A Sketch of the Buddha's Life
Readings from the Pali Canon
13,055 words
This modest selection of excerpts from the Pali Canon provides a rough sketch of the life of the Buddha. I hope you will find enough in this rather sparse selection to gain at least an inkling both of the range of the Buddhas teachings and of the sweeping trajectory of his extraordinary life....
I have heard that at one time the Blessed One was staying at Vesali, in the Peaked Roof Hall in the Great Forest.
Then Maha Pajapati Gotami went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, stood to one side. As she was standing there she said to him: "It would be good, venerable sir, if the Blessed One would teach me the Dhamma in brief such that, having heard the Dhamma from the Blessed One, I might dwell alone, secluded, heedful, ardent, and resolute."
"Gotami, the qualities of which you may know, These qualities lead to passion, not to dispassion; to being fettered, not to being unfettered; to accumulating, not to shedding; to self aggrandizement, not to modesty; to discontent, not to contentment; to entanglement, not to seclusion; to laziness, not to aroused persistence; to being burdensome, not to being un burdensome: You may definitely hold, This is not the Dhamma, this is not the Vinaya, this is not the Teachers instruction.
"As for the qualities of which you may know, These qualities lead to dispassion, not to passion; to being unfettered, not to being fettered; to shedding, not to accumulating; to modesty, not to self aggrandizement; to contentment, not to discontent; to seclusion, not to entanglement; to aroused persistence, not to laziness; to being un burdensome, not to being burdensome: You may definitely hold, This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teachers instruction."
That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, Maha Pajapati Gotami delighted at his words.
[AN VIII.53]