Chapter 10

The middle period, chapter 10, has rapid fire stories in The Life of the Buddha. I can't help but think of that number Love Thy Neighbor from Prom, when you get to the monk who is abandoned, because he is of no use to his fellow monks when he's sick. 

There is the ancient epistemology tract in the Kalama Sutta.

"It is hard to know a man by his appearance

Nor can you judge him at a passing glance."

That's the upshot from the section where a leper becomes a stream entrant.

There is the bit where the Buddha doesn't want his teachings put into the formal religious language of the times. 

There is the bit about tuning the lute strings just right.

So many teachings.

I just downloaded the version of this book by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu & Khematto Bhikkhu.

Interesting Characters And Details Reading the Life of the Buddha Edited By Bhikkhu Nanamoli

Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu died in 1960. He led an interesting life, he was an intelligence officer during WW2. He and his friend Ñāṇavīra Thera went to Sri Lanka and ordained as a monk. My heart warms so much when a friend is mentioned in a Wikipedia entry about a person's life. 

He was taught by Nyanatiloka, German born, who was among the earliest western monks in Sri Lanka. Nyanatiloka went off to Sri Lanka in 1903 at the age of 25, and went on to Burma. You can read about him in a biography that is online. 

Nyanatiloka met U Dhammaloka, Irish born, who ordained in 1900.

Nanamoli left us an amazing modern edited book from the Pali Sources about the life of the Buddha. 

How it is that I can read these awesome texts in English today is amazing to me.

People Gotama met before enlightenment and his family

Ananda remembers the discourses, what the Buddha said. It is his great memory that comes down to us. He was a first cousin to the Buddha.

Upali remembered the monastic rules. "He was ordained before the princes, putting humility before caste." He was a low caste barber. 

There is Asita, an ascetic who laments he will not live enough to see the Buddha. "Among the bipedal race he is unique."

King Bimbisara offers the Buddha a lot of money to be a general in his army.

Alara Kalama was a teacher who taught Gotama everything he knew on his spiritual quest, but he kept going.

Uddaka Rāmaputta was his second teacher. The teachings do not lead to dispassion, fading of lust, cessation, enlightenment. 

Tapussa and Bhalluka: Two merchants who came upon the Buddha while he was freshly consolidating the insights of his enlightenment under the Mucalinda Tree. They gave him some food. The Buddha wasn't really into eating but the Four Devine Kings persuaded him with food from the 4 corners of the world, rice cake and honey. His first meal after enlightenment. Tapussa and Bhalluka took refuge in the Buddha and the Dharma, but there was no Sangha yet to get the three jewels. They were the first disciples of the Buddha. 

Details:

Gautama talks about the need to go forth from home life: crowded and dusty. 

I would add crumbs. My daughter eats pretzels in bed before she goes to sleep, and there are crumbs.

Gautama went off and was in nice parks where deer came up to him and peacocks were around. I can hear their cries. He talks about hair standing on end, what an amazing detail, fear and dread arose, which he subdued. I kind of like these details of the struggle. 

The Buddha's family includes his father Suddhodana and mother Maya and his foster mother Mahapajapati Gotami.

There are bits where they say he went forth young, and don't mention a wife. It is possible that that whole story line cropped up later, but in the legend his wife has a name, Yashodhara.

What does it add to the myth that he went for not as a late teen but as a father at 29? Does that add more gravity, more drama? Does that make it more relatable?

Conflict in the early sangha

Further thoughts on The Life of the Buddha, a collection and translation by Nanamoli (Chapter 8):

This happened in Kosambi. Don't let the story mark the town as one thing, because it is many.

The offense was that a leader left grey water at the toilet. At the time when someone caught him, he did not know it was an offense. The other leader said since it wasn't intentional, it was not an offense, but then later said it was an offense and spoke out against the offense.

It hardly seems like much to get worked up about, but sometimes when you are very mindful you can be a bit precious about things. There is also some conflict, a power struggle, which is not acknowledged, between the two leaders.

The leader was suspended. He sent out to his people to come and defend him. Many of his followers were loyal to him even though he was suspended.

When alerted to the situation, the Buddha was concerned about a schism. He talked to the suspending leader. The Buddha said essentially to be more worried about schism than the offense, to not pursue the matter. He went to the offending monk and told him to not challenge the suspension because schism is worse than being suspended wrongly.

So I wonder what happened. I guess the offending monk stayed away until the end of the suspension, though the suspension would have been withdrawn.

That was I did when I was a teacher and two students were in conflict, I would "shoot both ways," so that neither felt like they got their way. You need to stop doing this, and you need to stop doing that.

It is a fundamental problem in the world that there are rules in society and there are some people who do not follow them.

I think this is one of the great problems with the current presidency. The conventions of the presidency are not being followed. It freaks a lot of people out, it's destabilizing to people who do not protect him out of ideological defensiveness. That is also something they take glee in, which is a further offense. Win at any cost not matter that the whole fabric of society is smashed. Out of partisanship they pretend not to see it, then later flip the script. The party that wants to run things so they can prove that running things is wrong, don't expect good government, and wreck up the whole place.

When the sangha insisted on continuing the quarrel, the Buddha finally just left, deciding that he could not say anything to them that would de-escalate the conflict.

I find that a fascinating story. No miracles, no reverence, keeping the Buddha on the right side. He was told they would settle it. I've always found this story really interesting somehow. "There is no fellowship with fools." It's better to be alone than in conflict. Being alone is preferable to disagreeable company.

When the town stopped giving them food, because it was seen as not respecting the Buddha to send him away, they went to the Buddha to resolve their quarrel. The offending monk said it was an offense, and the Buddha told them to reinstate him because he saw the offense.

Then there is the report of harmony with Anuruddha, Nandiya and Kimbila. I've always loved those names because of their harmony. Whoever got home first would set things up. Whoever got home last would clean up. They agreed on the various tasks and asked for help when needed. Nobody shirked any duty and they thought on each other with loving kindness in public and privately.

Arati, one of the three daughters of Mara

Page 63/4

Arati is converted by the Buddha:

"Tranquil in body, with liberated mind
Contriving nothing, mindful and detached,
Knowing Dhamma, absorbed without thought-roving,
Unangy and unanxious, unperplexed..."

Mara is not happy,

"Fools! You have tried to split a rock
by poking it with a lily stem.
To dig a hill out with your nails,
To chew up iron with your teeth
To find a fooding on a cliff
With a great stone upon your head,
To push a tree down with your chest
And so you come from Gautama frustrated."

Three Lesser Known Trees

After spending 7 days to consolidate enlightenment, he went from the Bodhi tree to the Ajapala Nigrodha, in which a column symbolizes this tree,

Then he went to the Mucalinda Tree after 7 days.

The naga supposedly wrapped his body around the Buddha and he meditated for 7 days like that (p. 33 of The Life of the Buddha)

Then he went to the Rajayatana Tree and sat for 7 days feeling the bliss of deliverance. A Brahman came along and asked him an abstruse metaphysical question and he says you can't call yourself a Brahman until you've attained something.  

Then 2 merchants named Tapussa and Bahalika, who are considered his first lay disciples. They brought rice cakes and honey. They took refuge in the 2 jewels, though they didn't include the sangha  jewel, which they were the first two to join.

Then he went back to the Ajapala Nigrodha tree, where he came up with the 5 spiritual faculties. He was visited by Brahma Sahampati. Then he comes up with the 4 foundations of mindfulness: body, feelings, consciousness, mental objects. Mara confronts him and the Buddha realizes who he is and that causes him to lose his influence. He wonders if he should teach the teachings, maybe he could just enjoy himself meditating under trees the rest of his life. But Brahma Sahampati urges him to share the vision with the world because there are being with little dust in their eyes.

He wants to teach his old teachers, but they have passed away. So he decides to teach the 5 ascetics who attended him when he almost starved himself to death. They were in Benares, in Deer Park at Isipatana, the Resort of the Seers.

He continues meditating for a while now that he's decided to go, and then when he goes he runs across Upaka. He senses great spiritual attainment and the Buddha pronounces his attainment, and Upaka who is a monk, says, "May it be so, friend."

This provokes the question, would you know if you met a Buddha that they were a Buddha?

When he gets to the 5 ascetics, they accuse him up giving up the quest. He says he didn't, and he succeeded. They accuse him again. Again he asserts he didn't quit the quest and that he succeeded. Then he asks them if he ever talked like this before. Then you get the first famous sermon, the first turning of the wheel of the dharma (of which there are 3). I think it is captured in this sutta, which ends,

"Then the Blessed One exclaimed: "So you really know, Kondañña? So you really know?" And that is how Ven. Kondañña acquired the name Añña-Kondañña — Kondañña who knows."

Five dreams

The Buddha has 5 dreams that foreshadow his victory in discovering the hard thing he was striving for (p.22 The Life of the Buddha Nanamoli)

1. His body is huge like Gulliver, and spreads over India.
2. He dreams of the 8 fold path.
3. He would have many come in with cloth to be his students (like the white grubs that covered him when he was awake).
4. White birds would come from the 4 directions and sit on his feet (representing the 4 castes).
5. He used to get dirty walking around in the dust, but he would get food and what he needed without being greedy, deluded or clingy, because the people would respect his way of being.

The Life of the Buddha

I'm reading The Life of the Buddha edited from the Pali Canon by Nanamoli. (I didn't know that Nanamoli was 54 when he died. He only had 11 years to learn and create his books.)

Nanamoli mentioned an Italian friar I'd never heard of Filippo Desideri or Ippolito Desideri, who went to Tibet in 1712. This may be the first exposure to Buddhism by a European but he doesn't publish his book in his lifetime. He wrote books to try to convert them to Christianity. Back in Italy there was all kinds of sectarian conflict. Part of that got his report of his findings not published. I bet there are some pretty good stories in there.

Getting into the text of The Life of the Buddha, I find it amazing that the Buddha went to the two best teachers and learned everything they knew and was offered to take over, and in the second case to be the leader. The first one I think he realized the nothingness of everything, and with the second it seems like he went into the formless dhyanas, of neither perception nor non-perception. But I don't know.

The Buddha talks of subduing fear and dread while being in groves (not the forest or jungle). What I think this points to is a systematic increasing of difficulty, pushing himself harder and harder, but also understanding that certain tasks were necessary to get to the place to develop insight. This is not all he has to subdue.

He has 3 similes, and the first is that trying to make a fire with wet wood won't work. He thinks bodily and mentally yearn for sensual desire will lead to pain when striving in the spiritual life. Even if you withdraw one, and still have mental desire for sensual desire, you can't start a fire with a wet stick. It is only when you withdraw bodily and mental urges for sensual desire can you reach the higher levels of spirituality. There's a lot of talk of the guarding of the gates of the sense, and I find it interesting that you have to conquer desire before you become enlightened--I thought that was a result. But I think the point is that there is a gradual mastering before you can go to a higher level.

You can't subdue the mind with the mind, nor the body with the body. He tried to squash his mind in his jaws, he tried to not breath. These early attempts left him exhausted. Finding the energy didn't work with these methods. He sits by a fire and takes great heat. Then he tried not to eat. He became deathly ill starving himself, his hair fell out, he became emaciated, he probably got nutritional diseases like rickets, beriberi and scurvy. The search had to continue.

He is near the Lilajan River (Wikipedia), what the text says the Neranjara river (photo). Namuci comes to him. Namuci is called Rakshasa on Wikipedia, and he's an asura, or a mythical deity. Also Mara is there.

My feeling is it's another line of thinking, perhaps the commonsensical voice with Namuci. He says to live. Mara tells him to push on. Thus Mara can also be a voice of unhelpful asceticism. He does a kind of rope a dope of psycho babble from the times, to try to convince him to go on. Here we come on an interesting word, "accidy" which is an archaic word for torpor. He speaks of all these virtues with military metaphors Siddhartha would have understood, and suggests it is a virtue to die in battle. He's never met Falstaff.

That is when he thinks of the dhyana meditation he had with his father was doing a ceremonial first ploughing of a field, and he was sitting under a tree meditating. He berates himself for avoiding pleasure altogether. The pleasure of meditation is OK! He ate some boiled rice and bread. His 5 disciples of asceticism are disgusted and leave him. This is the 3rd spiritual community that he leaves or is rejected by. This is the first one that rejects him!

Once he finds enlightenment he will find them and they will overcome their disgust at him for abandoning asceticism and listen to him. Perhaps because of what they saw him do before he tried another path. But he didn't go off and tell them what he was up to. He just follow the thought that meditation was the path. But now he also was pretty good at not eating, so in a way I bet eating after not eating a lot, he felt health surging back into his body. He pushed himself to the brink of death, and it was there that he knew the limit. He could go that far this way. What I'm seeing is someone who did a lot of experimentation, trial and error. But there was an overriding idea that there was something there past what he could see--that is what amazes me.

Well, that's just in the first chapter and a little into the second one, with my thoughts, read the book it's pretty awesome.