T H E D H A M M A P A D AIDAs irrigators g u .docx

T H E D H A M M A P A D A
ID
As irrigators g u id e water to their fie ld s ,
as archers aim arrows,
as carpenters carve wood,
the wise shape their lives. (14s)
0:
Also in This Series
D i
T H E D 11 A G A V A D G I T A
T H E U P A N I S H A D S
Introduced &

Translated by
E K N A T H
E A S W A R A N
Nilgiri Press
© 198s, 2007 by The Blue Mountain Center o f Meditation
All rights reserved. Printed in Canada
Second edition. First printing M ay 2007
1 s d n - 1 3 : 9 7 8 - 1 - 5 8 6 3 8 - 0 2 0 - 5
I S B N - 1 0 : 1 - 5 8 6 3 8 - 0 2 0 - 6
Library o f Congress Control Number: 20 0 6 9 34 9 6 7
Printed on recycled paper
Eknath Easwaran founded the Blue Mountain Center o f
Meditation in Berkeley, California, in 1961. The Center
is a nonprofit organization chartered with carrying on
Easwaran’s legacy and work. Nilgiri Press, a department
o f the Center, publishes books on how to lead a spiritual
life in the home and community. The Center also teaches

Easwaran’s program o f Passage Meditation at retreats
worldwide.
For information please visit www.easwaran.org,
call us at 800 475 2369 (US) or 70 7 878 2369
(international and local), or write to us at
The Blue Mountain Center o f Meditation,
Box 256, Tomales, CA 9 4 9 7 1-0 256 , USA.
http://www.easwaran.org
D : Table of Contents
Foreword 7
Introduction 13
1 Twin Verses 101
2 Vigilance 109
3 M in d 111
4 Flowers 117
Die Immature 119
6 The Wise 12 6
7 Hie Saint 12 9

8 Thousands 1.35
9 E vil 1 3 7 '
10 Fum shm ent i 4i
11 Age 14 7
12 S e lf 153
13 lh e World 159
14 Ih e Awakened One 163
15 J o y 173
16 Pleasure 179
17 A nger 185
18 Im purity 191
19 tstabhshed in u h a rm a 19 7
2 0 The Path 2 0 1
2 1 Varied Verses 209
22 Ihe D ow nward Course 215
23 Ih e Elephant 221
24 I hirst 2 2 7

2s ihetshikshu 239
26 lh e brahm in 2 4 7
Glossary 2 55
N o tes 2$9
I n d e x 2 7 1
F O R E W O R D
D : The Classics of Indian
Spirituality
I m a g i n e a v a s t hall in A nglo-Saxon
England, not long after the passing o f K in g Arthur. It is the
dead o f w inter and a fierce snowstorm rages outside, but a
great fire fills the space within the hall with warm th and light.
N ow and then, a sparrow darts in for refuge from the weather.
It appears as i f from nowhere, flits about jo y fu lly in the
light,
and then disappears again, and where it com es from and
where it goes next in that storm y darkness, we do not know.
O ur lives are like that, suggests an old story in B edes m edi-

eval history o f England. We spend ou r days in the fam iliar
world o f our five senses, but what lies beyond that, i f
anything,
w e have no idea. Those sparrow s are hints o f som ething more
outside - a vast world, perhaps, w aiting to be explored. But
m ost o f us are happy to stay where we are. We m ay even be
a bit afraid to venture into the unknow n. What would be the
point, we wonder. W hy should we leave the wrorld we know?
Yet there arc always a few who arc not content to spend
their lives indoors. Sim ply know ing there is som ething un-
7 in
known beyond their reach makes them acutely restless. They
have to see what lies outside - i f only, as M allory said o f
Ever-
est, “ because its there”
This is true o f adventurers o f every kind, but especially o f
those w ho seek to explore not m ountains or jungles but co n -
sciousness itself: whose real drive, we m ight say, is not so

much to know the unknow n as to know the knower. Such
men and wom en can be found in every age and every culture.
W hile the rest o f us stay put, they quietly slip out to see what
lies beyond.
Then, so far as we can tell, they disappear. We have no idea
where they have gone; we can t even imagine. But every now
and then, like friends who have run o ff to some exotic land,
they send back reports: breathless messages describing fan -
tastic adventures, ram bling letters about a w orld beyond ord i-
nary experience, urgent telegram s begging us to come and
see. “ Look at this view! Isn’t it breathtaking? Wish you could
see this. W ish you were here.”
The w orks in this set o f translations - the Upanishads, the
Bhagavad Gita, and the D ham m apada - are am ong the earli-
est and m ost universal o f messages like these, sent to inform
us that there is m ore to life than the everyday experience o f
our senses. The U panishads are the oldest, so varied that we
feel som e unknow n collectors must have tossed into a jum ble

all the photos, postcards, and letters from this w orld that they
could find, without any regard for source or circum stance.
Thrown together like this, they form a kind o f ecstatic slide
show - snapshots o f tow ering peaks o f consciousness taken
at
various times by different observers and dispatched with just
the barest kind o f explanation. But those who have traveled
those heights will recognize the view s: “Oh, yes, that’s Ever-
est from the northwest - m ust be late spring. A n d here w ere
south, in the full snows o f winter.”
The D ham m apada, too, is a collection - traditionally, say-
ings o f the Buddha, one o f the v ery greatest o f these
explorers
o f consciousness. In this case the messages have been sorted,
but not by a schem e that m akes sense to us today. Instead o f
being grouped by theme o r topic, they are gathered according
to som e dom inant characteristic like a sym bol or m etaphor -
flowers, birds, a river, die sky - that m akes them easy to com -

mit to memory. I f the U panishads are like slides, the D h am -
mapada seem s more like a field guide. This is lore picked up
by som eone w ho know s every step o f the w ay through these
strange lands. He can t take us there, he explains, but he can
show us the w ay: tell us what to look for, w arn about missteps,
advise us about detours, tell us what to avoid. Most important,
he urges us that it is our destiny as hum an beings to make this
jo u rn ey ourselves. Everything else is secondary.
And the third o f these classics, the Bhagavad Gita, gives us
a map and guidebook. It gives a system atic overview o f the
territory, shows various approaches to the sum m it with their
benefits and pitfalls, offers recom m endations, tells us what to
9 :D
pack and what to leave behind. More than either o f the oth-
ers, it gives the sense o f a personal guide. It asks and answers
the questions that you or I might ask - questions not about
philosophy or m ysticism , but about how to live effectively

in a world o f challenge and change. O f these three, it is the
G ita that has been my own personal guidebook, just as it w as
M ahatm a G and hi’s.
These three texts are v ery personal records o f a lan d-
scape that is both real and universal. Their voices, passion -
ately human, speak directly to you and me. They describe the
topography o f consciousness itself, which belongs as much
to us today as to these largely anonym ous seers thousands o f
years ago. I f the landscape seem s dark in the light o f sense
perception, they tell us, it has an illum ination o f its own, and
once o u r eyes adjust we can see in what Western m ystics call
this “divine dark” and verify their descriptions for ourselves.
And this world, they insist, is where we belong. This w id er
field o f consciousness is our native land. We are not cabin-
dwellers, born to a life cram ped and confined; we are meant to
explore, to seek, to push the lim its o f our potential as human
beings. The world o f the senses is just a base cam p: we arc
meant to be as m uch at home in consciousness as in the world

o f physical reality.
This is a message that thrills men and wom en in every age
and culture. It is for such kindred spirits that these texts were
origin ally com posed, and it is for them in our own time that
I undertook these translations, in the conviction that they
deserve an audience today as much as ever. I f these books
speak to even a handful o f such readers, they will have served
their purpose.
Copyrighted material
I N T R O D U C T I O N
D : The Dhammapada
I f a l l o f the N ew Testament had been
lost, it has been said, and only the Serm on on the M ount had
managed to survive these two thousand years o f history, we
would still have all that is necessary for following the teach-

ings o f Jesus the Christ. The b od y o f Buddhist scripture is
m uch more volum inous than the Bible, but I would not hesi-
tate to make a sim ilar claim : if everything else were lost, we
would need nothing m ore than the D ham m apada to follow
the w ay o f the Buddha.
The D ham m apada has none o f the stories, parables, and
extended instruction that characterize the main Buddhist
scriptures, the sutras. It is a collection o f vivid, practical
verses, gathered probably from direct disciples who wanted
to preserve what they had heard from the Buddha him self. In
the oral tradition o f the sixth century before Christ, it must
have been the equivalent o f a handbook: a ready reference o f
the Buddhas teachings condensed in haunting poetry and
arranged by theme - anger, greed, fear, happiness, thought.
Yet there is nothing piecem eal about this anthology. It is a sin -
gle com position, harm onious and whole, which conveys the
living presence o f a teacher o f genius.

D ham m apada means som ething like “ the path o f dharm a”
- o f truth, o f righteousness, o f the central law that all o f
life
is one. The Buddha did not leave a static structure o f belief
that we can affirm and be done with. His teaching is an o n -
going path, a “ way o f perfection” w hich anyone can follow to
the highest good. The D ham m apada is a map for this journey.
We can start w herever we arc, but as on any road, the scen-
ery - our values, our aspirations, ou r understanding o f life
around us - changes as we make progress. These verses can
be read and appreciated sim ply as w ise philosophy; as such,
they are part o f the great literature o f the world. But for
those
who w ould follow it to the end, the D ham m apada is a sure
guide to nothing less than the highest goal life can offer: Self-
realization.
t h e b u d d h a ’ s w o r l d
The Legacy
When Princc Siddhartha w as born, in the m id -

dle o f the sixth century B.C., Indian civilization was already
ancient. Perhaps fifteen hundred years had passed since w an-
dering A ryan tribes from Central Asia, entering the Indian
subcontinent along the Indus River, had found a civilization
already a thousand years old, in which what I would call the
defining features o f the Hindu faith - the practice o f m edita-
tion and the w orship o f G o d as Shiva and the D ivine M
other
- seem to have already been established.
The A ryan s brought with them a social order presided over
by priests or brahm ins, the trustees o f ancient hym ns, ritu-
als, and deities related to those o f other lands, especially Per-
sia, where A ryan tribes had spread. India seem s to have dealt
with this new religion as it has dealt with cultural im ports ever
since: it absorbed the new into the old. A s a result, in even the
earliest o f the Indian scriptures - the Rig Veda, w hose oldest
hym ns go back at least to 1500 B.C. - we find A ryan nature-

gods integrated with the loftiest conceptions o f mysticism.
There is no inconsistency in this integration, only a v ery early
recognition that life’s suprem e reality is described in many
ways. “ Truth is one,” says a hym n o f the Rig Veda; “ the
wise
call it by different names.”
From the beginning, then, two subcurrents ran through
the broad river o f Vedic faith. One, followed by the vast
m ajority o f people, is the social religion o f the Vedas, with
brahm ins in charge o f preserving the ancient scriptures and
presiding over a com plex set o f rituals. But another tradition,
at least as ancient, teaches that beyond ritual and the m edia-
tion o f priests, it is possible through the practice o f spiritual
disciplines to realize directly the divine ground o f life.
This ideal is sanctioned in Vedic religion as the human
b ein gs highest vocation. The opportunity is open to an y-
one to w rap up social obligations and retire to an ashram in
the H im alayas or in the forests flanking the G anges to learn

from an illum ined teacher how to realize G od. This choice is
often m isunderstood as w orld-w eariness, and we know that
even in those most ancient tim es India had ascetics w ho tor-
tured their bodies in the desire to free their spirit. But this is
not India’s classical tradition, and the typical ashram o f the
tim es is a retreat where students would live with an illum ined
teacher as part o f his family, leading a life o f outward sim
plic-
ity in order to concentrate on inner growth.
Som etim es graduates o f these forest academ ies would
go on to becom e teachers themselves. But it w as at least as
likely that they would return to society, disciplined in b od y
and m ind, to make a contribution to some secular field. Some,
according to legend, becam e counselors o f kings; one, Janaka,
actually was a king. These men and w om en turned inward for
the sam e reason that scientists and adventurers turn outward:
not to run from life, but to m aster it. They went into the fo r-
ests o f the G anges to find G od as a poet turns to poetry o r a

musician to music, because they loved life so intensely that
nothing would do but to grasp it at the heart. They yearned
to know: to know what the hum an being is, what life is, what
death means and whether it can be conquered.
Oral records o f their discoveries began to be collected
around 1000 B.C. or even earlier, in fragm ents called the
Upanishads. Individualistic in their expression, yet com -
plctcly universal, these ecstatic docum ents belong to no par-
ticular religion but to all m ankind. They are not system atic
philosophy; they are not philosophy at all. Each Upanishad
contains the record o f a darshana: literally som ething seen, a
view not o f the world o f everyday experience but o f the
deep,
still realm s beneath the sense-w orld, accessible in deep m edi-
tation:
The eye cannot see it; mind cannot grasp it.
The deathless S e lf has neither caste nor race,
Neither eyes nor cars nor hands nor feet.

Sages say this S e lf is infinite in the great
And in the sm all, everlasting and changeless,
The source o f life.
As the web issues out o f the spider
And is withdrawn, as plants sprout from the earth,
As hair grows from the body, even so,
The sages say, this universe springs from
The deathless Self, the source o f life.
(M u n d a k a 1 . 1 .6 - 7 )
Born in freedom and stamped with the jo y o f Self-realiza-
tion, these early testaments o f the Vedic sages are clear ante-
cedents o f the B ud dhas voice. They contain no trace o f
world-
denial, no shadow o f fear, no sense o f diffidence about our
place in an alien universe. Far from deprecating physical exis-
tence, they teach that Self-realization means health, vitality,
long life, and a harm onious balance o f inward and outward

activity. With a trium phant voicc, they proclaim that human
destiny lies ultim ately in human hands for those who m aster
the passions o f the mind:
We are what our deep, driving desire is.
As our deep, driving desire is, so is our will.
As our will is, so is our deed.
As our deed is, so is our destiny.
(Brihadaranyaka iv.4.5)
And they insist on know ing, not the learning o f facts but
the direct experience o f truth: the one reality underlying life’s
multiplicities. This is not an intellectual achievem ent. K n ow
l-
edge m eans realization. To know the truth one must make it
real, must live it out in thought, word, and action. From that,
everything else o f value follows:
As by knowing one piece o f gold, dear one,
We come to know all things made out o f gold -
That they dilFer only in name and form,
While the stuff o f which all are made is gold . . .

So through that spiritual wisdom , dear one,
We come to know that all o f life is one.
(Chandogya vi.1.5)
The m ethod these sages followed in their pursuit o f truth
was called brahm avidya, the “supreme science,” a discipline
in w hich attention is focused intensely on the contents o f
consciousness. In practice this means meditation. The m o d -
ern m ind balks at calling m editation scientific, but in these
sages passion for truth, in their search for reality as som e-
thing which is the same under all conditions and from all
points o f view, in their insistence on direct observation and
systematic em pirical method, we find the essence o f the sci-
entific spirit. It is not im proper to call brahm avidya a series o
f
experim ents - on the m ind, by the m ind - with predictable,
replicable results.
Yet, o f course, the sages o f the U panishads took a differ-

ent track from conventional science. They looked not at the
world outside, but at human knowledge o f the w orld outside.
They sought invariants in the contents o f consciousness and
discarded everything im perm anent as ultim ately unreal, in
the w ay that the sensations o f a dream are seen to be unreal
when one awakens. Their principle w as neti, neti atma: “ this
is not the self; that is not the s e lf” They peeled away person -
ality like an onion, layer b y layer, and found nothing perm a-
nent in the mass o f perceptions, thoughts, em otions, drives,
and m em ories that we call “ I.” Yet w hen everything in divid
-
ual was stripped away, an intense awareness rem ained: co n -
sciousness itself. The sages called this ultimate ground o f p er-
sonality atman, the Self.
The scientific tem per o f this m ethod is a vital part o f the
B uddhas background. If, as A ld ous H uxley observed, science
is “ the reduction o f multiplicities to unities,” no civilization
has been more scientific. From the R ig Veda on, India’s scrip-
tures are steeped in the conviction o f an all-pervasive order

(ritam ) in the w hole o f creation that is rcflcctcd in each part.
In m edieval Europe, it was the realization that there cannot be
one set o f natural laws governing earth and another set g o v -
erning the heavens which led to the birth o f classical phys-
ics. In a sim ilar insight, Vedic India conceived o f the natural
world - not only physical phenom ena but hum an action and
thought - as u niform ly governed by universal law.
This law is called dharm a in Sanskrit, and the Buddha
would make it the focus o f his w ay o f life. The word com es
from dhri, which means to bear or to hold, and its root sense
is the essence o f a thing, the defining quality that “ holds it
together” as what it is. In its broadest application, dharm a
expresses the central law o f life, that all things and events are
part o f an indivisible whole.
Probably no word is richer in connotations. In the sphere
o f human activity, dharm a is behavior that is in harm ony with
this unity. Som etim es it is justice, righteousness, or fairness;

som etim es sim ply duty, the obligations o f religion or so ci-
ety. It also m eans being true to what is essential in the human
being: nobility, honor, forgiveness, truthfulness, loyalty, co m -
passion. An ancient saying declares that ahimsa param o
d h a rm a : the essence o f dharm a, the highest law o f life, is
to do
no harm to any living creature.
Like the Buddha, the sages o f the Upanishads did not find
the world capricious. N othing in it happens by chance - not
because events arc predestined, but becausc everything is
conncctcd b y causc and cffcct. Thoughts arc included in this
view, for they both cause things to happen and are aroused by
things that happen. What we think has consequences for the
world around us, for it conditions how we act.
All these conscqucnccs - for others, for the world, and for
ourselves - arc our personal responsibility. Sooner or later,
because o f the unity o f life, they will com e back to us. Som e-

one who is always angry, to take a simple example, is bound to
provoke anger from others. More subtly, a man w hose factory
pollutes the environm ent will eventually have to breathe air
and d rink water which he has helped to poison.
These are illustrations o f what Hinduism and Buddhism
call the law o f karm a. Karm a means som ething done, whether
as cause or effect. Actions in harm ony with dharm a bring
good karm a and add to health and happiness. Selfish actions,
at odds with the rest o f life, bring unfavorable karma and pain.
In this view, no divine agency is needed to punish or reward
us; we punish and reward ourselves. This was not regarded as a
tenet o f religion but as a law o f nature, as universal as the
law o f
gravity. No one has stated it more clearly than St. Paul: “A s
you
sow, so shall you reap. With whatever measure you mete out to
others, with the same measure it shall be meted out to you.”
For the Upanishadic sages, however, the books o f karm a
could only be cleared within the natural world. Unpaid

k arm ic debts and unfulfilled desires do not vanish when the
physical b od y dies. They arc forces which rem ain in the uni-
verse to quicken life again at the m om ent o f conception when
conditions are right for past karm a to be fulfilled. We live and
act, and everything we do goes into what we think at the pres-
ent moment, so that at death the mind is the sum o f e very-
thing we have done and everything we still desire to do. That
sum o f forces has karm a to reap, and when the right context
com es - the right parents, the right society, the right epoch
- the bundle o f energy that is the germ o f personality is born
again. We are not just limited physical creatures with a begin-
ning in a particular year and an end after fourscore years and
ten. We go back eons, and som e o f the contents o f the
deepest
unconscious are the dark drives o f an evolutionary heritage
much older than the hum an race.
In this sense, the separate personality we identify ourselves
with is som ething artificial. Einstein, speaking as a scientist,

drew a sim ilar conclusion in replying to a stranger w ho had
asked for consolation on the death o f his son:
A human being is part o f the whole, called by us “ Universe,”
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself,
his thoughts and feelings, as som ething separated from the
rest - a kind o f optical delusion o f his consciousness. This
delusion is a kind o f prison for us, restricting us to our
personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest
to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
by widening our circlc o f compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole o f nature in its beauty.
The sages o f the Upanishads would find this an entirely
acceptable w ay o f describing both their idea o f person al-
ity and the goal o f life: moksha, freedom from the delusion
o f separateness; yoga, complete integration o f consciousness;
nirvana, the extinction o f the sense o f a separate ego. This
state is not the extinction o f personality but its fulfillment,

and it is not achieved after death but in the midst o f life.
In its broad outlines, the w orldview I have sketched must
have been fam iliar to the vast m ajority in the B ud dhas audi-
ence: the kings and princes we read about in the sutras, the
merchants and craftsm en and courtesans, and o f course the
num berless villagers who, then as now, made up most o f
India. K arm a and rebirth were not philosophy to them but
living realities. M oral order w as taken for granted, and all
looked to dharm a as a universal standard for behavior.
These ideas form the background o f the Buddha’s life and
becam e the currency o f his message. Like Jesus, he cam e to
teach the truths o f life not to a few but to all w ho would
listen,
and the w ords he chose to express those truths were ones that
everyone knew.
V ie Buddha's Times
The sixth century B.C. was a time o f creative
spiritual upheaval in most o f the m ajor civilizations o f antiq-

uity. W ithin a hundred years on either side we have C o n fu -
cius in C hina, Zoroaster in Persia, the pre-Socratic p h iloso -
phers o f ancient Greece, and the later prophets o f Israel.
These were also tim es o f cultural expansion, when cen-
ters o f civilization in Europe and A sia were expanding their
spheres o f influence in com m erce and colonization. In the
Buddha’s time at least sixteen kingdom s and republics lay
along the G anges and against the H im alayan foothills, part
o f an increasingly active trade route which ran westward
through the vast Persian empire o f C yru s the G reat all the w
ay
to the M editerranean.
These contacts must have contributed to a burgeoning
urban life by the time the Buddha was born. The larger cit-
ies o f this period, prospering from a rapidly grow ing m id-
dle class o f merchants and craftsm en, were well planned
and show a rem arkable sense o f public-m indedness. “ In no
other part o f the ancient world,” w rites A. L. Basham , “ were

the relations o f man and man, and o f man and the state, so
fair and hum ane___ India was a cheerful land, whose people,
each finding a niche in a com plex and slow ly evolving social
system, reached a higher level o f kindliness and gentleness in
their mutual relationships than any other nation o f antiquity.”
These were also the centuries in which ancient India’s sci-
entific tradition began to blossom . Details are difficult to
trace, but by the first century after Christ, astronomy, arith -
metic, algebra, logic, linguistics, surgery, m edicine, and a p sy
-
chology o f personality were all well developed. The encounter
between India and Greece when A lexan der the Great reached
the Indus river, 326 B . C . , invites com parison between these
two civilizations and gives us in the West a fam iliar bench-
mark. India, with its decim al system and the potent creation
o f zero, dom inated m athem atics as Greece did geom etry,
and
in m edicine and surgery both led the ancient world.

From such observations we can make som e guess at the
kind o f education a doting ru ler like the Buddhas father m
ight
have given his only son. Even in those days India had great
centers o f learning from which to draw tutors - one o f the
best known was Takshashila or Taxila, which lay at the cross-
roads between India and the Persian em pire - and we know
that the graduates o f these institutions enjoyed a good reputa-
tion in neighboring lands. It is probably no coincidence that
the Buddha, w hose language is occasionally that o f a ph ysi-
cian, arose in a land with the w orld’s greatest m edical schools.
For most o f India, o f course, religion m eant not the lofty
concepts o f the Upanishads but a web o f Vedic rituals, pre-
sided over by brahm in priests and often overlaid with super-
stition. Yet U panishads were still being created, and for-
est truth-seekers m ay have been even m ore num erous than
in earlier times. They had in com m on the practice o f some
form o f mental discipline (yoga) and som e form o f severe
self-

denial (tapas) as aids to releasing spiritual power. Beyond this,
however, we find no m ore agreem ent than am ong the prc-
Socratic philosophers who roam ed Greece and A sia M in o r at
roughly the same time.
M a n y o fth e se figures did not m erely bypass religious o rth
o -
doxy but challenged it. We read o f teachers and their disciples
w andering about debating each other and teaching a p erplex-
ing disarray o f views. Som e o f their argum ents - that good
and bad conduct make no difference, for fate decides e ve ry -
thing; that transcendental knowledge is im possible; that life
is entirely material - arc perennial and have their adherents
even today. O thers seem intended to take issue with the U pa-
nishads, or perhaps show what happens when an idea from
the Upanishads is developed without being understood. The
climate has been called pessim istic, even world-w eary. C o n -
sidering the cultural evidence, however, it seem s more likely

that this philosophic hotbed w as one aspect o f an expansive
self-confidence in which old ideas were being challenged on
every side.
Into this world, poised between the Vedic past and a new
high-w ater mark o f Indian culture, the Buddha was born.
Like Jesus, it m ayb e said, he came not to destroy tradition but
to fulfill its m eaning. A n d as Jesus rose out o f the tradition
o f the prophets and yet transcends all traditions and breaks
all molds, the Buddha, though he broke with the rituals and
authority o f the Vcdas, stands squarely in the tradition o f the
U panishads. Vitality, a sublime self-confidence, an em pha-
sis on direct experience in meditation without reference to
any outside authority, and a passionate trust in truth, in the
oneness o f life, and in our human capacity to take our destiny
into our own hands - all these are the v ery spirit o f the U p
an i-
shads, and no one em bodies it better than the Buddha.
Yet the Buddha brings to this spirit a genius all his own. The

sages o f the Upanishads sought to know, and their testaments
sing with the jo y o f Self-realization. The Buddha sought to
save, and the jo y in his message is the jo y o f know ing that
he
has found a w ay for everyone, not just great sages, to put an
end to sorrow. M editation, once the sublime art o f a v e ry
few,
he offers to teach to all - not for som e otherw orldly goal, but
as a w ay to happiness, health, and fulfillm ent in selfless ser-
vice. He argues with no one, denies no faith, convinces only
with truth and love. He brought not so much a new religion as
sanatana dh arm a, “ the eternal dharm a,” the name India has
always given to religion itself. Like an adventurer who paw ns
everything to discover som e priceless jewel, he sought out
India’s spiritual treasure and then gave it away to everyone
who w ould take it, rich or poor, high caste or low, with a free
hand; and for that reason he is loved today, twenty-five h u n -
dred years later, by perhaps one quarter o f the earth’s people.

L I F E & T F A C I I I N G
The early Buddhists were not biographers or
historians, any more than the early C hristians were. Their
first passion, when their teacher was no longer with them in
the body, w as to record not what they knew o f his past but
what he had taught. O f the Buddhas life before illum ination,
therefore, the scriptures record only isolated fragments. From
these has been pieced together the story o f the Buddha as it is
told today. The inconsistencies in the sources need not trou-
ble us. W hatever their value as historical evidence, there can
be no doubt that the story captures a real and deeply appeal-
ing personality.
Siddhartha Gautam a was born around 563 B.C., the son
o f a king called Shuddhodana who ruled the lands o f the
Shakya clan at the foot o f the Him alayas, along what is today
the border between India and Nepal. Though not monarch o f
an em pire like the neighboring kings o f Kosala and M aghada,
Shuddhodana was well-to-do, and his capital, Kapilavastu,

had prospered from its location near the trade routes into the
G anges valley. Apparently his pow er w as not absolute, but
shared with a voting assem bly called the sangha - the same
name the Buddha w ould later give to his m onastic order, one
o f the earliest dem ocratic institutions in the world.
When the child w as born, a holy man prophesied that he
would either becom e an em peror or renounce the world for
a great spiritual destiny. H is parents gave him the name Sid-
dhartha, “ he whose purpose in life has been attained.” Like
most loving fathers, however, King Shuddhodana had little
interest in seeing his son and sole heir w ander o ff into the for-
est in search o f truth. I Ie ordered his m inisters not to expose
the boy to tragedy or allow him to lack anything he desired.
Siddhartha was an extraordinarily gifted child, and we are
told that he received the best education for kingship that the
world o f his day could offer. I Ie excelled in sports and
physical

exploits com bining strength with skill - particularly archery,
in which he stood out am ong a people fam ous for their prow -
ess with the bow. He had a quick, clear intellect matched by an
exquisite tenderness, a rare com bination which would stamp
his later life. He showed both when as a youth he saw a bird
shot dow n b y the arrow o f his cousin Devadatta. Siddhartha,
already dim ly aware o f his bond to all living creatures, ten-
derly removed the arrow, then took the bird home and nursed
it back to health. Devadatta, furious, insisted that the bird was
his, and took his case to the king. “ / shot that bird,” he said.
“ It’s mine.” But Siddhartha asked, “ To whom should any
crea-
ture belong: to him w ho tries to kill it, or to him w ho saves its
life?”
At the age o f seven o r eight the prince went to the annual
plow ing festival, where his father cerem onially guided the
bullocks in plow ing the first furrow. It w as a long, stressful
day,
and when the boy grew sleepy his fam ily set him down to rest

on a platform under a rose apple tree. When they returned,
hours later, they found him seated upright in the same p o si-
tion as they had left him . D isturbed by the ceaseless toil o f
the bullocks and plowm en and the plight o f the tiny creatures
who lost their hom es and lives in the plowing, Siddhartha had
becom e absorbed in reflection on the transience o f life. In
this profound absorption he forgot h im self and his surroun d-
ings completely, and a jo y he had never known suffused his
consciousness.
Siddhartha grew up accustom ed to lu xu ry and ease. Later
he would tell the austere m onks gathered around him , “ I was
delicately nurtured, brothers. When a piece o f silk was not the
very softest grade, I would not wear it next to my skin. O nly
the freshest fruits were sent to me, and a whole staff o f cooks
looked after m y meals.” N othing unpleasant was allowed to
enter his vision.
On attaining m anhood, Siddhartha learned that a lovely

cousin named Yashodhara would choose her husband from
the princes and chieftains who vied for her hand in a con -
test o f archery. Siddhartha showed up on the appointed day,
suprem ely confident o f his skill. One o f the suitors hit the
bulls-eye, but Siddhartha stepped forw ard bold ly and with
one shot split his riv a ls arrow down the middle.
Yashodhara proved to be as loving as she was lovely, and
in tim e the couple had a son named Rahula w ho com bined
the beauty and tender nature o f them both. Siddhartha was
twenty-nine. H is future prom ised every fulfillm ent life could
offer.
By this time, however, gnaw ing questions had begun to
haunt his mind. The innocent pleasures o f his life seemed
fragile, edged with the poign an cy o f som ething not quite
real
enough to hold on to. An awareness preoccupied him which
m ost thoughtful people taste but seldom face: that life passes
sw iftly and leaves very little behind.

H is questions must have been old when history began; we
ask them still. Has life a purpose, or is it only a passing show?
Is there nothing more to hope for than a few good friends, a
loving family, some m em ories to savor before one goes? It was
questions like these that sent m any into the forests along the
G anges to the sages o f the Upanishads, and Yashodhara, see-
ing the look in her h u sbands eyes, grew troubled. Even their
newborn son had not brought him peace.
Finally, desperate to case his tormented mind, Siddhartha
persuaded his father to agree to a day outside the walls o f his
estates. Recalling the prophesy at his sons birth, K in g Shud-
dhodana made sure the city w as ready. No one poor, no one
sick, no one unhappy was to be present along the p rin ces des-
ignated route.
Yet despite all precautions, am ong the cheerful, cheering
crowd who turned out to greet him, Siddhartha happened to
catch sight o f a man w hose face was sallow and drawn and

w hose eyes were glazed with fever. “ W hat is the matter with
this man, C h an n a?” he asked his charioteer in horror.
“ That is disease,” C hanna replied. “All are subject to it. If
a man is m ortal, disease can strike him , even if he be rich or
royal.”
Siddhartha continued on his excursion, but he could not
forget the pallor o f the man’s face or the haunted look in his
eyes.
The next day Siddhartha ventured outside the city again.
This tim e he saw a bent, w rinkled wom an faltering on her
staff. Siddhartha regarded her with com passion. “ Is this, too,
disease?” he asked.
“ No,” Channa replied. “ It is only age, which overtakes us
all.”
“ Will m y wife becom e like that?”
“ Yes, m y lord. Even Princess Yashodhara, beautiful as a full
moon in a cloudless sky. One day her skin too w ill be w rin -
kled and her eyes dim , and she w ill falter in her steps.”

“ C hanna, I have seen enough. Take me back!”
But in the palace Siddhartha found no peace. Before long
he ventured out a third time, and on this occasion he saw a
corpse stretched out on a bier for cremation. “ W hat is that,
Channa, which resembles a man but looks more like a log?”
“ That w as once a man, but death has com e to claim him ;
only his b od y remains. Death w ill com e for all o f us, rich or
poor, well or ill, young as well as old.”
“ Even for m y new born son?”
“ Yes, my lord. He too w ill lie like that one day”
The prince closed his eyes and covered his ears. But a bom b
had burst in the depths o f his consciousness, and everything
around him seem ed edged with mortality.
On his w ay home a fourth sight arrested him : a man seated
by the roadside with closed eyes, his bod y upright and still.
“C hanna, what kind o f man is that? Is he dead too?”
“ No. That is a bhikshu, who has left w orldly life to seek

what lies beyond. When the bod y seem s dead but the spirit is
awake, that is what they call yoga.”
Siddhartha rode home deep in thought.
The rest o f that day he found no peace. The roses in his g a r-
den, whose beauty had always caught his eye, now rem inded
him only o f the evanescence o f life. The bright scenes and
laughter o f the palace flowed by like running water. “ E v ery -
thing is change,” he thought; “each m om ent com es and goes.
Is there nothing more, nothing to the future but decline and
death?” These questions are fam iliar from the lives o f saints
and seekers in every tradition, and there is nothing morbid
about them; it is this awareness o f death that brings life into
clear focus. The Buddha-to-be was beginning to wake up.
Shuddhodana noticed with alarm the change that had
come over his son. G one w as the enjoym ent he had always
found in his sports and gam es and the com pany o f his friends;
his m ood was sober and indrawn. The king consulted with

his m inisters and concluded that Siddhartha had grown
w eary o f m arried life and needed diversion. That very night
they arranged a spectacle featuring the loveliest dancing girls
in the land.
The perform ance went on past m idnight. Finally the last
guest left and the dancers fell asleep. One by one the lights
burned out. O nly Siddhartha rem ained awake, scarcely aware
o f the world, brooding over a still unconscious choice.
Som etim e in the early hours o f the m ornin g - it was, the
chronicles tell us, the first full m oon o f spring - Siddhartha
looked around him in the shadow y hall and saw a chilling
sight. The dancers lay snoring in the postures in which they
had fallen asleep, and in the m oonlight the lithe bodies that
had seemed so lovely in silk and m akeup looked coarse and
offensive in their disarray. The chroniclers say it was a con-
ju rin g trick o f the gods, w ho wanted the prince to reject the
pleasures o f the world and seek enlightenm ent. But no such
explanation seem s necessary. For a m om ent the curtain o f

time had gone up, and Siddhartha had seen beneath the tinsel
o f appearance, past the strange illusion that m akes us believe
the beauty o f the moment can never fade.
That m om ent he resolved to go forth from the life he had
known, not to see his fam ily again until he had found a way
to go beyond age and death. For a long moment he lingered
at the d oo rw ay to his bedcham ber, w atching his w ife and
son
asleep in each o th ers arm s. Young, delicate, full o f
tenderness,
they seemed now to stand for all creatures, so vulnerable in
the face o f time and change. A fraid his resolve m ight fail, he
did not wake them.
In the dark hours before dawn C hanna brought the white
horse Kanthaka, his hooves padded so that no one would
hear his steps in the courtyard. They traveled eastward until
dawn. At the river A nom a the prince dism ounted, slipped the
rings and ornam ents o f royalty from his body, and removed

his robes and sandals. “ Take these back to the palace now,
C hanna. I must go on alone.”
Channa received the bundle with tears in his eyes, for he
had served the prince m any years and loved him deeply. He
pleaded to be allowed to go along, but to no avail. Kanthaka
too, according to the chronicles, wept as C hanna led him
home, and died soon afterw ard o f a broken heart.
At the edge o f the forest, Siddhartha scavenged som e rags
from the graves o f executed convicts. They too had severed
their bonds with the world, and were not all creatures under
sentence o f death? Their color, saffron yellow, has been ever
since the emblem o f a Buddhist monk.
Siddhartha put on his m akeshift robe, burned the rest o f
his clothes, and cut o ff his black hair. Henceforth he would
own no m ore than his robe and a m endicants bowl, and eat
only such food as he might be given. He was ready to plunge
into his quest.
In the forest, Siddhartha studied yoga - meditation - with

the best teachers he could find. W ith each he learned quickly
what they had to teach, m astering their disciplines and m atch-
ing their austerities, and discovered that they had not found
the goal he sought.
Siddhartha then struck o ff on his own. For six years he w an -
dered in the forest, subjecting his b od y to all kinds o f m orti-
fication. Perhaps, he reasoned, his teachers had not been aus-
tere enough to reach the goal. Perhaps through starvation he
could break his identification with his body, w inn in g detach-
ment from its ultimate fate.
D ay by day he reduced his intake o f food until he was eat-
ing only one grain o f rice a day. H is b o d y becam e so em
aci-
ated that he could reach into the cavern o f his stomach and
feel his spine. Such pow er o f will attracted attention from
other seekers, and on the banks o f the river Neranjara he w as
joined b y five ascetics w ho becam e his disciples.

With his b o d y so w orn down, however, Siddhartha discov-
ered that he could no longer meditate well. H is m ind lacked
the vitality for intense, sustained concentration. He began
casting about for another approach, and there cam e to his
mind the experience under the rose apple tree so long ago,
where he had tasted the jo y that com es when the clam or o f
the m ind and senses is stilled. “Austerity is not the w ay to the
calm ing o f passion, to perfect knowledge, to freedom,” he
thought. “ The right w ay is that w hich I practiced at the foot o
f
the rose apple tree. But that is not possible for som eone w ho
has spent his stren gth ”
At that time, Sujata, the lovely daughter o f a nearby house-
holder, had just borne her first child and wanted to make a
thanksgiving offering. “ 'Hie radiant god to whom you prayed
for a son,” her handm aid reported, “ is sitting under a banyan
tree by the side o f the river. W hy not make your offering to
him directly?” So Sujata prepared her favorite delicacies and

brought them in a golden bow l to the banks o f the N cranjara,
where she offered them to the man whose frail fram e seemed
suffused with light.
Siddhartha ate slowly, and when his hunger w as satisfied
he twisted a w ick from the ragged edge o f his robe, placed
it in oil in the bowl, lighted it, and set his m akeshift lamp
afloat in the rivers slow waters. “ I f I am not to attain
complete
freedom,” he declared, “ let this bowl travel with the current
downstream.” It drifted in the eddies, then seem ed to move
slow ly against the flow.
Siddharthas disciples witnessed these peculiar develop-
ments with amazement. Was this the man w ho for six years
had outdone all other seekers in austerity? They had put their
trust in his unbreakable determ ination; when they saw him
w aver and change course, they abandoned him in disgust.
Siddhartha w as again alone.
It w as spring, when the w orld itself was quickening with

new life. The v ery landscape must have rem inded him o f
that ploughing festival so m any years before, when his mind
had spontaneously plunged into meditation. “ When a good
archer first hits the bull’s-eye,” he told his disciples later, “ he
stops and exam ines everything carefully. How was he stand-
ing? How was he holding the bow? How did his fingers let the
arrow go? A nd he tries to make everything the same for the
next shot. In the same way, brothers, I set about sytem atically
tryin g to repeat what had led to success so long ago.”
N ear the city o f G aya he found a tranquil spot under a
sacred fig tree and carpeted a place with fresh, fragrant grass.
Folding his legs beneath him , he drew h im self straight for
meditation and took a solem n vow: “ C om e what m ay - let
my
bod y rot, let my bones be reduced to ashes - I w ill not get up
from here until I have found the way beyond decay and d eath ”
It w as dusk and the moon w as rising, the first full moon o f
the

first month o f spring.
Thus determ ined, full o f peace, Siddhartha passed into
deep meditation, when the senses close down and concen -
tration flows undisturbed by awareness o f the outside world.
Then, the chronicles say, M ara the tempter came, m uch as
Satan cam e to tempt Jesus in the desert. M ara is Death and
every selfish passion that ties us to a m ortal body. He is “ the
striker,” w ho attacks without w arning and never plays by the
rules. A n y kind o f entrapment is fair.
First M ara sent his daughters, m aidens o f unearthly beauty,
cach a c c o m p a n i e d by exquisi te l a d i e s - i n - w a i t i
n g . A n y o f
t he m , Ma r a p r o m i s e d , S i d d h a r t h a c o ul d h a
ve as his own. The
B u d d h a - t o - b e sat u n m o v e d and d e e p e n e d his c
o n c e n t r a t i o n .
Ne xt Ma r a assailed his m e d i t a t i o n w i t h fierce a r m
i e s - lust,
cowardi ce, d ou b t, h ypoc risy, the desire for h o n o r a n d
fame.

Like a m o u n t a i n u n s h a k e n by an e a r t h q u a k e ,
S i d d h a r t h a c o n -
t i n u e d his p l u n g e into d e e p e r c o n s c i o u s n e s s
.
Finally, as he n e a r e d the f r o n t i e r in c o n s c i o u s n e
s s that
divides w h a t is t r a n s i e n t f r o m w h a t is de at hl es
s, M a r a a p -
p e a r e d a n d c h a l l e n g e d h i m in p e r s o n . W h o
h a d given h im
the r i gh t to e scape his r e a l m ?
The B u d d h a did n o t t r y to argue, b u t it is said t h a t
he pla ced
his p a l m on the e ar th a n d the e a r t h itself gave wi tn es
s. The
voi ces o f m i l l i o n s o f c r ea t u r e s co ul d be h e a r d
c r yi ng o ut that
he h a d c ome to re sc ue t h e m f r o m sorrow.
At this Mara o r d e r e d his a r m i e s to retreat. The d a r k
w a t e r s
o f the u n c o n s c i o u s closed over S i d d h a r t h a , a nd
he s lipped
into t h a t p r o f o u n d stillness in w h i c h t h o u g h t

stops a nd the
d i s t i n c t i o n s o f a s ep ar at e p e r s o n a l i t y
dissolve. In this p r o -
f o u n d state he r e m a i n e d i m m e r s e d t h r o u g h o
u t the night.
W h e n d a w n c ame the tree u n d e r w h i c h he sat b u r
s t into
b l o o m , a nd a f r a g r a n t spring b r e e z e s h o w e r e d
h i m w i t h b l o s -
soms. He was no l o n g e r S i d d h a r t h a , the finite p e r s
o n a l i t y that
h ad b e e n b o r n in Kapilavastu. He wa s the B u d d h a ,
"he w h o
is awake " He h a d f o u n d the w a y to t h a t r e a lm o f b
e i n g w h i c h
decay and d e a t h can n e v e r t o u c h : n i r v a n a .
C o p y r i g h t e d m a t e r i a l
Unaware o f his body, plunged deep in a sea o f jo y and free
to remain there until the end o f time, the Buddha could have
had only a faint recollection o f those still caught in selfishness
and sorrow. But the needs o f the world cried out to him, the

chronicles say, “and his heart was m oved to pity” That slim
thread o f recollection was enough. Drawn by the will to lead
others to the freedom he had found, the Buddha traced his
way back.
Then M ara played his last trump. “ You have awakened to
nirvana,” he whispered, “and thus escaped from m y realm.
You have plum bed the depths o f consciousness and known a
jo y not given even to the gods. But you know well how d iffi-
cult it has been. You sought nirvana with your eyes clear, and
found it alm ost im possible to achieve; others’ eyes are co v-
ered with dust from the beginning, and they seek only their
own satisfaction. Even in the midst o f sorrow, do you see an y-
one throw the toys o f the w orld away? I f you try to teach
them
what you have found, who do you think w ill listen? W ho will
strive as you have? How m any w ill even try to w ipe the dust
from their eyes?”
For a long time the Buddha sat silent, contem plating the

im possibility o f his m ission. These questions shook him to
the
depths. In a world o f sleepwalkers, how m any would listen to
som eone returning from a world they would probably never
sec, com ing to say that love always begets love and violence
only breeds more violence? In a world guided b y passions,
how m any would he w illing to make the sacrifices required to
base their lives on these truths?
Slowly his confidence returned. “ Perhaps” he replied,
“there will be a few w ho w ill listen. Dust does cover the eyes
o f
all, but for som e it is only a thin film. Everyone desires an end
to suffering and sorrow. To those who will listen, I will teach
the dharm a, and for those w ho follow it, the dharm a itself will
set them free.”
The Buddha rem ained at that spot for weeks, im m ersing
h im self in nirvana over and over. Each time he probed deep
into the heart o f life, the nature o f happiness, and the origins

ofsorrow .
Then, with his teaching worked out, he went forth to teach.
He had not only attained nirvana, he w as established in it -
aware o f life’s unity not on ly during m editation but at every
moment, awake or asleep. Now he could help others to make
the same crossing. A kind o f cosm ic ferrym an, he is repre-
sented as always calling, “ Koi paraga7. A nyone for the other
shore?”
The Wheel o f D harm a
The B ud dhas return is a pivotal moment, one
o f those rare events when the divine penetrates history and
transfigures it. Like M oses returning from Mt. Sinai, like
Jesus appearing in the crowd at the river Jordan to be baptized
by John, a man w ho has left the w orld returns to serve it, no
longer m erely human but charged with transcendent power.
A s the scriptures record o f M oses and Jesus, we can imagine
how the Buddha must have shone that bright spring m o rn -

ing in the I Iim alayan foothills. Dazzled by the radiance o f his
personality, it is said, people gathered about him and asked,
“A rc you a go d ?”
“ No.”
“A re you an angel?”
“ No.”
“ W hat arc you then?”
The Buddha sm iled and answered simply, “ I am awake”
- the literal m eaning o f the word b u ddha, from the Sanskrit
root budhy to wake up.
H is five form er disciples caught sight o f him from a d is-
tance and resolved neither to shun him nor to give him special
attention. But as he drew closer, his face shining with what he
had seen and understood, they found them selves preparing a
place for him and sitting at his feet.
“ Well,” one o f them might have asked, “did the bowl How
upstream or dow n ?”
“ It flowed upstream, brothers,” the Blessed One replied. “ I

have done what is to be done. I have seen the builder o f this
house” - indicating his body, but signifying his old se lf - “and
I have shattered its ridgepole and its rafters; that house shall
not be built again. I have found the deathless, the uncondi-
tioncd; I have seen life as it is. I have entered nirvana, beyond
the reach o f sorrow.”
“ Teach us what you have found.”
Thus to these five, his first students, the Buddha began his
work o f teaching the dharm a, the path that leads to the end o f
sorrow. The place was the D eer Park near the holy city o f V
ara-
nasi on the Ganges, and the event is revered as the m om ent
when the Com passionate O ne “set in m otion the wheel o f the
dharma,” which will never cease revolving so long as there arc
men and w om en who follow his path.
In this talk we see the Buddha as physician to the world, the
relentlessly clear-seeing healer w hose love em braces all crea-
tures. In the Four Noble Truths, he gives his clinical o b serva-

tions on the hum an condition, then his diagnosis, then the
prognosis, and finally the cure.
“ The First Truth, brothers, is the fact o f suffering. All desire
happiness, sukha: what is good, pleasant, right, perm anent,
joyful, harm onious, satisfying, at ease. Yet all find that life
brings duh kha, just the opposite: frustration, dissatisfaction,
incom pleteness, suffering, sorrow. Life is change, and change
can never satisfy desire. Therefore everything that changes
brings suffering.
“ The Second Truth is the cause o f suffering. It is not life that
brings sorrow, but the dem ands we make on life. The cause
o f duhkha is selfish desire: trishnat the thirst to have what
one wants and to get one’s own way. Thinking life can make
them happy by bringing what they want, people run after the
satisfaction o f their desires. But they get only unhappiness,
because selfishness can only bring sorrow.
“ There is no fire like selfish desire, brothers. Not a hundred

years o f experience can extinguish it, for the more you feed it,
the m ore it burns. It dem ands what experience cannot give:
perm anent pleasure unm ixed with anything unpleasant. But
there is no end to such desires; that is the nature o f the mind.
Suffering because life cannot satisfy selfish desire is like suf-
fering because a banana tree will not bear mangoes.
“ There is a Third Truth, brothers. A ny ailm ent that can be
understood can be cured, and suffering that has a cause has
also an end. W hen the fires o f selfishness have been extin-
guished, when the m ind is free o f selfish desire, what rem
ains
is the state o f wakefulness, o f peace, o f joy, o f perfect
health,
called nirvana.
“ The Fourth Truth, brothers, is that selfishness can be
extinguished by follow ing an eightfold path: right under-
standing, right purpose, right speech, right conduct, right
occupation, right effort, right attention, and right meditation.
I f dharm a is a wheel, these eight are its spokes.

“ Right understanding is seeing life as it is. In the midst o f
change, where is there a place to stand firm? W here is there
anything to have and hold? To know that happiness cannot
come from anything outside, and that all things that com e
into being have to pass away: this is right understanding, the
beginning o f w isdom .
“ Right purpose follows from right understanding. It m eans
w illing, desiring, and thinking that is in line with life as it is.
A s a flood sweeps away a slum bering village, death sweeps
away those who are unprepared. Rem em bering this, order
you r life around learning to live: that is right purpose.
“ Right speech, right action, and right occupation follow
from right purpose. They mean living in harm ony with the
unity o f life: speaking kindly, acting kindly, living not just for
on eself but for the welfare o f all. Do not earn yo u r livelihood
at the expense o f life or connive at or support those who do
harm to other creatures, such as butchers, soldiers, and m ak-

ers o f poison and weapons. A ll creatures love life; all crea-
tures fear pain. Therefore treat all creatures as yourself, for the
dharm a o f a hum an being is not to harm but to help.
“ The last three steps, brothers, deal with the m ind. E v e ry -
thing depends on m ind. O ur life is shaped by ou r m ind; we
becom e what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as
the wheels o f a cart follow the oxen that draw it. Joy follows a
pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.
“ Right effort is the constant endeavor to train o n eself in
thought, word, and action. A s a gym nast trains the body, those
who desire nirvana must train the m ind. Hard it is to attain
nirvana, beyond the reach even o f the gods. O n ly through
ceaseless effort can you reach the goal. Earnest am ong the
indolent, vigilant am ong those w ho slumber, advance like a
race horse, breaking free from those who follow the way o f
the world.
“ Right attention follows from right effort. It m eans keep-

ing the m ind where it should be. The wise train the mind to
give complete attention to one thing at a time, here and now.
Those who follow me must be always m indful, their thoughts
focused on the dharm a day and night. W hatever is positive,
what benefits others, what conduces to kindness or peace o f
mind, those states o f mind lead to progress; give them full
attention. W hatever is negative, whatever is self-centered,
what feeds m alicious thoughts or stirs up the m ind, those
states o f m ind draw one downward; turn your attention away.
“ Hard it is to train the mind, which goes where it likes and
does what it wants. A n unruly m ind suffers and causes suffer-
ing whatever it does. But a w ell-trained m ind brings health
and happiness.
“ Right meditation is the m eans o f training the m ind. As
rain seeps through an ill-thatched hut, selfish passion w ill
seep through an untrained m ind. Train yo u r m ind through
meditation. Selfish passions will not enter, and yo u r mind
w ill grow calm and kind.

“ This, brothers, is the path that I m yself have followed. No
other path so purifies the m ind. Follow this path and conquer
M ara; its end is the end o f sorrow. But all the effort must be
made by you. Buddhas only show the way.”
The Years o f Teaching
From Varanasi the Buddha set out to teach
the dharm a, w alking through the villages and cities o f north
India. His fame spread before him, d raw ing crow ds w herever
he stopped, and from each place he took away with him sev-
eral ardent young disciples in saffron robes and left behind
a great m any m ore who, though they could not abandon
their hom es and families, had consecrated themselves to the
dharm a. O nly during the m onsoon season did the Buddha
not travel, taking advantage o f the heavy rains to rest with his
followers in a forest retreat and teach those who lived in the
cities and villages nearby.
In this w ay he completed the second forty years o f his life,

and m any beautiful stories are told o f him during these years
o f w andering. A few o f these w ill give som e idea o f the
way
he taught, and why he so sw iftly captured the hearts o f the
Indian people.
The Homecoming
From the day C hanna returned to the palace at Kapilavastu
with his m asters cast-off finery, the B ud dhas fam ily had
mourned. Yashodhara wept for two: little Rahula, new ly born
the night that Siddhartha left, grew up know ing nothing o f
his father except what he heard from the lovin g accounts o f
those who m issed him.
A ccording to ancient Indian custom, those who renounce
the world die to their past and becom e a new person alto-
gether, never to go home again. O f Siddharthas life in the
forest, little more than ru m or could have reached his fam i-
ly’s ears. For seven years Yashodhara m ourned without hope,

while the infant that Siddhartha had left in her arm s grew
straight and tall.
One day Yashodhara’s maids came running with the news
that a buddha, an awakened one, was com ing to Kapilavastu
with a great following o f men all in saffron robes. He taught
about dharm a, they said, as no one had ever taught before,
with an open hand and an open heart, and it was said that he
was none other than the man who had been Siddhartha.
K ing Shuddhodana listened to this news with jo y followed
by anger, for he loved his son passionately and had never for-
given him for abandoning his royal heritage. That same day
he rode out into the forest where the Buddha and his disciples
were staying, and dem anded to see his son.
Even in those days it was Indian custom for children to
greet their father b y kneeling and touching his feet. Yet K ing
Shuddhodana, unprepared for the radiance o f the man who
came to greet him , found h im self kneeling at the feet o f his
son. But then seven years o f frustration burst forth. W hy had

he left those w ho loved him - his father and foster mother, his
wife and little son? They had given him every com fort; i f he
wanted som ething more, did he have to break their hearts to
get it? A nd the crown o f a king - did it mean so little to him
that he had to go and throw it away, leaving his father alone?
The Buddha listened patiently, and even while Shuddh o-
dana scolded, the pain in his heart began to subside. At last,
abashed before this man he could no longer claim as his son,
he fell silent.
Then the Buddha spoke. “ Father, which is the greater ruler:
he w ho rules a sm all kingdom through power, or he who rules
the w hole w orld through love? Your son, w ho renounced a
crown, has conquered all, for he has conquered an enem y
to w hom all bow. You wished for a son to give you security
in your old age, but what son can guarantee security from
changes o f fortune, from illness, from age itself, from death?
I have brought you instead a treasure no other can offer: the

dharm a, an island in an uncertain world, a lamp in darkness,
a sure path to a realm beyond sorrow ”
Shuddhodana listened to these words, and the burden o f
sorrow slipped from his shoulders. lie returned to his palace
with his mind calm and clear, thinking o f the treasure his son
had mentioned and wondering what it would mean to accept it.
The next m orning Yashodhara awoke to the sound o f
tumult in the streets below. H er handm aids ran to the b al-
cony. It had not hccn long sincc the B uddhas illum ination,
but even i f we discount the enthusiasm o f tradition he had
already gathered a large following, and that regal figure at the
head o f a stream o f bright saffron must have made a splendid
sight. “ How like a god he lo oks!” her m aidens called. “ M is-
tress, come and see!”
Yashodhara did not join them, but called Rahula to her
side. “ D o you see that radiant figure,” she said, "w ho owns
only a m endicant’s bowl and robe, yet carries h im self like

a king? That is yo u r father. Run down and ask him for your
inheritance.”
Rahula disappeared down the stairs, and the w om en
watched him reappear in the courtyard below and push
his way through the crowd until he stood squarely in front
o f the man in saffron w aiting at the palace gate. The boy fell
at his fath ers feet and boldly repeated his m other’s words.
Yashodhara’s handm aids could not have heard the exchange,
but they saw the Buddha lift Rahula to his feet with a sweet
smile, and remove the gold-hem m ed w earing cloth from the
b oy’s shoulder to replace it with one o f saffron. Rahula, seven,
had becom e the first and only child perm itted to join the
Buddha’s disciples.
“ Mistress,” Yashodhara’s m aids pleaded, “ you must go
down to him too! There, the king h im self has gone to greet
him . Surely he will see you, even i f he is a m onk and it is
against his vow s to look on a woman.”

“ No,” said Yashodhara. “ I f there is any w orth in m y love, he
will com e to me.”
The maids protested, but through their talk cam e shocked
cries from the crowd below and then the sound o f footsteps
on the stairs. The door opened on K in g Shuddhodana, and
behind him stood the Buddha him self. A s he crossed the
threshold to her cham bers Yashodhara knelt in his path,
clasped his ankles, and laid her head on his feet.
“ Since the day you left,” Shuddhodana said, “she has
m ourned, but she has followed your way. W hen C hanna
brought back you r robes and jew elry, she put aside her fin-
ery. You slept on the forest floor, so she gave up her bed for a
mat. W hen she heard you were eating only once a day, she too
resolved to eat only once a d ay”
The Buddha stooped down and raised her to her feet. “ You
have not yet heard a word o f the dharma,” he said, “ but in
yo u r love you have followed me without question for m any
lives. The time for tears is over. I w ill teach you the way that

leads beyond sorrow, and the love you have shown to me will
em brace the entire w o rld ”
The O rder o f Women
W hile the Buddha was in Kapilavastu m any in his family,
even his father, came to seek perm ission to join the monastic
order he had established for his male followers. There were
no wom en in the Order, however, and although those d ear-
est to his heart - Yashodhara and his aunt and foster mother,
Prajapati - earnestly sought to join, the Buddha refused to
make the precedent. A skin g men and women to live together
in a hom eless life while tryin g to m aster the natural human
passions seemed too m uch to expect o f human nature. For
wom en, his recom m endation was the same as for men who
wanted to follow him but were not prepared to give up home
and family. There is no need to take to the m onastic life, he
told them, in order to follow dharm a. A ll the disciplines o f
the Eightfold Path, including meditation, can be followed by

householders i f they do their best to give up selfish attach-
ment.
Yet this was not enough for Yashodhara and Prajapati.
They had seen through the superficial satisfactions o f life and
longed to dedicate them selves com pletely to its goal. A fter
the Buddha left Kapilavastu they decided to go after him on
foot, like pilgrim s, to press their case.
They caught up with him at Vaishali, alm ost two hundred
m iles away. A nanda, a young disciple who loved the Buddha
passionately and attended to all his personal needs, happened
to see them first, and his heart im m ediately understood their
devotion and m oved him to take their side. But the Buddha
had already m ade his decision, and A nan da could not think o f
any w ay to bring the subject up again. He came to his teacher
that afternoon troubled and preoccupied, not know ing what
to say.
“ What is it, Ananda? There is a cloud over yo u r face today.”

“ Blessed One,” A n an da said, “ m y m ind keeps struggling
with a question I cannot answer. Is it only men who are capa-
ble o f overcom ing suffering?”
The Buddha never answered idle questions, but A nanda
was very dear to him, and clearly there was som ething on his
mind. “ No, Ananda,” he replied. “ Every human being has the
capacity to overcom e suffering.”
“ Is it on ly men who arc capablc o f renouncing selfish
attachments for the sake o f attaining nirvana?”
“ No, A n an da. It is rare, but every hum an being has the
capacity to renounce w orldly attachments for the sake o f
attaining nirvana.”
“ Blessed One, i f that is true, should on ly m en be allowed
to join the sangha and devote themselves completely to the
Way?”
The Buddha must have smiled, for A nanda had caught
him w ith both love and logic. “ No, A nanda. I f som eone
longs
as ardently as I have to give up everything and follow the Way,

then man or wom an, it w ould be w ron g to block that persons
path. Everyone must be free to attain the goal.”
A n an d as eyes shone with gratitude. He got up and opened
the door, and there stood the two barefooted wom en waiting
for their reply.
“Ananda,” the Buddha laughed, “ by all this, you have said
and done just as I would have said and done.”
Thus were ordained the first nuns o f the B uddhas order,
and the two branches o f the sangha becam e the w orld’s first
m onastic com m unity.
The M iddle Path
The Buddhas students came from m any different back-
grounds. A nanda and Devadatta, his cousins, left behind
wealth and social position; Shariputra, M audgalyayana, and
Kashyapa were ascetics won over to the Buddha’s path. Upali
had been a barber in Kapilavastu. A n d Sona, also from a
wealthy family, had entertained hopes o f being a m usician,

for
he loved to play the vina.
When Sona took to the spiritual life, he did so with such
zeal that he decided everything else must be thrown over-
board. Despite wild anim als and poisonous snakes, he went
o ff into the forest alone to practice meditation - and to undo
the softness o f his pam pered past, he insisted on going b are-
foot.
A fter som e time o f this the Buddha decided to go after him .
The path was not hard to find, for it was stained with blood
from Sona’s feet. In addition to his begging bow l, the Blessed
One brought som ething unusual: a vina, whose strings he
had loosened until they were as lim p as spaghetti.
He found Sona m editating under a banyan tree. The b oy
lim ped over to greet him , but the Buddha did not seem to
noticc. All he said was, “ Sona, can you show me how to make
m usic with this?”

Sona took the instrum ent respectfully and fingered a few
notes. ’lhen he began to laugh. “ Blessed One,” he said, "you
can t produce m usic when the strings arc so loose!”
“ Oh, I see. Let me try again.” A n d he proceeded to w ind the
strings so tightly that Sona winced. When the Buddha tested
them, all that came out was high-pitched squeaks.
“ Blessed One, that w o n t w ork cither. You’ ll break the
strings. Here, let me tunc it for you.” He took the instrument,
loosened the strings gently, and played a little o f a haunting
song.
Then he stopped, for the m usic brought m em ories he was
afraid to awaken. “ It has to be tuned just right to make music,”
he said abruptly, handing the vina back to the Buddha. “ N ei-
ther too tight nor too loose, just right.”
“ Sona,” the Buddha replied, “ it is the sam e for those who
seek nirvana. Don’t let y o u rself be slack, but don’t stretch
y o u rself to breaking either. The m iddle course, lying between
too much and too little, is the w ay o f m y Eightfold Path.”

M ahm kyapulra
The Buddha’s penetrating insight attracted m any intellectu-
als, one o f whom , M alunkyaputra, grew more and more fru
s-
trated as the Buddha failed to settle certain basic m etaphysi-
cal questions. Finally he went to the Buddha in exasperation
and confronted him with the following list:
“ Blessed One, there are theories which you have left u n ex-
plained and set aside unanswered: W hether the world is eter-
nal or not eternal; w hether it is finite or infinite; whether the
soul and bod y arc the same or different; w hether a person who
has attained nirvana exists after death o r does not, o r whether
perhaps he both exists and does not exist, or neither exists
nor docs not. The fact that the Blessed One has not explained
these matters neither pleases me nor suits me. I f the Blessed
O ne w ill not explain this to me, I will give up spiritual d isci-
plines and return to the life o f a layman.”
“ M alunkyaputra,” the Buddha replied gently, “ when you

took to the spiritual life, did I ever prom ise you I would
answ er these questions?”
M alunkyaputra w as probably already so rry for his out-
burst, but it was too late. “ No, Blessed One, you never did.”
“ W hy do you think that is?”
“ Blessed One, I haven’t the slightest idea!”
“ Suppose, M alunkyaputra, that a man has been wounded
by a poisoned arrow, and his friends and fam ily are about
to call a doctor. “ Wait!” he says. “ I will not let this arrow be
rem oved until I have learned the caste o f the man who shot
me. I have to know how tall he is, what fam ily he com es from ,
where they live, what kind o f w ood his bow is made from ,
what fletcher made his arrows. W hen I know these things,
you can procccd to take the arrow out and give me an anti-
dote for its poison.” W hat w ould you think o f such a m an?”
“ He would be a fool, Blessed One,” replied M alunkyaputra
shamefacedly. “ I Iis questions have nothing to do with getting

the arrow out, and he would die before they were answered.”
“ Similarly, M alunkyaputra, I do not teach whether the
world is eternal or not eternal; whether it is finite or infi-
nite; whether the soul and the b od y are the same or different;
w hether a person who has attained nirvana exists after death
or docs not, or w hether perhaps he both exists and does not
exist, or neither exists nor does not. I teach how to remove
the arrow: the truth o f suffering, its origin, its end, and the
N oble Eightfold Path.”
Teaching With an Open H and
“ Perhaps,” a disciple suggested discreetly on another occa-
sion, “ these arc matters which the Blessed One h im self has
not cared to know.”
The Buddha did not answer, but sm iled and took a han d-
ful o f leaves from the branch o f the tree under which they
sat.
“ W hat do you think,” he asked, “arc there more leaves in my
hand or on this tree?”

“ Blessed One, you know yo u r handful is only a sm all part
o f what rem ains on the branches. W ho can count the leaves o
f
a shim shapa tree?”
“ W hat I know,” the Buddha said, “ is like the leaves on that
tree; what I teach is only a small part. But I offer it to all with
an open hand. W hat do I not teach? W hatever is fascinating
to discuss, divides people against each other, but has no bear-
ing on putting an end to sorrow. W hat do I teach? O nly what
is necessary to take you to the other sh o re”
The H andful o f M ustard Seed
Once, near the town ofShravasti, the Buddha was seated with
his disciples when a wom an named Krisha G autam i m ade her
way through the crowd and knelt at his feet. H er tear-streaked
face was wild with grief, and in the fold o f her sari she carried
a tiny child.
T v e been to everyone,” she pleaded desperately, “ but still
my son w ill not move, w ill not breathe. Can’t you save him?

C an’t the Blessed One w ork m iracles?”
“ I can help you, sister,” the Buddha prom ised tenderly. “ But
first I w ill need a little mustard seed - and it must come from
a house where no one has died.”
G id d y with joy, Krisha G autam i raced back to the village
and stopped at the v e ry first house. The w om an who met her
was full o f understanding. “ O f course I w ill give you some
mustard seed! How m uch does the Blessed One need to w ork
his m iracle?”
“ Just a little,” Krisha G autam i said. Then, rem em bering
suddenly: “ But it must come from a house where no one has
died.”
Her neighbor turned back with a smile o f pity. “ Little G a u -
tami, you know how m any have died here. Just last month I
lost my grandfather.”
Krisha Gautam i lowered her eyes, ashamed. “ I’m sorry. I’ ll
try next door.”

But next d oor it was the same - and at the next house, and
the next, and the house after that. Everyone wanted to help,
but no one, even in the wealthiest homes, could meet that one
simple condition. Death had com e to all.
Finally Krisha Gautam i understood. She took her child to
the crem ation ground and returned to the Com passionate
Buddha.
“ Sister,” he greeted her, “did you bring me the mustard
seed?”
“ Blessed One,” she said, falling at his feet, “ I have had
enough o f this mustard seed. Just let me be yo u r disciple!”
The C lay Lam p
O ne o f the greatest adm irers o f the Buddha w as K in g Bim
-
bisara o f M agadha. When he heard that the Buddha was
approaching his capital, he hung the city with festive d eco -
rations and lined the m ain street with thousands o f lam ps in
ornate holders, kept lit to honor the Buddha when he passed

by.
In Bim bisara’s capital lived an old wom an who loved the
Buddha deeply. She longed to take her own clay lamp and
join the crowds that w ould line the road when he passed. The
lamp was broken, but she was too po o r to buy a finer one o f
brass. She made a wick from the edge o f her sari, and the co r-
ner shopkeeper, know ing she had no money, poured a little
oil into her lamp.
A stiff breeze had com e up by the tim e she reached the
street where the Buddha would pass, and the old woman
knew there was not enough oil to last long. She did not light
her lamp until the radiant figure o f the Buddha cam e into
view at the city gates.
The wind rose, and K in g Bim bisara must have watched in
agony as a sudden gust extinguished all his lam ps. When the
Buddha passed, only one light rem ained burning: a broken
clay lamp which an old wom an guarded w ith both hands.

The Buddha stopped in front o f her. A s she knelt to receive
his blessing, he turned to his disciples. “ Take note o f this
w om an! A s long as spiritual disciplines are practiced with this
kind o f love and dedication, the light o f the w orld w ill never
go out.”
The Last Entry into N irvana
For over forty years the Buddha walked the length and breadth
o f north India, and throughout the rigors o f a m end icants life
he was careful to keep his b od y fit. But in his eightieth year he
fell so seriously ill that A nanda and some o f the other broth-
ers feared he might die.
Through the pain and fever, however, the Buddhas mind
rem ained clear. He wrestled with death, and after a while the
illness abated and strength returned.
“ I wept,” A n anda confessed, “ for I was afraid you might
leave us. But I rem em bered that you had left no instructions
for us to follow if you were gone.”

“ I f anyone believes that the O rder would fail without
his guidance,” the Buddha replied drily, “ that person surely
should leave careful instructions. For m y part, I know that
the O rder w ill not fail without m y guidance. W hy should I
leave instructions? Be a refuge unto yourselves, A nanda. Be a
lamp unto yourselves. Rely on yourselves and on nothing else.
Hold fast to the dharm a as yo u r lamp, hold fast to the dharm a
as your refuge, and you shall surely reach nirvana, the highest
good, the highest goal, i f that is your deepest desire.”
The next day the Buddha asked Ananda to sum m on all the
m onks in Vaishali. When all had gathered he spoke to them
briefly, urging them to follow the path he had taught them
with diligence and care, so that it m ight safely guide others for
thousands o fy e a rs. “ Remember, brothers, all things that have
come into being have to come to an end. Strive for the goal
with all your heart. W ithin three months, he who has com e
this way to teach you will enter nirvana for the last time.”
“ For I will tell you,” he confided later to Ananda, “ that Mara

has appeared to me again, as I have not seen him since the day
I attained nirvana. ‘You m ay rejoice now,’ I told him , ‘for this
bod y w ill soon leave yo u r kingdom.’ Borne down und er the
weight o f eighty years, A nanda, it creaks and groans like an
ancient cart that has to have constant care to go on. O nly in
deep meditation am I at peace.
“ But, Ananda, you must know that I w ill never leave you.
How can I go anywhere? This b od y is not me. U nlim ited by
the body, unlim ited by the mind, a Buddha is infinite and
measureless, like the vast ocean or the canopy o f sky. I live in
the dharm a I have given you, A nanda, which is closer to you
than your own heart, and the dharm a w ill never die.”
On the follow ing day the Buddha, looking back on the city
ofV aish ali for the last time, left with his disciples for
Kusinara.
But his health had not ftilly returned. On the w ay he rested in
the m ango grove o f a lay follower nam ed Chunda, who
served

the Buddha and his disciples with an elaborate meal. Again
the Buddhas body was seized b y pain. Again he subdued it,
rousing the others to continue on their journey.
A fter some time he stopped along the road and asked
A nan da to spread a robe beneath a tree for him to rest on.
While he lay there, a man came to speak with him and left so
impressed that he becam e a disciple. When he returned, he
presented the Buddha with a new robe. A nanda, helping him
to put it on, was struck by a change in his appearance. “ How
y o u r face and skin shine, Blessed One! The gold o f their rad
i-
ance dulls even the saffron o f this robe.”
“ There arc two occasions when a B uddhas facc and skin
shine so,” replied the Buddha gently: “ when he first enters nir-
vana, and when he is about to enter nirvana for the last tim e”
Later that same day they arrived at Kusinara. There in a
grove o f sal trees the Buddha told A n anda to prepare him a
bed, “ for I am suffering, Ananda, and desire to lie down.” He

stretched h im self out in what is called the lion posture, lying
on his right side with one hand supporting his head, as we
can still sec him represented in the statues and carvings that
depict his last hours.
He sent A nanda into the city o f Kusinara to announce that
he would shed his b o d y during the third watch o f the night,
so
that those who so desired could come and sec him for the last
time. They cam e with their whole households, in such great
num bers that A n an da had to present them to the Buddha not
individually but fam ily by family.
When only the m onks o f the O rder rem ained, the B u d -
dha asked i f anyone had a doubt or question about the Way.
A ll were silent. The Buddha was satisfied. “ Then I exhort you,
brothers: remember, all things that com e into being must pass
away. Strive earnestly!”
They were his last words. Entering into deep meditation,
he passed into nirvana for the last time.

T H E S T A G E S O F E N L I G H T E N M E N T
Despite the B ud dh as extraordinary capabili-
ties, we must accept his own testim ony that until the night
o f his enlightenm ent he saw life essentially the w ay the rest
o f us do. Yet after that experience he lived in a world where
concepts like time and space, causality, personality, death, all
mean som ething radically different. W hat happened to turn
ord in ary w ays o f seeing inside out?
In the V inaya Pitaka ( i l l .4) the Buddha left a concise map
o f his jo u rn e y to nirvana - a description o f the course o f
his
meditation that night, couched in the kind o f language a bril-
liant clinician might use in the lecture hall. In Buddhism the
stages o f this jo u rn ey are called the “ four dhyanas,” from
the
Sanskrit word for meditation, which later passed into Japa-
nese as zen. Scholars som etim es treat passage through the
four dhyanas as a peculiarly Buddhist experience, but the

B ud dhas description tallies not only with Hindu authorities
like Patanjali but also with Western mystics like John o f the
Cross, Teresa o f A vila, Augustine, and M eister Eckhart.
What
the Buddha is givin g us is som ething o f universal
application:
a precise account o f levels o f awareness beneath the everyday
w aking state.
On that night, he tells us, he seated h im self for meditation
with the resolve not to get up again until he had attained his
goal. Then, he continues,
I roused unflinching determination, focused m y attention,
made m y body calm and motionless and m y mind concen-
trated and one-pointed.
Standing apart from all selfish urges and all states o f mind
harmful to spiritual progress, 1 entered the first meditative
state, where the mind, though not quite free from divided
and diffuse thought, experiences lasting joy.

B y putting an end to divided and diffuse thought, with
my m ind stilled in one-pointed absorption, I entered the
second meditative state quite free from any wave o f thought,
and experienced the lasting jo y o f the unitive state.
A s that jo y became more intense and pure, I entered the
third meditative state, becom ing conscious in the very
depths o f the unconscious. Even my body was flooded with
that jo y o f which the noble ones say, “ They live in abiding
jo y who have stilled the mind and are fully awake.”
Then, going beyond the duality o f pleasure and pain and
the whole field o f m em ory-m aking forces in the m ind, I
dwelt at last in the fourth meditative state, utterly beyond
the reach o f thought, in that realm o f complete purity
which can be reached only through detachment and
contemplation.
This was m y first successful breaking forth, like a chick
breaking out o f its shell___
This last quiet phrase is deadly. O u r everyday life, the B u d -

dha ivS suggesting, is lived within an eggshell. We have no
more idea o f what life is really like than a chicken has before
it
hatches. Excitem ent and depression, fortune and m isfortune,
pleasure and pain, are storm s in a tiny, private, shell-bound
realm which we take to be the whole o f existence.
Yet we can break out o f this shell and enter a new world. For
a moment the Buddha draws aside the curtain o f space and
time and tells us what it is like to see into another dim ension.
W hen I read these w ords I rem em ber listening to the far-o ff
voice o f Neil A rm stron g that evening in 1969, telling us
what it
felt like to stand on the moon and look up at the earth floating
in a sea o f stars. The B ud dh as voice reaches us from no dis-
tance at all, yet from a place much more remote. li e is at the
center o f consciousness, beyond the thinking apparatus itself.
A s in som e science fiction story, he has slipped through a kind
o f black hole into a parallel universe and returned to tell the

rest o f us what lies outside the b oundaries o f the mind.
To capture this vision will require m any metaphors. Like
snapshots o f the sam e scene from different angles, they will
som etim es appear inconsistent. This should present no prob-
lem to the m odern m ind. We are used to physicists present-
ing us with exotic and conflicting m odels - phenom ena
described as both particles and waves, parallel futures where
som ething both takes place and does not, universes that are
finite but unbounded. The m athem atics behind these m o d -
els is the best that im agination can do. A n d we laym en are
satisfied: we cannot check the mathematics, hut we arc quite
content to get an intuitive sense o f what such radical ideas
mean. Let us give the Buddha the sam e credence. Beneath the
simple verses o f the D ham m apada he will show us a universe
every hit as fascinating as B o h r’s or Einstein’s.
The B uddhas d ry description o f the four dhyanas hides the
fact that traversing them is a nearly im possible achievem ent.

Even to enter the first dhyana requires years o f dedicated, sus-
tained, system atic effort, the kind o f practice that turns an
ord in ary athlete into a cham pion.
This is an apt com parison, for the word the Buddha chose
for “ right effort” is one that is used for disciplined athletic
training in general and gym nastics in particular. W hen the
Buddha m entions with what determ ination he sat down for
m editation that night, I rem em ber the look I have seen on the
face o f cham pionship athletes w aiting to launch the perfo r-
mance that will win them an O lym pic gold medal. They have
trained their body for years, sharpened their concentration,
unified their will, and that m om ent they have one thing on
their mind and one thing only. N othing less is required for
meditation. Behind the Buddha’s apparently effortless p as-
sage through deeper states o f consciousness lie years o f the
most arduous training.
The First Dhyana
W hen a lover o f m usic listens to a concert, she

is likely to close her eyes. I f you call her name or touch her
on the shoulder, she may not even notice. Attention has been
withdraw n from her other senses and is concentrated in her
hearing. The same thing happens as meditation deepens,
except that attention is withdrawn from all the senses and
turned inward. Western m ystics call this “ recollection,” a lit-
eral translation o f what the Buddha calls “ right attention.” No
one has given a better com parison than St. Teresa: attention
returns from the outside world, she says, like bees return-
ing to the hive, and gathers inside in intense activity to make
honey. Sound, touch, and so on are still perceived, but they
make very little im pression, alm ost as if the senses have been
disconnected.
Gradually, as the quiet settles in, we realize we are in a new
world. For a while we cannot see. Like m oviegoers enter-
ing a dark theater for a matinee, our eyes are still dazzled by
the glare from outside. To learn to move about in this world

takes time. A blind man has hearing and touch to help direct
him from place to place, but in the unconscious, with the
senses closed down, there are no landm arks that one can rec-
ognize.
At this level we begin to see how the m ind works. Cut o ff
from its accustom ed sensory input, it runs around looking for
som ething to stimulate it. The Buddha specifies two aspects o f
this: “d ivided thought,” the ord in ary two-track mind, tryin g
to keep attention on two things at once, and “diffuse thought,”
the m ind’s tendency to wander. The natural direction o f this
m ovem ent is outward, toward the sensations o f experience.
To turn inward, this m ovem ent has to be reversed. 'Through-
out the first dhyana the centrifugal force o f the thinking p ro -
cess is gradually absorbed as attention is recalled.
Ordinarily, thought follows a course o f stim ulus and
response. Som e event, whether in the world or in the mind,
sets o ff a chain o f associations, and attention follows. To

descend through the personal unconscious, we need co n -
centration that cannot be broken by any sensory attraction
or em otional response - in a word, m astery over ou r senses
and our likes and dislikes. Most people w ork through the first
dhyana by developing this kind o f self-control during the
day. The Buddha, however, has covered this ground already.
ITis passions are mastered and his mind one-pointed. When
he sits down to meditate, he crosses this region o f the mind
without distraction.
This is only the first leg o f a very long journey, but even in
itself it is a rare achievem ent. The concentration it requires
w ill bring success in any field, along with a deep sense o f w
ell-
being, security, and a quiet jo y in living. No great flashes o f
insight come at this level, but you do begin to see connections
between personal problem s and their deeper causes, and with
this com es the w ill to make changes in your life.
The Second Dhyana

To talk about regions o f the m ind like this, I con -
fess, is a little m isleading. Between the first and second d h ya-
nas there is no dem arcation line. Both are areas o f what might
be called the personal unconscious, that sector o f the m ind in
which lie the thoughts, feelings, habits, and experiences pecu -
liar to on eself as an individual. In the second dhyana, how -
ever, concentration is much deeper, and the dem ands o f the
senses - to taste, hear, touch, smell, or see, to experience some
sensation or other - have becom e much less shrill. The quiet
o f meditation is unassailed by the outside world. D istractions
can still break the thread o f concentration, but much less eas-
ily; gradually they seem more and more distant.
Here the struggle for self-m astery m oves to a significantly
deeper level. Associations, desires, and thoughts generated by
the preoccupations o f the day leave behind their disguises o f
rational, unselfish behavior and appear for what they are. The
ego has retreated to m ore basic dem ands: the claim s o f “ I”
and

“ mine.” Here, to make progress, we becom e eager for opportu-
nities to go against self-will, especially in personal relation-
ships. There is no other w ay to gain detachm ent from the self-
centered conditioning that burdens every hum an being. The
Buddha calls this “ sw im m ing against the current” : the co n -
certed, deliberate effort to dissolve self-interest in the desire
to serve a larger whole, when cons o f conditioning have p ro -
gram m ed us to serve ourselves first.
This is painful, hut with the pain com es satisfaction in
m astering som e o f the strongest urges in the hum an person-
ality. When you sit for meditation you descend steadily, step
by step, into the depths o f the unconscious. The experience is
very much like what deep-sea divers describe when they lower
themselves into the black waters hundreds o f feet down. The
world o f everyday experience seem s as remote as the oceans
surface, and you feel im m ense pressure in your head, as i f
you
were im m ersed under the weight o f a sea o f consciousness.

The thread o f concentration is your lifeline then. I f it breaks,
you can lose your way in these dark depths.
Here all the m in d s attention - even what ordinarily goes to
subconscious urges and preoccupations - is being absorbed
in a single focus. This seem ingly simple state com es sponta-
neously only to men and w om en o f great genius, and it con -
tains im m ense power. The rush o f the thinking process has
been slowed to a crawl, each m om ent o f thought under con -
trol. The m om entum o f the m ind has been gathered into
great
reserves o f potential energy, as an object gathers when lifted
against the pull o f gravity.
In these depths com es a revolutionary realization: thought
is not continuous. Instead o f being a sm ooth, unbroken
stream, the thinking process is more like the How o f action in
a movie: only a series o f stills, passing our eyes faster than we
can perceive.
This idea is one o f the most abstract in Buddhism , and

m ovies make such a concrete illustration that I feel sure the
Buddha would have appreciated having a reel o f film around
to show intellectuals like M alunkyaputra. “ You w ouldn’t say
a
movie is unreal, would yo u ?” he might ask. “ But the appear-
ance o f continuity is unreal, and confusing a m ovie with real-
ity is not right understanding.”
M ost o f us find it easy to get involved in certain kinds o f
movies. We get caught up in the action and forget ourselves,
and our body and m ind respond as i f we were there on the
screen. The heart races, blood pressure goes up, fists clench,
and the m ind gets excited and jum ps to conclusions, just as if
we were actually experiencing what is happening to the hero
or heroine. The Buddha would say, “ You are experiencing it:
and that is the way you experience life, too.”
This m ay sound heartless, as i f he is saying that excite-
ment and tragedy arc no more than a celluloid illusion. Not
at all. What he m eans is that as human beings, our responses

should not be automatic; we should be able to choose. W hen
the m ind is excited, we jum p into a situation and do whatever
com es automatically, which often only makes things worse.
I f the mind is calm , we see d e a rly and don’t get em
otionally
entangled in events around us, leaving us free to respond with
com passion.
Most o f us have never thought much about the m echan-
ics o f film projection, so we arc surprised to learn that every
m oment o f image on the screen is followed by a m om ent o f
no-im agc when the screen is dark. We do not perceive these
m om ents o f emptiness. Action stimulates the m ind; n o -
action bores it. Attention follows the desire to be stimulated
and skips over what the mind finds meaningless. The power
o f im agination ju m p s the gaps between images, h olding
them
together in our mind. O nly when the projector is slowed
down do we begin to see the flicker o f the screen.

When this happens in a movie, our interest wanes. Our
attention is not pow erful enough to hold together in a con-
tinuous flow im ages that are broken by more than a fraction
o f a second. Such a feat requires the concentration o f genius.
I
think it w as Keynes who said that Newton had the capacity to
hold a single problem in the focus o f his mind for days, weeks,
even years, until it w as solved. That is just what is required
at this depth in meditation. The thinking process is slowed
until you can alm ost see each thought pass by, yet instead o f
one thought follow ing another without rhym e or reason, the
mind has such pow er that the focus o f concentration is not
disturbed.
At this depth in consciousness, the sense world and even
the notion o f personal identity is v e ry far away. Asleep to
one’s
body, asleep even to the thoughts, feelings, and desires that
we think o f as ourselves, we are nevertheless intensely awake
in an inner world - deep in the unconscious, near the v ery

threshold o f personality.
The Tliird Dhyana
If thought is discontinuous, we want to ask,
what is between two thoughts? The answ er is, nothing. A
thought is like a wave in consciousness; between two thoughts
there is no m ovem ent in the m ind at all. C onsciousness itself
is like a still lake, clear, calm, and full o f joy.
When the thought-process has been slowed to a crawl in
meditation, there com es a time when - without w arning - the
m ovie o f the m ind stops and you get a glim pse right through
the m ind into deeper consciousness. This is called bodhi, and
it com es like a blinding glim pse o f pure light accom panied
by
a flood o f joy.
This experience is not what Zen Buddhists call “ no-m ind.”
It is only, i f I m ay coin a term, “ no-thought.” The thinking
process has such im m ense m om entum that even at this depth,

concentration has pow er enough to stop it only for an instant
before it starts up again. But the jo y o f this experience is so
intense that all your desires for life’s lesser satisfactions m erge
in the deep, d rivin g desire to do everything possible to stop
the mind again.
This point m arks the threshold between the second and
third dhyanas. C rossing this threshold is one o f the most d if-
ficult challenges in the spiritual journey. You feel blocked by
an im penetrable wall. Bodhi is a glim pse o f the other side,
as you get when you drop a quarter into the telescope near
the G olden Gate Bridge and the shutter snaps open for a two-
minute look at sea lions frolicking on the rocks. But these
first experiences o f bodhi are over in an instant, leaving you
so eagerly frustrated that you are w illing to do anything to
get through. You feel your w ay along that wall from one end
to the other looking for a break, and finally you realize that
there isn’t any. And you just start chipping away. It requires

T H E D H A M M A P A D AIDAs irrigators g u .docx

T H E D H A M M A P A D AIDAs irrigators g u .docx

T H E D H A M M A P A D AIDAs irrigators g u .docx

T H E D H A M M A P A D AIDAs irrigators g u .docx

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Similar a T H E D H A M M A P A D AIDAs irrigators g u .docx

Similar a T H E D H A M M A P A D AIDAs irrigators g u .docx(20)

Mais de deanmtaylor1545

Mais de deanmtaylor1545(20)

Último

Último(20)

T H E D H A M M A P A D AIDAs irrigators g u .docx