Nichiren Shu Study

               2,500 years ago in the foothills of the Himalayas a prince was born who renounced all the luxury and prestige of his position out of compassion for all beings and in order to become the “teacher of gods and men”. This young prince would come to be known as the “Awakened One,” or the Buddha. He gave himself this title because he had aroused himself from the sleep of delusion, the dream of perpetual birth and death.

               After 2,500 years the Buddha is still regarded by over 300 million people as the greatest spiritual figure of all time. Even many of those who do not follow the Buddhist path regard the Buddha and his teachings with great respect and reverence. Many Western Christians have even discovered a new life for their own faith through the insights of Buddhism. Remarkably, in India there is currently a Buddhist revival, as those who have been disenfranchised by the caste system turn to the social and spiritual liberation taught by Buddhism. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that they are being assisted by British Buddhists, whose country has only recently discovered the Buddha's teachings. Buddhism has also inspired many of its followers in all parts of the world to become involved in the peace movement and other important social causes. After 2,500 years Buddhism is still a living religion, and a potent source of spiritual hope and strength. In light of this, the story of the Buddha's life and accomplishments is one with which everyone should become familiar.

               The story takes place during a time of great transition throughout the civilized world. In her book, A History of God, Karen Armstrong sets the scene for this momentous period of world history:

The period 800-200 B.C.E. has been termed the Axial Age. In all the main regions of the civilized world, people created new ideologies that have continued to be crucial and formative. The new religious systems reflected the changed economic and social conditions. For reasons that we do not entirely understand, all the chief civilizations developed along parallel lines, even when there was no commercial contact (as between China and the European area). There was a new prosperity that led to the rise of a merchant class. Power was shifting from king and priest, temple and palace, to the marketplace. The new wealth led to intellectual and cultural fluorescence and also to the development of the individual conscience. Inequality and exploitation became more apparent as the pace of change accelerated in the cities and people began to realize that their own behavior could affect the fate of future generations. Each region developed a distinctive ideology to address these problems and concerns: Taoism and Confucianism in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India and philosophical rationalism in Europe. The Middle East did not produce a uniform solution, but in Iran and Israel, Zoroaster and the Hebrew prophets respectively evolved different versions of monotheism. (A History of God, p.27)

               The established religion in India prior to the Axial Age was the Vedic religion (based upon the Vedas or scriptures which contained hymns and rituals to the gods) of the Aryans. Karen Armstrong went on to say:

In the seventeenth century B.C.E., Aryans from what is now Iran had invaded the Indus valley and subdued the indigenous population. They had imposed their religious ideas, which we find expressed in the collection of odes known as the Rig-Veda. There we find a multitude of gods, expressing many of the same values as the deities of the Middle East and presenting the forces of nature as instinct with power, life and personality. (Ibid, p.28)

               The original purpose of the Vedas was to make it possible for people to commune with the divine order of the universe and its representatives. This intent is fully expressed in the Mantra Gayatri, one of the most famous of the verses in the Rig Veda, which can be translated as: “Let us bring our minds to rest in/the glory of Divine Truth/May Truth inspire our reflection.” (Hymns from the Rig Veda, p.4) Eventually, however, the Vedas were used to manipulate the gods. It was believed that the gods could be approached, appeased and even controlled through the performance of the proper hymns and sacrifices in order to gain good fortune and stave off disaster.

               The Vedas also sacralized the social order imposed by the Aryan conquerors. According to the Rig Veda, when the gods sacrificed the primeval cosmic man, his parts became the four classes of Vedic society.

When they divided Man, the Person,
How were the parts distributed?
What became of His mouth and arms?
What did they call His thighs and feet?
His mouth was the Man of the Word,
Into the Prince His arms were made.
While His thighs produced the People,
His feet gave birth to the Servant.
(Ibid, pp.56-58)

               The "Man of the Word” refers to the Brahmins, the priests who were authorized to recite the hymns, conduct the sacrifices, uphold virtue and to teach the Vedic religion. The "Prince” refers to the kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers who were charged with preserving the peace. The “People” refers to the vaishyas, who were the merchants and landowners responsible for the economy. Finally, the “Servant” refers to the sudras, the serfs and the performers of menial labor. Ideally, these four classes are an attempt to organize society according to the inclinations of the individual. Each person should take up one of those four roles in accordance with their talents and desires. In reality, heredity was what came to decide which class a person belonged to, and naturally the Aryans belonged to the first three classes while the conquered indigenous population became sudras and even outcastes.

               By the time of the Buddha, many people had begun questioning this system. They wanted something more than ritual, sacrifices, and the empty authority of a hereditary priesthood. In order to satisfy their spiritual thirst they retired to the woods in their later years, and looked for sages who could help them. Anew paradigm of four life stages resulted from this, a paradigm all but institutionalized by the time of the Buddha. In youth, the religion of the Vedas would be studied under the guidance of the Brahmins. Following this, the young man would become a householder, which meant having a family and fulfilling ones social duties. This would be followed in middle or old age by a retreat into the forest; as a forest-dweller, one would meditate and reflect upon the spiritual significance of life. The final stage was the life of the wandering mendicant; in this stage, one renounces the world and attains spiritual freedom. The insights produced by such activity were recorded in the Upanishads, and in many ways they brought anew spiritual dimension to the Vedic religion of the Brahmins.

               Many new themes arose for the first time in the Upanishads, including the concepts of reincarnation and the Atman. The Upanishads taught that until a person ceases to identify the self with merely phenomenal appearances and awakens instead to the True Self called the Atman that is identical with the Ultimate Reality known as Brahman, the individual will be forced to repeatedly undergo the cycle of birth and death. In addition, the Upanishads taught the doctrine of karma. Karmas imply means “action,” but it refers to the chain of cause and effect set in motion by our actions; for according to the doctrine of karma everyone must face the consequences of their own good or bad actions in each subsequent life. This teaching was to have great importance and would be further developed by the Buddha in a radically new way. By the Buddha's time, however, many people had become very self-preoccupied as a result of apathy over the social problems engendered by the upheavals of the Axial Age and a misunderstanding of the premise that the True Self or Atman was the key to ultimate bliss.

               The Buddha's time, then, was a time of drastic change and great challenges. The religious traditions of the past were no longer in touch with the needs of the people, and the forest sages and seekers were working to find new answers. His home was the humble city of Kapilavastu, the center of a small tribal kingdom ruled by the Shakya clan located in what is now southern Nepal. It is believed that their rulers shared power with an assembly known as the sangha, a semi-democratic institution upon which the Buddha would base his monastic order. Towards the end of the Buddha's life this small kingdom would be swallowed up by the neighboring state of Kosala, which would in turn be swallowed up by the kingdom of Maghada to the south. The Buddha was born to King Suddhodana and Queen Maya, the rulers of Kapilavastu. His family name was Gautama, and his given name was Siddhartha. As a member of the kshatriya caste, the young Prince Siddhartha was given the finest education that could be had in that part of ancient India. As a young man he learned the ancient Indian martial arts, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, literature, and the religion of the Brahmins. In short, Prince Siddhartha grew up with all the privileges and advantages of his caste in a small kingdom about to be swept away by the inexorable currents of history. It was a very precarious position to be in, but this is what made Siddhartha them an he was. Siddhartha Gautama would, in turn, make his own lasting mark on the future of the world.

               From the very beginning of the Buddha's life we are confronted with the strange and the miraculous. A lot of this is due to the accretions of the pious; however, I believe that some of these fantastic elements were designed to teach and inspire as well as to embellish. Many gods, for instance, take a hand in the story of the Buddha. Perhaps the appearance of these gods and spirits should serve to remind us that there are many inner forces at work within the subconscious mind. These forces may either help or hinder us. Past memories, good and bad associations, built up prejudices, habits or predispositions - all of these can serve to darken our vision or dampen our aspirations. On the other hand, we also have the capacity for insight. Somehow our subconscious mind manages to fit the whole puzzle together, or finds the crucial element, or comes up with anew approach to a dilemma. There may even be actual spiritual beings at work as well. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James points out that if in fact there are spiritual forces at work in our lives, then it will be through just such subconscious phenomena that they will make themselves felt.

               But just as our primary wide-awake consciousness throws open our senses to the touch of things material, so it is logically conceivable that if there be higher spiritual agencies that can directly touch us, the psychological condition of their doing so might be our possession of a subconscious region which alone should yield access to them. (p.198)

               In addition, outside events and opportunities seem to have an uncanny way of corresponding to the necessities of our inner life, providing us with the needed catalysts to facilitate our growth as human beings. C.G. Jung called these meaningful coincidences "synchronicity". Whatever the name or explanation for these internal and external forces, they are a factor in many peoples lives, especially those who are perceptive or sensitive enough to realize it. The role of the gods and other supernatural phenomena in the life of the Buddha is to remind us that there is more at work in our lives than just our conscious decisions and the seeming randomness of outside events. On a more literary level, they also serve to underscore the powerful impact the events of the Buddha's life had on both Shakyamuni and those who knew him and put their trust in him. They serve to heighten the dramatic effect of what is basically the story of an inner struggle.

               In accordance with the teachings of causation it has been taught that Shakyamuni had many previous existences. In each of these he perfected the various virtues that would come to fruition in the future as Buddhahood. In the first such story, Shakyamuni is a wealthy Brahmin named Sumedha who leaves his town to become a hermit in order to find an answer to the inevitable sorrows of life. One day, while visiting another city he has the good fortune of meeting Dipamkara, the Buddha of that time. He is so overcome by the meeting that he makes a vow before Dipamkara to become a Buddha himself. Dipamkara then predicts the future Buddhahood of Sumedha in a future existence. After his last earthly rebirth and before his life as Shakyamuni, the future Buddha lived in the Heaven of Contentment (Skt. Tushita) awaiting the right time, place and family for his final rebirth. Though all of this may seem fanciful, it does demonstrate the Buddhist conviction that all things are the result of the proper causes and conditions. Even Shakyamuni's greatness as a Buddha was the result of a genius borne of previous efforts and his interaction with the peculiar circumstances into which he was born.

               When the right conditions arose Queen Maya of Kapilavastu had a most singular dream. She dreamed that a six tusked white elephant holding a white lotus flower in its trunk circled around her three times and then entered into her womb. At that moment Queen Maya conceived the new Buddha. She would give birth to him painlessly while standing up and holding onto a Sal tree branch while visiting the Lumbini Garden near Kapilavastu. The legend states that immediately upon entering the world, the young Prince Siddhartha took seven steps and made the following statements: "I am born for Enlightenment for the good of the world; this is my last birth in the world of phenomena." (Asvaghosa’s Buddhacarita, part II, p. 4)

               On the fifth day after his birth the baby prince was presented to the Brahmins for his anointing and the choosing of his name according to custom. Upon seeing the baby and examining him, the brahmins declared that he would surely become either the founder of an empire or a Buddha, an awakened one. King Suddhodana was a just and pious king, but worldly success was still far more real to him than spiritual awakening. King Suddhodana, therefore, expressed the hope that his son might choose the path of secular rule, and perhaps later retire into the forest at the appropriate time - after his worldly success was accomplished. In view of the predictions of the Brahmins, the baby was given the name Siddhartha, which means: "He who has accomplished his aim."

               Also in the temple of the Brahmins at this time was the highly respected sage and seer known as Asita. When he saw the baby he began to weep, thereby arousing great fear in the hearts of Siddhartha's parents. They asked him if there was any cause to fear for their son, and Asita told them that he wept not for the baby but for himself. Asita told them that he wept because their son would surely become a Buddha, but he himself was too old and would not live to hear the Buddha's teachings.

               Two days after those events, Queen Maya would die of a fatal illness. From that time on, Mahaprajapati, Queen Maya's sister, would act as the new prince's mother. One can assume that the death of his real mother had a hand in the young prince's sensitivity to the problem of birth and death.

The young prince Siddhartha grew up receiving all the privileges and advantages of his station. King Suddhodana had three palaces built for him, and beautiful courtesans and brilliant teachers surrounded the young prince. Above all, King Suddhodana tried to keep Siddhartha occupied with the pleasures and duties of the life of a prince; he did not wish to see his one heir heading for the forests to live the life of a mendicant. Nevertheless, Prince Siddhartha consistently displayed a compassion for all around him, and could often be found deep in contemplation. Seeing this, King Suddhodana ensured that Prince Siddhartha was married at the age of 16 to the beautiful and charming Princess Yashodhara of the nearby kingdom of the Koliyas. It was not too long before King Suddhodana was presented with a grandson, Rahula. The king hoped that Yashodhara and Rahula would be enough to keep Siddhartha in the palace. Siddhartha, however, could see nothing of any lasting value in the secular life of a ruler.

Despite King Suddhodana's efforts to shield Siddhartha from the harsh realities of life, the prince was painfully aware of the limits of life's pleasures and rewards. His realization of the inevitable fate of all mankind is related in the story of the four sightings. The story runs that Siddhartha wished to leave the confines of the palace and tour his kingdom by chariot. King Suddhodana agreed, but he made sure that the route taken by the prince was cleared of any disturbing sights. The route to be taken would avoid any areas of poverty and destitution. All beggars, the elderly, and the sick were cleared out. The route would also be swept and hung with garlands of flowers. After all the preparations were completed the prince was permitted to ride out of the palace grounds. The gods, however, foiled King Suddhodana's plan by conjuring up the vision of a senile old man, bent and wrinkled by the ravages of time, the sight of which deeply disturbed Siddhartha. The prince asked his charioteer if this man was unique or if all people were destined to become old. The charioteer explained old age to the prince and said, "This comes to us all. "Prince Siddhartha made more excursions from the palace grounds, and each time his father tried to screen all disturbing sights from the route chosen. The gods, however, saw to it that the prince was exposed to all of life's suffering. The next vision was of a man laid waste by sickness. After that, it was a corpse surrounded by grieving friends and family. Each time, his charioteer explained, "This comes to us all." The last vision was of a wandering mendicant. The charioteer explained that this was a man who had renounced the life of a house holder in order to find peace and seek for the answers to life's suffering. Siddhartha knew then, that this was the path that he was meant to follow. What good was palace life if it offered no security from old age, sickness, and death? Siddhartha decided that if he were destined to be a conqueror, he would not be a mere conqueror of kingdoms; rather, his victory would be over suffering itself. It would be a victory for all people.

               One night, after an especially lavish party, Siddhartha saw all of his courtesans sprawled about the royal apartments. In the darkness it seemed to him as though he were seeing piles of corpses strewn about. What had been seductive and sensuous was now gross and repulsive. That night he decided to leave the palace and become a monk. After looking in on his sleeping wife and son one last time, he took his horse and rode out of the palace and into the forest with Chandaka, one of his retainers. There he cut off his hair and traded his court clothes for the humble dress of a mendicant. He then sent Chandaka back with his horse and a message for his family. He would not return until he had conquered old age, sickness and death.

               At this point several people tried to win Siddhartha back to the palace life. The first was a Brahmin from Kapilavastu who argued that he should return out of compassion for his family, duty to his kingdom and the possibility that he need not renounce the family life to achieve enlightenment. Siddhartha pointed out that the grief experienced by his family was the result of ignoring the fact that parting with loved ones is inevitable in the face of old age, death and other calamities. He also pointed out that enlightenment has greater priority than any secular duties. Finally, the life of the householder is the source of too many anxieties, passions, duties and other distractions that would impede the achievement of his goal.

               Next, a counselor from Kapilavastu appeared, arguing that it was pointless to give up the pleasures of the palace for a goal that might never be attained. Perhaps there were no answers to be found. Why not simply look to the Vedas, the scriptures, for an answer? Siddhartha's reply was that he must find out for himself if there is an answer to life's suffering. He refused to settle for blind faith, fatalism or even agnosticism.

               Finally, Siddhartha encountered King Bimbisara of Magadha who offered him a share in his kingdom. King Bimbisara had no doubt heard of the prophecies that Siddhartha was to be a world conqueror and wanted to see Magadha as the seat of that future empire. Once again, Siddhartha rejected the offer of secular glories in order to continue his quest for enlightenment. For his part, King Bimbisara was so impressed by Siddhartha’s sincerity that he made him promise that if he did attain enlightenment he would return to Magadha and teach the way of liberation.

               In his wanderings Siddhartha met many ascetics who practiced severe disciplines and forms of self-torture in order to attain religious merits and the hope of are birth into one of the many heavenly abodes of bliss. Siddhartha rejected this as ridiculous. Why should pleasure come out of pain? Why should one under go austerities in this life in the hope of indulging oneself in the next? Where was the virtue in that? Siddhartha rejected self-torture and self-seeking as worthless if one wants to end the cycle of suffering and pain.

               Siddhartha then studied with two great masters of meditation. The first was Arada Kalama, who had attained a state wherein one experiences freedom from the material world in the state of nothingness. Siddhartha rapidly achieved this state as well under Arada Kalama's instruction. It was not what he was hoping for. He then studied with Rudraka Ramaputra, who was able to enter into a state where in there is neither perception nor non-perception. This was also a disappointment for Siddhartha. Siddhartha saw that altered states of consciousness by themselves could not change one's life or provide any meaningful answers to life's problems. In both cases his former teachers asked him to assist them in teaching their disciples, but both times Siddhartha turned them down and continued on his search for true liberation from birth and death.

               Siddhartha then joined a band of five ascetics and lived a very austere and reclusive life for six years. He had hoped that a life of self-denial and severe discipline as opposed to self-torture would give him the clarity he needed to find an answer. After six years, however, his body was so weakened from fasting that he was close to death and still no closer to his goal. In fact, he passed out by the side of the Nairanjana River while trying to get some water. A village woman named Sujata, who was stirred by compassion for him and nursed him back to health with rice-gruel, saved him from death. Learning of this, the five ascetics were disappointed in this seeming lapse. How could he let himself be ministered to like that by a woman? How could he forsake his ascetic discipline? With these thoughts the five ascetics left for the deer park at Varanasi. In the meantime, Siddhartha realized that self-denial is as much of a hindrance to achieving enlightenment as self-indulgence.

                Now the time had come for Siddhartha to realize his ultimate aim. He thought back to a day in his youth when he sat beneath a rose-apple tree in a state of calm abiding and clear awareness. he decided to again sit beneath a tree and reflect upon life in such a state of calm centered awareness. After regaining his health he went to the base of a fig tree near the town of Gaya, sat upon a mat made of grass and made the following vow: “Let only my skin, sinews, and bones remain and let the flesh and blood in my body dry up; but not until I attain supreme Enlightenment will I give up this seat of meditation.” (The Story of Gotama Buddha, p.94) This may sound like an extreme attitude to take, but it was not his intention to return to asceticism or self-torture; rather, it was an expression of his single-minded dedication to achieving his goal.

               Now, this aroused the ire of Mara, the Devil of the Sixth Heaven, whose name means "Stealer of Life." The character of Mara may seem confusing to some people, so a little explanation may be called for here. The title "Devil of the Sixth Heaven" may seem very peculiar for instance, especially to those who associate devils and demons exclusively with Hell and the nether world. The Indian conception of Mara, however, is a bit different from the Christian conception of Satan, though there are similarities. In Indian cosmology, Mara is no mere punisher of evil people in an infernal afterlife or a celestial rebel against the true God. Instead, Mara is the being in charge of all existence involving passion and desire; in fact, he is also known as Kamadeva, the god of desire whose weapons are the flowers of sensuality and longing which keeps sentient beings from realizing liberation. It is his responsibility as a kind of cosmic prison-warden to keep all sentient beings trapped in the cycle of birth and death. He ensures that they are constantly transmigrating through all types of existence from hellish to heavenly, always in pursuit of their desires. Mara is the stealer of life because it is his machinations that rob people of their life's purpose, which is to achieve liberation. According to this conception, hell and heaven are both part of the cycle of suffering. There are, in fact, more rarefied heavens which are beyond the jurisdiction of Mara, but in Buddhist teaching these are also considered impermanent states wherein one only temporarily transcend Mara’s jurisdiction.

               So it was that Mara was very concerned that Siddhartha was on the verge of liberation from his realm. As Siddhartha took up his meditation beneath the Bodhi Tree (as the fig tree he sat under came to be called), Mara summoned his daughters and his demonic armies to prevent Siddhartha from attaining enlightenment. His first attempt was to send in his beautiful daughters to tempt Siddhartha back to a worldly life of sensual pleasures. When his daughters were unsuccessful, he turned to brute force by sending his army of demons. Once again, Siddhartha was unmoved. Even when the demons shot arrows or threw boulders or balls of flame at him, he remained still and the missiles turned into flowers floating harmlessly to the ground. As a last resort, Mara himself appeared and challenged Shakyamuni, saying, "What gives you the right to presume that you can leave my realm of desire?" Siddhartha's reply was to place one hand upon the ground, thus calling the Earth itself to witness that there was no place where Siddhartha had not sacrificed himself in previous lifetimes for the sake of Enlightenment for all sentient beings. Mara could do no more, and so fled with his army. Siddhartha's compassion and dedication had enabled him to subjugate Mara and his demon army.

               Now that all of the distractions, doubts and unconscious inhibitions symbolized by the demon army were cleared away, Siddhartha began to gain greater and greater insight into the human condition beginning with his own life. He recollected all of the events in all of his previous lives and reviewed all of the causes and conditions that had enabled him to arrive at the Bodhi Tree. Next, his awareness took in the lives of all sentient beings, and he saw how their lives were also governed by the causes and conditions that they themselves had set in motion. Finally, he contemplated the chain of causation, whereby all things come into existence and sentient beings forge their own destiny. He saw that all sentient beings suffering within the cycle of birth and death are trapped there because of the ignorant pursuit of selfish desires. Siddhartha then realized that all suffering was due to a misapprehension of the nature of reality. As the night came to an end and the morning star rose into the dawn sky, Siddhartha awakened to the true nature of life; from that point on he was known as Shakyamuni Buddha. The name Shakyamuni means "Sage of the Shakya Clan"; while the title Buddha means the “Awakened One". “Tathagata” is another name for the Buddha meaning both “Thus Come One” and “Thus Gone One”. It is a title that refers to the Buddha’s ability to come and go from the realm of Truth.

               The Buddha remained in meditation beneath the Bodhi Tree for a week. His goal was accomplished but now he had to decide what to do next. At this point, Mara saw an opportunity to rid the world of the Buddha before anyone else could be liberated. He went again before the Buddha and argued that no one else would be able to comprehend what he had realized; and in any case no one else would be willing to give up their worldly pleasures and dedicate themselves as Siddhartha had. Therefore, it would be best for the Buddha to leave the world and enter the bliss of nirvana, which is the extinction of suffering and worldly life.

               As the Buddha considered how difficult it would be to teach and liberate others, the god Brahma appeared to plead the case of all sentient beings. Brahma was the god who resided in the first of the form realm heavens that transcend the desire realm heavens. In Indian cosmology, Brahma is believed to be the god of creation and lord of the universe. It should also be pointed out that in Buddhism, this does not make Brahma superior to the Buddha, for even the gods are caught in the cycle of birth and death and their exalted positions are only temporary states. Since even divine beings such as Brahma need to be liberated, the Buddha came to be known as the teacher of gods and men.

               Brahma argued that just as a wealthy man should be generous, the Buddha should also be charitable with the Dharma, or Truth. In addition, not all people were hopelessly enmeshed in ignorance and desire. Indeed, some only need a guide and others only require the right amount of preparation and assistance in order to liberate themselves from the cycle of birth and death. Hearing this the Buddha resolved to teach what he had learned for the sake of all sentient beings; and so, he set out to find his five former companions in asceticism, since they were the most prepared to hear the Dharma. Once again, Mara had lost, and now all sentient beings would receive the teaching leading to enlightenment and liberation.