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....
He Becomes The Tathagata
"The world has been fully awakened to by the Tathagata. From the world, the Tathagata is disjoined. The origination of the world has been fully awakened to by the Tathagata. The origination of the world has, by the Tathagata, been abandoned. The cessation of the world has been fully awakened to by the Tathagata. The cessation of the world has, by the Tathagata, been realized. The path leading to the cessation of the world has been fully awakened to by the Tathagata. The path leading to the cessation of the world has, by the Tathagata, been developed.
Whatever in this world -- with its gods, Maras, and Brahmas, its generations complete with contemplatives and priests, princes and men -- is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect, that has been fully awakened to by the Tathagata. Thus he is called the Tathagata.
From the night the Tathagata fully awakens to the unsurpassed Right Self awakening to the night he is totally unbound in the Unbinding property with no fuel remaining, whatever the Tathagata has said, spoken, explained is just so (tatha) and not otherwise. Thus he is called the Tathagata.
The Tathagata is one who does in line with (tathaa) what he teaches, one who teaches in line with what he does. Thus he is called the Tathagata.
In this world with its gods, Maras, and Brahmas, its generations complete with contemplatives and priests, princes and men, the Tathagata is the conqueror, unconquered, all seeing, the wielder of power. Thus he is called the Tathagata."
[Iti 112]