Inspiration from the Buddha’s life

This article was published in a newspaper By late Deshabandu

Alec Robertson

It is not an overstatement to say that the Buddha Gotama is the greatest man ever born. He was born great as a prince: He attained greatness by His unsullied conduct, mental serenity and supreme wisdom. Wise people all over the world, Buddhists and non-Buddhists, accept Him as the greatest figure in human history.

Born to an aristocratic dynasty in Kapilawasthu on the borders of modern Nepal in North India as the heir apparent to the paternal throne this Great Man, who never claimed any allegiance to divinity, renounced in the prime of youth, all worldly pleasures and went forth from home to homelessness to serve mankind. This selfless step is the starting point of His great career as a world Teacher and a saint. The Buddha was undoubtedly the embodiment of all the virtues. He practised and taught the world by example and precept.

Among the unique virtues of this supreme Teacher were his marvellous power of renouncing pleasures (nekhamma), moral perfection (sila), mental serenity (samadhi) and penetrative wisdom (panna) all pervading compassion (mahakaruna), universal love (metta), tolerance religious as well as philoshopical (kanti) harmless and blameless methods followed by him in propagating his kingdom of righteousness (dhammadesanavilasa) and moral courage based on mind.

Renounce

His marvellous power to renounce worldly pleasure is well depicted in His giving up a kingdom and dedicating all Royal luxuries on the altar of service.

The values that emerge from the Buddha’s life are essentially three, and they are renunciation, loving-kindness and compassion and wisdom. These three emerge very clearly through episodes in the Buddha’s own life. Incidentally it is no coincidence that these three qualities between them equal the attainment of Nibbana because as you know there are three defilements (kilesa) that condition us to be reborn again and again - the defilements of desire, ill-will and ignorance.

In this context we might also remember that renunciation is the antidote for desire, loving-kindness and compassion is the antidote for ill-will, and wisdom is the antidote for ignorance. Through cultivating these three qualities one is able to eliminate the defilements and attain Enlightenment. So it is no accident that these qualities should stand out so prominently in the life of the Buddha.

Let us look at them one by one. As often happens, some of the very first evidence of the Buddha’s renunciation manifest itself while He was still very young. Renunciations basically a recognition that all existence is suffering. When one recognised the fact that all existence in suffering this brings about what we might call a turning about, in other words, seeing that life is full of suffering one begins to look for something more. This is why suffering is the First Noble Truth. You may know of Prince Siddartha’s visit to the ceremony at the age of seven. It was there that while watching the ploughing the Prince noticed a worm had been unearthed by the plough devoured by a bird.

Realities

The sight led the Prince to contemplate the realities of life to recognised the fact that all living being kill each other for food and this is a great source of suffering. Already we see at this tender ageing the biography of the Buddha beginning of this recognition that existing is suffering. If we look at a little bit far in the life of the Buddha, we will come to the famous episode of the four sights which moved the Prince to renounce the household life and follows a life asceticism to seek the Truth. The sights of old age, sicknesses, death and a ascetic led Him to consider why it was that He should feel uneasy when in fact He was Himself not free from, was subject to old age, sickness and death. This consideration led Him to develop a sense of detachment from pleasure, led Him to seek the Truth by way of renunciation.

He enjoyed the greatest happiness and yet seeing these suffering of life, recognising that no matter how great one’s indulgence in pleasure of the senses may be eventually one will have to face these sufferings. Recognising this, He was moved to renounce the household life and seek Enlightenment for the sake of all living beings.

Compassion

Let us now look at the quality of loving-kindness and compassion. Here too we can see this quality manifested very early in the life of the Buddha. The most striking example of His is the episode of the wounded swan. We are told that He and His cousin, Devadatta were roaming in the park surrounding the palace when Devadatta shot down a swan with his bow and arrow. Both boys ran towards the spot where the swan had fallen, but Siddhartha being the faster runner came to the place where the wounded bird lay. Gathering the bird in His arms, He nursed the bird and this brought about a reaction from Devadatta who insisted that the bird ought to be his since he was the one who shot it down. The boys brought this dispute in the wise man of the court who decided that life belongs rightly to the one who preserves it., not to one who destroys it. Here we have a striking example of the Buddha’s attitude of loving-kindness and compassion which grows directly out of this recognition that the nature of life is suffering. Later too after His Enlightenment, the Buddha continued to display this quality as for instance in the famous episode in which the Buddha nursed the sick Thissa whose illness was such that the other members of the Order shunned him.

Let us look at wisdom which is the third of the three qualities. Wisdom is the most important of the three qualities because after all it is wisdom that opens the door to Enlightenment. It is wisdom that uproots ignorance, the underlying cause of suffering. It is said that just as one cut the branches and trunk of a tree and yet if the root of the tree is not taken out the branches and trunk will grow again. So in the same way one can eliminate desire through renunciation ill-will through loving kindness and compassion, but so long as ignorance is not eliminated, this desire and ill-will are liable to grow again.

Meditation

Wisdom is achieved primarily through meditation. We have an episode again early in the life of the Buddha in which we see His early development of skill in concentrating the mind and this episode in fact occurred at the same time as the incident we considered a movement ago involving the bird and the worm.

We are told that after having witnessed the bird devouring the worm, having recognised the unhappy nature of life, the young Prince sat under a tree and began to meditate spontaneously He achieved the first level of meditation through concentrating the mind on the process of in-breathing and out-breathing. So we have this experience of meditation in the early life of the Buddha, and later when He renounced the household life and went forth to seek the truth, one of the first discipline which He tried was again the discipline of mental concentration.

We are told that He studied with two foremost teachers of the time. Alarakalama and Uddakaramaputta and He learned from these teachers the methods of mental concentration. We have very good reasons to believe that the methods of mental concentration go as far as the 3rd millennium B.C. and it is very likely that these two teachers were exponents of this tradition of mental concentration.

Yet we find that the Prince left the two teachers because He found that meditation alone cannot permanently end suffering. This is important because, although in its emphasis on mental development. Buddhism is very much in the tradition of the Indus Valley civilisation, yet the Buddha went beyond the tradition of meditation.

To be Continued next Week