1. The Buddha and His Teachings

The Buddha, the founder of Buddhism was born in the Lumbinī grove, in the vicinity of Kapilavatthu, near the present-day border of India and Nepal in the 6^th century B.C. He was called Siddhattha Gotama (Sanskrit. Siddhārtha Gautama). Siddhattha’ s father, Suddhodana, was a relatively powerful and wealthy leader of a small tribe called the Sakkya, structured more as a republic than a kingdom, and located in the Ganges river basin near the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains (Kapilavatthu was its capital). His mother Mahāmāyā died a week after his birth, and he was raised by Mahāpajāpati Gotamī, an aunt who became his father’s second wife.

At the time of his birth, religious authorities observed that Siddhattha possessed the ‘thirty-two marks peculiar to a Great Man’ and they predicted that he would become an important world figure, either a just ruler or an enlightened spiritual leader. His father was determined that he should become a ruler, and to ensure this outcome he protected his son from everything unpleasant in life. An early omen should have warned Suddhodana that his son had a different destiny.

Presumably Siddhattha was raised in considerable prosperity and received a good education by the standards of the time. He was also reputed to have been extremely attractive physically. Aged sixteen, he married the beautiful Yasodharā, the Koliyan Princess. That Siddhattha was married, had a son, and was probably in line to acquire the power and wealth of his father no doubt made him a very fortunate and much envied young man in the Kingdom of Sakkya (in modern Nepal). Several years later, when he was twenty-nine, she gave birth to their only child, their son Rāhula.

At the age of twelve, Siddhattha was found meditating under a tree during a festival. Eventually, he discovered what everyone comes to know–that there is suffering in human life. One day he left the palace and saw a decrepit, bent-over old man walking with a stick to support him. Thus Siddhattha realized that human beings are not forever young: we all age and grow old. On a second outing, he saw a man who was extremely ill. Thus Siddhattha realized that human beings are not forever healthy: we are all liable to sickness. On a third excursion, he saw a dead man in a funeral procession. Thus Siddhattha realized that human beings do not live forever: we all die eventually.

The threefold discovery that aging, illness and death are facts of every human life was a shock to Siddhattha. He was overcome with disgust and shame. He wondered: What is the meaning of human suffering? What is its cause? Can it be overcome? How can such questions be answered? On a fourth outing, Siddhattha saw a man who had left home, shaved his head, and donned yellow robes: he was seeking a life of wisdom, virtue and tranquillity outside the conventional life of society, and he became an initial role-model for Siddhattha. The first three omens signify the nature of life symbolically and fourth was considered as the ideal life to go in search of truth, remedy for unsatisfactoriness of life.

At the age of twenty-nine, Siddhattha left his kingdom and became an ascetic to find the solution—the way of this universal suffering. He began his search by seeking instruction from persons who were reputed to be wise. The dominant religion in his society was Brahmanism. There are three features of Brahmanism worth noting here. First, it maintained that all persons were determined by birth to fall into exactly one class in a hierarchy of four: the religious leaders known as Brahmins, rulers and warriors, farmers and traders, and servants. Second, Brahmanism accepted polytheism and supposed that benefits from the gods could be obtained by sacrificial rituals. Third, it emphasized the value of ascetic practices as well as meditation techniques known as yoga. As the Buddha, Siddhattha would be critical of the first two of these tenets, but he would incorporate and transform both features of the third. It is especially significant that, as he began his quest, he found himself in a world in which meditation was already regarded as an important spiritual discipline. It was with two teachers of meditation that he embarked on his quest for understanding.

The first was Ālāra Kālāma. Siddhattha quickly learned Kālāma’ s teaching and achieved up to the third meditative absorption of formless sphere level in his system–what he called ‘the base of nothingness’. But Siddhattha was not satisfied with what he had achieved.

He said,

‘This teaching does not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to liberation (nibbāna)’.^[1]

(Nāyaṃ dhammo nibbidāya na virāgāya na nirodhāya na upasamāya na abhiññāya na sambodhāya na nibbānāya saṃvattati).^[2]

His second teacher was Uddaka Rāmaputta. Once again, Siddhattha rapidly understood his teaching and achieved forth medita-tive absorption of formless sphere, the ‘base of neither-perception-nor-nonperception’. But as before, Siddhattha was similarly dissatisfied. Having departed from his two more conventional teachers, Siddhattha joined company with a group of five ascetics. Among them he practiced asceticism with a vengeance, bringing himself to ‘a state of extreme emaciation’ and nearly to the point of death by eating almost nothing.

In addition, he undertook a ‘breathless meditation’ he described in these words:

‘I stopped the in-breaths and out-breaths through my mouth, nose, and ears. While I did so, violent winds cut through my head. Just as if a strong man were to crush my head with the tip of a sharp sword, so too, while I stopped I stopped the in-breaths and outbreaths through my mouth, nose, and ears, violent winds cut through my head.^[3]

(Tassa mayhaṃ mukhato ca nāsato ca kaṇṇato ca assāsapassāsesu uparuddhesu adhimattā sīse sīsave-danā honti. Seyyathāpi aggivessena balavā puriso varattakkhaṇdhena sīse sīs-veṭhaṃ dadeya, evameva kho me aggivessena mukhato ca nāsato ca kaṇṇato ca assāsapassāsesu uparuddhesu adhimattā sīse sīsavedanā honti).^[4]

But it was all to no avail. Eventually, after nearly six years, Siddhattha reached the conclusion that ‘by this racking practice of austerities I have not attained any superhuman states, any distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones.’ He asked, ‘could there be another path to enlightenment?’ Thinking there must be, he began to eat food provided by a young woman named Sujātā, and his five ascetic companions left him, disgusted that he had ‘reverted to luxury’.^[5] Once nourished, Siddhattha sat under the ‘Bodhi-tree’ (tree of enlightenment) at Buddha-Gaya, (near Gaya in modern Bihar) and he began to reflect and meditate, determined to achieve enlightenment on his own.

He promptly passed through four levels of concentration, the four jhānas that are a key part of Buddhist meditation. Siddhattha’ s mind was thereby ‘purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection’. He then attained three kinds of knowledge. The first was specific knowledge of his own past lives. The second was knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings, those who lived well in a ‘good destination,’ and those who did not in a ‘state of deprivation.’ The third and most important was knowledge of the nature of suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation–what he would call the four noble truths (ariyasaccā), the heart of his teaching. Thus his mind was liberated from the taints (āsava) of sensual desire, being, and ignorance.

He had achieved enlightenment at the age of thirty–five under the ‘Bodhi-tree’ at Buddha-Gaya.

After the enlightenment he was called the Buddha, the Enlightened One, or more correctly Sammāsam-buddha, the Fully Enlightened One.

‘Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose.’^[6]

(Avijjā vihattā vijjā uppannā, tamo vihato āloko uppanno).^[7]

He declared,

‘I directly knew: “birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being’.^[8]

(Khīṇā jāti vusitaṃ brahmacariyṃ kataṃ karaṇī-yaṃ nāparaṃ itthattāya).^[9]

After his Enlightenment, Gotama the Buddha decided to teach what he had learned ‘out of compassion for beings’. He was aged thirtyfive and would spend the remaining forty-five years of his life teaching the Dhamma to all who would listen so that they themselves might achieve enlightenment and overcome suffering.

The Buddha’s initial thought was to return to his first two teachers, Ālāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, but they had both died recently. He chooses as first recipients of his teaching a group of five ascetics who had attended on him during his years of ascetic practice. He delivered his first sermon to a group of five ascetics in the Deer Park at Isipatana (modern Sarnath), near Bārānasī (Varanasi). That first sermon is the first discourse of the Buddha itself, known as “the Setting in Motion of the Wheel of the Dhamma” (Dhammasakkapavattana sutta).

It is interesting to note that the discourse begins by showing the futility of the two extremes practices prevailing among the truth seekers of the day. The first of two practices mentioned in the discourse was based on materialism (ucchedavāda) and the other was on eternalism (sassatavāda).

The Buddha says that there are two extremes to be avoided by a recluse who is seeking realization. The two extremes are self-indulgence (kāmasukhallikānuyoga) and self-mortification (attakilamathānu-yoga). Attachment to worldly enjoyment in respect of sensual pleasure is low (hīno), vulgar (gammo), way of worldlings (pothujjaniko), ignoble (anariyo), and unbeneficial (anattasaṃhito). Self-mortification is full of suffering (dukkho), ignoble (anariyo), and unbeneficial (anatta-saṃhito). Although five adjectives have been used for the former and three for the latter with reference to the basic of ideology on which they were founded for purpose of realising truth, the two extreme practices are comparatively useless.

The Buddha pointed out the middle path (majjhimapaṭipadā) lying between these two extremes, product insight and knowledge leading to serenity, higher knowledge, full enlightenment and supreme bliss, nibbāna. Then discourse summerises the eight factors of middle path and moves on to reveal the four noble truths:

1. the noble truth of suffering (dukkhasaccā)
2. the noble truth of the origin of suffering (dukkhasamudayasaccā)
3. the noble truth of the cessation of suffering (dukkhanirodhasaccā)
4. the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering (dukkhaniro-dhagāminipaṭipadā ariyasaccā).

1. This is noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering, union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing suffering; not to get what one wants suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.

(Dukkaṃ ariyasaccaṃ-jātipi dhukkā jarāpi dukkhā byādipi dukkho maraṇaṃ-pi dukkhaṃ appiyehi sammapayogo dukkho piyehi vippayogo dukkho yapic-chaṃ nalabatitampi dukkhaṃ saṃkhittena pañcupādanakkhandhā dukkhā).^[10]

2. This is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving that leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination.

(Dukkasa-mudayaṃ ariyasaccaṃ-yāyaṃ taṇhā ponobbhavikā nandīrāga-sahagatā tatratatrābinandinī seyaṭhidaṃkāma-taṇhā bhavataṇhā vibhavataṇhā).^[11]

3. This is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up, and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonattachment.

(Dukkanirodayaṃ ariyasaccaṃ-yo tassāyeva taṇhāya asesavirāganirodho cāgo paṭinissaggo mutti anālayo).^[12]

4. This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is noble eightfold path; right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

(Dukkanirodagāminīpaṭipadā ariyasaccaṃayameva ariyo aṭṭh-aṅgiko maggo, seyyathidaṃ sammādiṭṭhi sammāsaṅkappa sammāvācā sam-mākammanta sammāājīva, sammāvāyama sammāsati sammāsamādhi).^[13]

The truth of suffering should be fully understood (pariññeyya). The truth of its origin, craving, should be abandoned (pahātabba). The truth of cessation, nibbāna, should be realized (sacchikātabba). The truth of way, the noble eightfold path, should be developed (bhāvetabba).

The fourth noble truth completes the pattern established by the first three truths by revealing the means to eliminate craving and thereby bring an end to suffering. This truth teaches the “middle way” discovered by the Buddha, the noble eightfold path.

The noble eightfold path can be incorporated into threefold: virtue or morality (sīla), concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā). Right speech, right action, and right livelihood made up virtue or morality (sīla); right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration made up concentration (samādhi); and right view and right intention made up the wisdom (paññā). The threefold sequence in turn serves as the basic outline for the gradual training.

The Sīla consists of moral practices involving the conscious and voluntary transformation of one’s patterns of bodily and verbal behavior, samādhi the development of mental composure, and paññā the cultivation of the insight that leads to moral perfection. They are composed of eight factors call “noble path” leading to the extinction of suffering. If a person has completely developed the noble path, it is also considered that he has completely developed “the factors leading to enlightenment (bodhipakkhiya), which comprise the teachings of the Buddha.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, p. 258

[2]:

MN I, p. 164

[3]:

Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, p. 337-8

[4]:

MN I, p. 243

[5]:

MN I, p. 338

[6]:

Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, p. 105

[7]:

MN I, p. 21

[8]:

Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, p. 106

[9]:

MN I, p. 22

[10]:

SN V, p. 420

[11]:

Ibid, p. 420

[12]:

Ibid, p. 420

[13]:

SN V, p. 420