So basically, there's this guy named Siddhatta Gotama who woke up one day, realized he was unfulfilled, left his wife and baby, shaved his head, donned the orange robe, and began wandering the earth as a monk.
There's the short version. Let's explore some of that.
In the beginning, no Buddhist would ever write a biography of Gotama. "One ninth-century master, who founded the Lin-Chi line of Zen Buddhism, even went so far as to command his disciples, 'If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha!' to emphasize the importance of maintaining this independence from authority figures."1
So, I'll back it up even further. Gotama was a rich boy. His father was an aristocrat who had his baby boy examined for marks that would foretell his future. Wise men swore he bore signs of future kingship....or a Buddha who achieved ultimate enlightenment. One of these sages told his father he would see four things: an old man, a sick person, a corpse, and a monk, and these would trigger his following his path to enlightenment instead of becoming a great king. So his father took great care to protect him, shielding him from the outside world so he wouldn't see these things...but of course, over the course of his young life, he did, in fact, come into contact with an old man, a sick man, and a corpse. Gotama was beginning to seriously question his life and ponder great, unexplained things when he saw a yellow-robed monk and decided to follow the path to enlightenment. He walked away from every comfort known to man, shaved his head, and set out on foot in search of enlightenment.
"Enlightenment". This word is used like a billion times in this section. As I was reading, I read some pretty exciting things about this time called the "Axial transformation". Basically, there was a huge "awakening" among everyone...all people...stemming from the cities, where people who had for centuries been locked into a caste system and generation after generation unerringly followed in ancestors' footsteps, unquestioning, suddenly began to awaken and question everything- their place in society, the "meaning of life", etc. [The reason I find this so very exciting is that I believe we are undergoing another transitional period, where I see people awakening, asking, and questioning more than in past centuries.....every common man is a philosopher.] Religion, society, war, no topic was off limits to these eager explorers: Confucius and Socrates questioned everyone around them, the poor and common as well as rich and wise men of the time.It was during the apex of this Axial age that Gotama saw his four signs and awoke one night with the determination to go forth and seek enlightenment, and he did...that very night.
So, here's a few questions I have that come from this first section....of course my first thought was "How could he leave his wife and baby?? Just abandon them?" I'm not sure I have an answer yet that satisfies me. Of course, there's this theme in many religions...Jesus said for his disciplines to leave everything and follow Him. Muhammad made his followers leave their families and gathered them separately. I'm not sure what it is about leaving the family that allows one to achieve a higher state of consciousness...or what about staying prohibits it. I've always wondered this.
I also wonder why Gotama thought he could achieve more, impact the world in a greater way, by following a path to enlightenment rather than becoming a great and powerful king. Obviously one path would have a direct and immediate impact on the world around him while the other may be decades away, if ever. Interesting that he walked out on so many opportunities. Do we do this? Would we do this?
OK, it's important to point out that absolutely none of this may be historically accurate (what religious text is?). It's based on a legend that came about a hundred years after the Buddha's death. The first written account is called the Tipitaka ("Three Baskets") because when they were written down, they were kept in three baskets. This is an account that has been handed down through a series of monks, generation after generation, over decades, so I'm not here to debate historical accuracy of this or that....just to explore what we know of and what we have gathered from the study of Buddha.
OK, OK, I hope at least some of you are as interested as I am and will enjoy our little brief study of the Buddha as much as I do. Please share, link, comment, etc. and I looove feedback!
~m
P.S. To make it even cooler, here's the author doing a Ted Talk on religion and compassion.
1. Buddha. Armstrong, Karen. (c) 2000. Orion Books. London.
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