The Buddhist World

John Powers, John Powers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317420163
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Buddhist World joins a series of books on the world's great religions and cultures, offering a lively and up-to-date survey of Buddhist studies for students and scholars alike. It explores regional varieties of Buddhism and core topics including buddha-nature, ritual, and pilgrimage. In addition to historical and geo-political views of Buddhism, the volume features thematic chapters on philosophical concepts such as ethics, as well as social constructs and categories such as community and family. The book also addresses lived Buddhism in its many forms, examining the ways in which modernity is reshaping traditional structures, ancient doctrines, and cosmological beliefs.

Part I
The Historical and Geo-Political Buddhist World

Chapter One
Buddhas and Buddhisms

John Powers

Origins

In the middle of the first millennium BCE in India, there were a number of movements of ascetics (śrāmaṇa) who sought to liberate the self or soul (ātman) from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (saṃsāra) through various combinations of meditation and physical regimens designed to eliminate attachment to the world. The end goal was variously conceived as rebirth in heaven or a transcendent state in which the soul, completely separated from matter, remained forever in bliss.

The movement that would become known as Buddhism, however, rejected several key elements of its rivals’ systems. Siddhārtha Gautama – referred to by Buddhists as “Buddha,” meaning “Awakened One” – declared that there is no permanent, enduring self or essence, either in persons or in phenomena, and that the things of the universe come into being as a result of causes and conditions, undergo constant change, and eventually pass away. Thus they have no self (anātman; Pāli: anattā)¹ and are impermanent (anitya; Pāli: anicca). As a result of the transient nature of phenomena and conditions in the world, we are unable to hold onto things we find desirable and have to endure unpleasant situations. Because this is the case, the Buddha further stated that the phenomena of cyclic existence are profoundly unsatisfactory and prone to lead to suffering (duḥkha; Pāli: dukkha). Beings transmigrate from life to life because of their actions (karma; Pāli: kamma). Ordinary beings make decisions based on a misperception of the true nature of reality, and their ignorance (avidyā; Pāli: avijjā) leads them to do things that are counterproductive and that result in future unhappiness.

After “awakening” to the true nature of reality, the Buddha began to teach others and created an order of monks (bhikṣu; Pāli: bhikkhu) dedicated to moral behavior and introspective meditation who sought to overcome false beliefs and negative actions that result in continued rebirth. The Buddha referred to the final state of liberation as “nirvana,” and declared that it is the supreme religious goal, a state of perfect peace beyond the changes and disappointments of ordinary existence. During his lifetime, the monastic order spread, and he also began to attract a number of lay followers. He later instituted an ordination for nuns, and following his death his monastic and lay followers spread his message beyond India to surrounding countries. At some point in the past 2,500 years, Buddhism has been a major religion in most areas of Asia, and today millions of people in North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Africa identify themselves as Buddhists.

Typically one becomes a Buddhist by “taking refuge” in the “three refuges” (or “three jewels”): (1) Buddha; (2) Dharma (Pāli: Dhamma: Buddhist doctrine and practice); and (3) Saṃgha (Pāli Saṅgha: the monastic community). Taking refuge is a formal commitment to engage in Buddhist practice and an acknowledgement that one needs help to attain salvation. The Buddha is a person who found the path to final liberation, the Dharma encompasses his teachings and techniques designed to help others to attain it for themselves, and the Saṅgha is a community of religious practitioners who have devoted their lives to studying and teaching the Dharma and putting it into practice in their daily lives.

The Buddha

Traditional Biographies of the Buddha

Despite his importance for Buddhism and his status as the founder of a major religion, nothing is known with certainty about the Buddha’s life. There are several popular biographies, but the earliest was written hundreds of years after his death, and extant accounts contain conflicting details, legends, and mythological material. While these texts may be unreliable as historical sources, they reveal a great deal about how the figure of the Buddha is conceived by Buddhists and how his life has become an exemplary tale of the path to liberation that integrates the ideals, beliefs, and practices of various traditions. The account that follows will present the main features of the Buddha’s life that are found in the most popular biographical sources (the chapter by Richard Hayes in this volume expands on this brief account). These include statements in a number of sermons (sūtra; Pāli: sutta) attributed to the Buddha and contained in the canon of the Theravāda school; the Great Story (Mahāvastu), composed in the first century CE; the Extensive Sport (Lalitavistara), and the Deeds of the Buddha (Buddhacarita), composed by Aśvaghoṣa in the second century CE.

According to Buddhist tradition, there have been buddhas in the past, and there will be more in the future. Each future buddha begins the path to awakening (bodhi) by making a vow to a buddha to pursue buddhahood in order to benefit countless living beings. Stories of his past lives report that the man who founded the tradition known as Buddhism (referred to as Śākyamuni – “Sage of the Śākyas” – because he was born into the Śākya clan) first resolved to follow the path to awakening when he met the buddha Dīpaṃkara countless eons ago. He made a vow before Dīpaṃkara that he too would one day become a buddha and that he would dedicate countless lives to the pursuit of such qualities as compassion, generosity, patience, and wisdom in order to help the innumerable beings in the universe who are suffering. From that point onward, he gradually cultivated the exalted qualities of a buddha.

The Buddha’s Past Lives

The Birth Stories (Jātaka), a collection of narratives of the Buddha’s previous lives that describe how he cultivated and displayed exemplary qualities, is widely popular throughout the Buddhist world. They describe his progress in perfecting the matrix of attitudes and practices that lead to buddhahood. In one of these stories, he was an ascetic named Kṣāntivādin (He Who Professes Patience), who strove to perfect the virtue of patience. One day he was meditating at the fringes of a king’s pleasure grove. When the king fell into a drunken sleep, his courtesans wandered off. Upon seeing Kṣāntivādin, they asked him to describe his religious practices.

Meanwhile, the king woke up and became enraged because his retinue had left him, and when he found them seated around Kṣāntivādin, the king angrily strode up to him and demanded to know what he was teaching his courtesans. Kṣāntivādin responded that he proclaimed the “doctrine of patience.” He explained that patience requires that one not become angry “even when people abuse you or strike and revile you.” The king decided to expose him as a fraud and ordered his executioner to whip him with a branch of thorns one thousand times. Even though his flesh was torn open and blood flowed, he told the king that his patience was more than skin deep, that it permeated his entire body. The king commanded the executioner to cut off both of Kṣāntivādin’s hands, but the ascetic remained unperturbed. He then ordered that Kṣāntivādin’s feet be severed, followed by his nose and ears, but at no time did he become angry or protest. Before he died, he forgave the king for his evil deeds, with the result that this extraordinary display of patience helped him to perfect equanimity. When one cultivates a spiritual quality like patience or generosity – particularly when one is tested to the extreme like Kṣāntivādin – this practice has a profound effect on one’s mental continuum, and it influences not only subsequent moments of one’s present existence but future lives as well.

In his penultimate birth, he was a prince named Vessantara (Ideal Action), who excelled in the practice of generosity. Upon learning that a neighboring kingdom was beset by drought, he gave it a magical elephant that brought rain wherever it went. When the people of his kingdom heard that he had given away this symbol of their prosperity, they protested to Vessantara’s father the king, who reluctantly ordered him exiled. But even after losing his royal birthright, Vessantara continued to give away his possessions. Accompanied by his wife and two children, he set off into exile, and when an evil brahman asked Vessantara for his children, he immediately agreed, even though they clung to his legs and begged him to change his mind. He later gave away his wife to an ascetic (the god Brahmā in disguise), following which he was restored to his kingdom, but he continued to practice generosity until the end of his life. Because of his magnanimity and the good karma he generated through his actions, he was reborn in Tuṣita heaven, the final destination for those who are about to become buddhas.

The Jātaka stories function as benchmarks for Buddhists, presenting extraordinary examples of the cultivation of a particular quality, such as patience, morality, or generosity, and are examples of total commitment to the religious path and to the betterment of others. Most Buddhists fall short of these ideals, and few people who hear them are motivated to give away their lives, their bodies, or all their possessions to help others, but the enduring popularity of these tales indicates that they serve to motivate sincere Buddhists to greater efforts in cultivating positive attitudes and actions.

The Buddha’s Birth and Early Years

Siddhārtha Gautama was born in the Terai Lowlands near the foothills of the Himalayas in modern-day Nepal. He probably lived during the fifth century BCE (around 490–410 BCE), though there is considerable debate among Buddhist traditions and contemporary scholars regarding the time of his birth and death.

According to traditional accounts, Siddhārtha (He Whose Aims Are Accomplished) was born in the town of Kapilavastu, the capital city of a small kingdom ruled by his father Śuddhodana. Near the end of her pregnancy, his mother Māyā traveled to her parents’ home to give birth, but went into labor along the way in a grove named Lumbinī. She stood with her hand on a tree, and the future buddha emerged from her side and floated to the ground. He took seven steps in each of the four cardinal directions, and lotuses bloomed where his feet touched the earth. He then declared that this would be his final birth.

As was customary, his father commanded astrologers to predict his son’s future, and all but one agreed that he would become a great king (cakravartin). One astrologer, however, stated that he would pursue this path only if he were shielded from the harsh realities of the world and prevented from seeing old age, sickness, and death prior to his ascension to the throne. He should also be prevented from encountering world-renouncing ascetics, because they would present him with an alternative way of life.

Determined that his son would follow in his footsteps and inherit the kingdom, Śuddhodana ordered that no sick or old people be allowed in the palace and that if anyone died the corpse should be removed quickly. Siddhārtha was surrounded by beautiful courtesans, whose duty was to keep him entertained and engaged in worldly pleasures. He excelled at sports and martial arts, and he won every contest of skill and strength. He was also highly intelligent and quickly mastered all aspects of learning, including sciences and arts. At the age of sixteen, he married a beautiful princess named Yaśodharā, and soon afterward she gave birth to a son. By this time, however, Siddhārtha had become dissatisfied with his life of luxury and conceived an interest in renouncing the world and pursuing liberation, and so he named his son Rāhula (Fetter), indicating that he was one of the many factors preventing him from entering the religious life.

I was comfortable, extremely comfortable, incomparably comfortable. My father’s mansion had lotus pools of blue, red, and white all for my benefit … Day and night a white canopy was held over me to protect me from the cold, heat, dust, chaff, or dew. I had three palaces, one for winter, one for summer, and one for the rainy season. During the rainy season, I was in the palace suited for the rains surrounded by female entertainers and was never left alone.

Aṅguttara-nikāya I.145ff

According to one account, at the age of twenty-nine Siddhārtha requested that he be allowed to go out into the city, but his father was hesitant because of the possibility that he might be confronted by the old, the sick, by world renouncers, or by signs of death (collectively referred to as the “four sights”). Śuddhodana finally acceded to the request but ordered his soldiers to clear the streets of all evidence of suffering. Despite his efforts, as the royal chariot swept through the streets, accompanied by the cheers of the townsfolk, an old and decrepit man wandered in front of it, and the charioteer was forced to stop as he hobbled painfully across the street. Never having seen an old person before, Siddhārtha asked how the man came to be so afflicted, his frame bent, his gait slow and painful, his body shaking and frail. Channa the charioteer told the prince that old age is the fate of all beings, and when Siddhārtha was further informed that he too would eventually lose his youthful vigor and become like the old man, he was profoundly distressed and asked to be returned to the palace.

Renouncing the World

No longer satisfied with the fleeting enjoyments provided for him, Siddhārtha contemplated the uncomfortable fact of his own mortality. In subsequent trips into the city, he encountered a sick man and a corpse, and he was informed that all beings – including pampered princes – become sick and old, and eventually die. On a fourth trip, he observed a world renouncer, standing above the crowd in perfect equanimity, and he saw a way out of his dilemma. Upon his return to the palace, he announced that he intended to leave his home and become a wandering ascetic, dedicated to the pursuit of final liberation from cyclic existence. His father refused to allow this and promised to provide Siddhārtha whatever he desired if he would stay. The prince asked if his father could guarantee that he would never become ill, never grow old, and never die, to which Śuddhodana remained silent.

In the spring of my life, despite the tears shed by my parents, I shaved my head, put on robes, renounced my home, and became a homeless monk.

Majjhima-nikāya I.163

One night after a celebration Siddhārtha observed the palace courtesans slumped in various ...