion for the suffering of beings he began to teach.

He first traveled to a place outside of Benares called Sarnath, where the five ascetics with whom he had previously practiced were living in a deer park. The Buddha gave his first sermon to these five ascetics, thereby setting in motion the Great Wheel of the Dharma. In this sermon he spoke of the Four Noble Truths and the Middle Way, that path between the extremes of sensory indulgence and self-mortification, thus laying the foundation for the next forty-five years of his teaching.

When his first sixty disciples were fully enlightened, he instructed them in a way that is very significant. He said, “Go forth, O bhikkus [monks] for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, benefit, and happiness of people and devas (celestial beings). Let not two go by one way. Teach the Dharma, excellent in the beginning, excellent in the mid­dle, excellent in the end. Proclaim the noble life, altogether perfect and pure. Work for the good of others, you who have accomplished your duties.” And so, from the very beginning of our own practice, we understand that we are not doing this for ourselves alone, that our practice can be for the benefit and welfare of all.

There are many stories in the Buddha’s life illustrating his wis­dom and skill in helping others to liberation. Every morning he would survey the world with his unhindered eye of wisdom, encom­passing all beings in his net of compassion. With the ability to pene­trate hidden tendencies, he would recognize all those who were ripe for awakening, and he would appear to them, offering the exact teaching they needed to open their hearts and minds.

There are innumerable stories of people from all walks of life—beggars, merchants, artisans, courtesans, village people, nobles, kings and queens—each coming to the Buddha with varying degrees of faith and understanding, whom he helped come to freedom and peace through the power of his love and wisdom.

One discourse the Buddha gave that is particularly helpful in un­derstanding the open spirit of investigation and discovery in dharma practice is known as the Kalama Sutta. This sutra is named after the Kalamas, a village people who had asked him how they could know which among the many different religious teachings and teachers to believe. The Buddha said that they should not blindly believe any­one—not their parents or teachers, not the books or traditions, not even the Buddha himself. Rather, they should look carefully into their own experience to see those actions that lead to more greed, more hatred, more delusion, and abandon them; and they should look to see what things lead to greater love, generosity, wisdom, and peace, and then cultivate those. The Buddha’s teachings always encourage us to take responsibility for our own development and to directly investigate the nature of our experience.

When he was eighty years old, the Buddha became quite ill. Knowing he was soon going to die, he lay down on a spot beneath two trees. The legends tell us that these trees were flowering out of season, symbolizing the Buddha’s final release into the uncondi­tioned. The very last words of the Buddha sum up all his lifetimes of practice and the forty-five years of teaching after his enlightenment. These are the words that he left to us at the very end of his life: “With the light of perfect wisdom, illuminate the darkness of ignorance. Subject to decay are all conditioned things. Strive on with diligence.”