discuss i think uh after i go through some of that i'm curious to just open up the discussion um who we see how we see the buddha uh how we think of i won't even say him how we think of this this uh whether it's a person or image or some otherworldly figure. I'm just, I'm really curious to know how people picture it and work with it. So, that'll be this week. Next week, I will, I think, talk about probably basic doctrine, which is kind of the discovery of this enlightenment. Well, certainly the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path and perhaps touching on the question of karma.

[01:03]

The third week sort of depends on what the second week is like. You can go in a couple of different directions. One would be go more into some basic Buddhist doctrine and basic Buddhist teachings. And the other would be to have an overview of the kind of the range of his teachings or what's become this or systemization of his teachings. I think we can decide this next week what you want. And then the fourth week to begin to look at the early Mahayana, early Mahayana Buddhism and the Bodhisattva ideal which is what evolved into the Zen schools and the other schools of East Asia and Japan. And they began evolving slightly, really about 100 years after the Buddha's death.

[02:10]

So that whole process began relatively earlier than some of the historians initially thought. So that's kind of an overview of what I'm thinking of doing. If you want to have a bunch of discussion, if you can. So I may sort of limit what we talk about. We'll take a short break, a five minute break. And if you don't understand something, just speak up or raise your hand. So does that all seem fairly clear? Good. There are a wealth of material available about the life of the Buddha. This is one book which is actually pretty good, by Bhikkhu Yonamoli, which is kind of a compendium of ... it sort of puts together a life from the early

[03:23]

sutras, the early historical sutras. So it's all in those words. It's a little confusing because he designates several voices and several different narrators, but you can go through it. There's an awful lot of textual material, a lot of them. The early sutras are basically stories from the Buddha's life. But I thought I would begin with It's the beginning. So, the child who was to become the Buddha was born prince of the... Well, actually, his mother had a dream. His mother, Queen Maya, had a dream that featured a white elephant. And When she awoke from that dream, she knew she was pregnant.

[04:26]

She was a queen of the Shakya clan. And those are in North India, what is now Nepal. They were small, really kind of like ethnic groups. These kingdoms were not very large, but they had They had all the full castes themselves. The king was from the Kshatriya, the warrior caste. And Maya was the queen. Maya was the queen. And his father, the father was King Suddhodana. And this was about somewhere around 600 BC. And she had a dream of this white elephant. Ten months later, she felt that the birth was imminent, and she went walking in the forest, Lumbini Park in Kapilavastu, and reached up and grabbed the limb of a tree, and somehow, miraculously, the Buddha was born from her side.

[05:48]

and then don't ask me. They had Velcro or zippers. So, she gave birth to this child and this child was pretty remarkable. Yeah. So, the normal method. To my mind, I think of it sort of like a parallel to the virgin births, that it's a matter of purity, that the normal birth is construed, perhaps, as impure. It would seem to me to be every bit as messy to be born from the side. Anyway, yeah?

[06:51]

I was wondering if, because I know his mother died, and he was raised by his aunt. Yes. I was wondering if maybe this was like a sort of a pretty story, where it was ugly, or sad, or maybe is not going to be put on her side in the emergency C-section. That's quite possible. She died. Yeah. But she did die within a week. And he was raised by her sister, who then later, I'm jumping ahead, became the first ordained woman in the southern area. So, people were very happy that the Selassie's prince was to be ordained. The king had a spiritual advisor named Asha, also known as Kaladeva, and he came to look at the child and

[08:01]

Oh, I forgot, I'm sorry, I'm skipping around. Another miraculous factor in some of the stories was that when the Buddha was born, he immediately took five steps. And we have, if you've been here for Buddha's birthday, we have this figure of the baby Buddha with one hand pointing to the earth, and pointing to the sky. Take six steps and point to the sky and said, I alone, above the earth and under the sky, am destined to be the world-honored one. And then I think he didn't speak for a while. So Ashtak came and was very moved. He was very happy to see He examined the child, and he was very happy to see this child.

[09:04]

And also that he began to weep. And when questioned about it, he said, this child was going to be the liberator of the world. And he was weeping because he was destined to die before the child would attain awakening and be able to awaken him. So the boy's name was Siddhartha, and that means wish fulfilled, and the name was Gautama. Another group of Brahmins, religious officials, came and examined him, eight of them came and examined him. Seven of them raised two fingers, to indicate two possible destinies. One, that he would become a universal monarch, a great king, a great warrior king.

[10:09]

And the other, that he would become a completely enlightened Buddha. And the eighth one, the youngest of these brahmins, was the kandana. And he noticed the way the pattern of the hair of the child's head was, and he raised one finger, and he asserted that the child would definitely retire from worldly life. So he had a, yeah. Yeah, sure. the spiritual practice of the family that you were born into? It was probably an early form of Hinduism. And Hinduism, I think, was quite eclectic, but certainly marked by the notion of this kind of abiding self that was transmuted from life to life.

[11:20]

the religion was, the Brahmins were essentially Hindu priests. I think Hinduism also developed more after Buddha's time, but it was to some degree. So he had a very easy, privileged childhood. He was very bright, he was capable at all the arts and all of the warrior's arts. And there was this wonderful incident that took place early. It was his first spiritual experience. The king had his father arrange for a plowing festival. And everyone in the tribe wore their best clothes. On the appointed day, the king, accompanied by his courtiers, went to the field, taking with him the young prince and his nurses. Placing the child on a screened and canopied couch under the cool shade of a solitary rose apple tree, the child was watched.

[12:34]

And the king began his plowing. And while this was going on, people were not paying attention to Siddhartha. He created this tremendous zone and feeling of peace around the apple tree. All the conditions that were necessary for meditation were there. And he sat cross-legged and he practiced meditating on his breath and developed what's known as the first jhana. The first jhanas are concentrations. Some of you may be familiar with that. But the first jhana is a meditation of settling into the bliss of non-dual experience. And when the nurses came back,

[13:39]

They brought the king because the child was completely absorbed in this concentration, in this glow. So, that was his first meditative experience. He received a set of basic education and he married young. He married at the age of 16. married a cousin who was about the same age. His name was Yasadara. And there's almost nothing said about his 13 years of marriage. He led a rather pleasant and uneventful life. And there seems to be very few texts or narratives about that. period. One wonders what he was doing.

[14:42]

But at the age of 29, several things happened. One was that Yasodhara became pregnant with their child. And he developed a tremendous curiosity that what was beyond the walls of the castle. This is one of the things that it's kind of hard to imagine, but his father, his father was so determined that he would be a great king, that he wanted to protect him rather than a holy man, that he wanted to protect him from the realities of the world. So when they surrounded him with beautiful things, beautiful environments, a number of different homes and castles to live in, only served by beautiful young women.

[15:57]

One wonders, I guess the old people were out of sight completely. But that's part of the mythology. Because he had a tremendously inquiring mind, he bribed his charioteer to take him out, to take him on trips outside the walls of the royal residence. And so he made four trips. And on the first trip, these were world-turning trips. On the first trip, he saw an old person. a very old person, somebody who was bent and wobbly and long, and his skin was all cold. And he asked the charioteer, what's that? And it was this way. And it really struck his heart that he could suffer like that.

[17:01]

He went down shortly, and he saw sitting by the side of the road, a sick person, drenched in sweat, covered with their own excrement, shaking. Somebody was terribly ill. He had never seen that. And again, he had to join the team. On the third trip, as they were driving through Kabul, He saw a corpse inside the building. And that also was shocking to him. And then the fourth time, when he went out, he saw a mendicant, a religious beggar, wearing the yellow robes and the tarp.

[18:03]

And he asked what that was. Channa, Charioteer said. Well, that's someone who has left home to pursue the holy life. And many, there were many people like this. It's not an unusual way to live one's life. And I think they look much like Buddhist monks that we see now. I mean, they wore saffron robes and they shaved their heads. a life of austerity and practices. And he realized that he had to do that. He had to leave home. So he conceived that idea. Oh, he describes, I'm sorry, he describes his life up to that point, when the sutras exist, I was delicate, excessively delicate.

[19:08]

In my father's dwelling, three lotus ponds were made purposely for me. Blue lotuses bloomed in one, red in another, and white in another. I used no sample wood that was not of cassia, which is very fine in quality. Night and day, a white parasol was held over me so that I might not be touched by heat or cold, dust, leaves, or dew. There were three palaces built for me, one for the cold season, one for the hot season, and one for the rainy season. During the four rainy months, I lived in the palace for the rainy season without ever coming down from it, entertained all the while by female musicians. Just as in the houses of others, food from the husks of rice, together with sour gruel, was given to the slaves and workmen, even so in my father's dwelling, food with rice and meat was given to the slaves and workmen. And as time went on, he no longer enjoyed these things.

[20:10]

He didn't feel a personal grief, but he felt deep pity for the humanity that he experienced. Realizing that the worthlessness of sensual pleasures, which was surprised by most people, he appreciated the value of renunciation. He decided to leave the world in search of truth and eternal peace. And just as this decision was being made, he received news from the birth of his son, just as he was about to leave the park. And contrary to what our usual expectations would be, rather than being overjoyed, he felt that the birth of his son was an impediment.

[21:21]

And the quote from the sutra is, an impediment, the word aliraghu, has been born, a fetter, something divine, has arisen. And so the infant son is named Rahula, which means impediment. Imagine walking around with that in your hand. But I should say, that all works out too. Not only does his adoptive mother his wife and his son all become members of his or her heart. But, yeah. Yeah. Oh, this

[22:26]

This particular narrative is from Bhikkhun Narada, a Sri Lankan monk. But it's drawn from the early suttas. Now, the early suttas are reputedly the memorization of his disciple Ananda. None of these teachings were written down, but the stories were told. Shortly after the Buddha's death, they had the first council of monks. There was a monk's order and a nun's order. Somehow, they forgot to tell the nuns.

[23:29]

that this council has had to make. So we have these issues, these gender issues, or patriarchal issues, which I don't want to get hung up in now, but we could certainly come back. So what was interesting there was that Ananda was the Buddha's personal attendant for 35 years, from the age of 55 to the age of, no, 25 years, from the age of 55 to the age He died. Ananda was with him all the time. Ananda was not a fully enlightened being. And they had to make special dispensation at the council. It was just the council of the people who were completely enlightened. And there were maybe 500 of them. but Ananda was the one who had the photographic memory.

[24:31]

So they brought him in to recite all these teachings, and he remembered everything that he ever heard, and there's a fairly traditional beginning of all these sutras was, ìThus have I heard,î and Ananda is spinning out this narrative. So that's kind of the main voice, which gets filtered through. Here, it's filtered through Miku, Narada, and me. And I'm even less enlightened than Ananda was for a long time. Anyway, yeah? Did they have to push a criteria to pass the benchmark? Yeah, they probably did. I mean, they did. If you read the sutras, you know, basically, well, we'll get to this as we go on, and the Buddha just declared.

[25:38]

The Buddha, ordination, the original ordination, the Buddha would just say, come, bhikkhu, or come, bhikkhu. And people would come, and that was ordination. It was a direct, kind of mind-to-mind transmission. And often, a person woke up right in that moment. Now this became more, and we'll talk about this, this became more problematic as there got to be, as he empowered people, monastics, to go out and teach. And then they had to establish rules and standards. But there's never been really a very precise or measurable standard for when to release the kundalini in life. But it was mostly what the Buddha recognized and what the Buddha could help you recognize about yourself so that you could wake up and what he could help you to drop.

[26:46]

He had his charioteer, Chana, saddle his horse, and he went to the suite of apartments that was occupied by his family. He opened the door and looked, sadly, once more at his wife and child who were asleep. It was very difficult to leave, but he also felt that His leaving was going to be for the good of all, for the greater good of them and of all of humanity. And he was prepared to make that sacrifice. So he left the palace and he went into the forest and he crossed the river and Noma, which means illustrious.

[27:53]

And there he took out his, with his sword, he cut off his hair and his beard. And he gave all of his clothing and ornaments and weapons to China and took on the yellow robes of an ascetic. He became a penniless wanderer. So that was his first renunciation. It was a famous island. He lived under trees or in caves. And he had just one mole to collect food. Have any of you ever seen monks on entremets? In Asia, it's really pretty neat that they still carry I'm going to carry this one home. It's beautiful.

[28:56]

So he was trying to learn. He was trying to find the path to religion. And he approached a distinguished ascetic, Allara Kalama. And he asked, said, I desire, friend Kalama, to lead the holy life in this dispensation of yours. And Kalama said, well, you may stay with me and I will teach you. Very shortly, he learned all of Kalama's teachings, which took him through, I think, those took him through the first six or seven of the jhanas, of these concentrations. But having done that, he still felt that he was bound by the keys of somebody.

[30:03]

And this is an interesting thing for us to consider. We don't talk about this very much in the Zen school, but in the Vipassana tradition, which I'm sure some of you Often there's a distinction made between concentration and insight. So the jhanas are concentration. Concentration is to clarify your mind, to simplify it, to have it be relatively unattached, but it's not liberation. If we talk about these things, we never talk about them here. And stages, it's a preliminary stage. It is different in the Zen school, but that's another question.

[31:08]

So he learned these. He reached all the way. Allara Kalama made known to him the realm of nothingness, an advanced stage of concentration. So before long, Siddhartha realized that by his own intuitive wisdom, the doctrine, the teaching of Alara Kalama, and attained it. But it brought him no realization of the highest truth. And he approached Alara Kalama and said, is this the full extent, friend Kalama, of this doctrine which you say that you yourself have realized by your wisdom? And Alara Plum said, yes, it is. And he was very happy that Siddhartha had attained this and offered him to make him co-teacher with him.

[32:09]

But the ascetic Gautama was not satisfied with the discipline and doctrine, which only led to a high degree of mental concentration and did not lead to nirvana, the stopping of his outflows of suffering. So he left and he went to another teacher, Ramakuta, and again he reached Under Ramaputta he reached the highest stage, the last stage of concentration, the realm of neither perception nor non-perception. This is the highest stage of fully concentration. Consciousness becomes so subtle and refined that it cannot be said that a consciousness either exists or not. And that was as far as the Indian yogic teachers had gone.

[33:12]

And again, Ramaputta is very happy to hear of his attainment, but the Buddha said, not there yet. So he was disappointed, but not discouraged. And he decided that he was going to live a life of austerity, a life of complete renunciation. And there were five Brahmins who came along with him, including the one, Kandana, who had said, the strongest in the wind and light. And they were his company for six years. For six long years, the ascetic Gautama made a superhuman struggle, practiced all forms of severest austerity. His delicate body is reduced almost to a skeleton. a long description.

[34:30]

I mean, he suppressed his breathing. He suppressed his eating. He suppressed his sleeping. And this is kind of what it looked like. necessarily. It's a statue of the ascetic Buddha just before his enlightenment, and he took it at a temple in Thailand. Back to him. Do we know what the practices were, any practices, the things that were with those two teachers? He describes what they were with the two teachers? Yeah. They were meditation practices. Oh yeah, yeah, those are meditative concentrations. I'm hesitant to say that the practices that we would do today are those same practices, but there is a tradition of jhanic meditation.

[35:45]

Doesn't zen come from the word jhana? Yeah. Zen, well, jhana has a couple meanings. So zen comes from chan in Chinese, which comes from jhana in Sanskrit, which just means it becomes more generically just meditation. as it evolved. But there are very specific jhanic techniques, very specific concentrations and meditations. There's a teacher. I think he's going to Berkeley or Oakland. Does anyone know Lee Brassington? Yeah. Yeah. I think he's here. Yeah, right. Really, he's a great guy, and very knowledgeable, and very aware of the contradictory issues around the jhanic meditations.

[36:50]

But his teacher was Aya Khema, a German woman who settled on an island. Sri Lanka, and that was kind of a sinful practice that she did. And it relates to, because as we get to the Enlightenment, you'll see that in the course of the Enlightenment, the Buddha moved through all these jhanic states. So it's not like he gets stuck on these states, but it's very much a developmental practice as seen that way, which is very different from ours. So in our tradition, jhana It just means meditation. Yeah. Yeah, that was his goal. His goal was to... Oh, he was, yeah, I think he didn't know how it was going to happen, but I think he knew that was his

[37:58]

He had a very strong intuitive sense of that. So the descriptions of that is aesthetic practices. Then the following occurred to me. How, if I were to clench my teeth, press my tongue against the palate, and with thoughts hold down, subdue, and destroy my immoral thoughts? So I clenched my teeth, pressed my tongue against the palate, and strove to hold down, subdue, and destroy my immoral thoughts with moral thoughts. And as I struggled thus, perspiration streamed forth from my armpits, like unto a strong man who might seize a weaker man by head or shoulders, and hold him down, force him down, and bring him to subjection. Even so did I struggle. And he goes on, there's more and more. Thus I thought, how if I were to cultivate the non-breathing ecstasy?

[39:04]

Accordingly, I checked inhalation and exhalation from my mouth and nostrils, and as I checked my inhalation and exhalation from my mouth and nostrils, the air issuing from my ears created an exceedingly great noise, just as a blacksmith's bellow being blown makes an exceedingly great noise. And so on and so forth. cultivating all these very extreme states, until, thereupon, the deities who saw me said, ìThe ascetic Gautama is dead.î Some remarked, ìThe ascetic Gautama is not dead yet, but is dying,î while others said, ìThe ascetic Gautama is neither dead nor dying, such is the way in which an Arhant abides.î But finally, He thought to himself, how if I were to practice complete abstinence from food? And then the deities approached me and said, do not, great sir, practice total abstinence from food.

[40:05]

If you do practice it, we will pour celestial essence through your body's pores. With that, you will be sustained. And so the following thought occurred to me. How, if I take food, little by little, a small quality of the juice of green gram or vetch or lentils or peas, so I took such a small quantity of solid and liquid food, my body became extremely emaciated, just as are the joints of knot grasses or bulrushes. Even so were the major and minor parts of my body, owing to lack of food. And I, intending to touch intended to touch my belly skin would instead seize my backbone. When I intended to touch my backbone, I would seize my belly. So was I that, owing to lack of sufficient food, my belly skin clung to the backbone, and I, on going to pass excreta or urine, would in that very spot stumble and fall down for want of food.

[41:09]

And I stroked my limbs in order to revive my body, low as I did, so the rotten roots of my body's hair fell through my body. People who saw me said, the ascetic katama is black. Some said, the ascetic katama is not black, but blue. To such extent was the pure color of my skin, which was radiant and golden and paired with black food. In this, He begins to encounter Mara, or Hector, who sort of plays a role like the devil in the life of Christ. And he keeps trying to talk him out of all of his practices, and to say this is all pointless, that he's never going to get there, no matter what he does, so he may as well die. So that was one thing.

[42:14]

The temptations, again, run all through these narratives. I wish it was a lot more time than that. Yeah. So you mentioned a while ago, one thing that really is driving him is, he's conscious of this, he really wants to achieve is exactly this other one. So he's going through all these things because all these people around him are also going through them. It's not just him by himself, right? Yeah, no, the aesthetics were with him. There were six of them right there. Are they not carrying the same goal as he? This is the special thing about the dark. They don't know what they're after. He knows what he's after. They don't quite know. So that's a little bit different. I mean, they're questing. But somewhere, he has this very strong idea of liberation. They have it.

[43:14]

They say, not this, not this. Right. So that actually is what happens exactly in this next section of the story. The ascetic Gautama was now fully convinced from personal experience of the futility of self-mortification. which, though considered indispensable for deliverance by the ascetic philosophers of the day, actually weakened one's intellect and resulted in mass intuitive experience. And he abandoned this painful experience, as he had already abandoned other forms of painful self-indulgence, which regards moral progress. And then he conceived this notion of the middle way. He realized that enlightenment could not be gained with such an utterly exhausted body. Some kind of physical fitness was essential to spiritual progress. So he decided to nourish his body sparingly and took some food.

[44:22]

The five favorite disciples who were attending on him with great hopes, thinking that whatever truth the ascetic Gautama would comprehend, that he would import to himself. Already, you know, he's their leader, you know, and they see him kind of as lazy in the path, and, you know, want to be there when he wakes up. But they felt disappointed at this unexpected change of him, and they went away. And they went to Iskutana, the local town, saying, and this is a quote The ascetic Atama has become luxurious and had ceased from striving and returned to a life of comfort. And so they left him alone. But at this point, his resolve was so clear that even being alone was not a real hindrance.

[45:22]

So regaining his strength with some food, he easily developed the first concentration, the one which he had experienced as a youth under the rose apple tree. And he went and he found this, what we now call a Bodhi tree, a teapot tree. And he brought grasses and sat there and said, well, I'm just going to sit here until I wake up. So this story is kind of condensed at this point, but he's brought another meal by a young farm girl, Sujata. It's a very rich rice milk mixture. And he sits down, and within a week... free from lust and impurity, pliable, alert, steady and unshakable. He directed his mind to the knowledge as regards the reminiscence of past births.

[46:30]

So that's on this last night, the night of his awakening. In the first watch of the night, first thing that happens, he's moved through all of the jhanas and he's starting to open up. And so the first thing that happens is he remembers all of his past births. These are the births that are, I don't know if you've ever read the Janaka tales. They're wonderful stories, actually pre-Buddhist, but each one is, in the Janakas, configured as an earlier life of the Buddha. They're very beautiful, they're great for kids. As animals and as humans, as all kinds of beings. But that's where the idea of the Bodhisattva first emerges. Bodhisattva as Buddha-to-be. Bodhisattva who, over and over again in these stories, gives his or her life for the sake of other beings.

[47:35]

J-A-T-A-K. So, in this first watch of the night, he sees his past lives and just visualizes them completely. In the second watch of the night, he directed his purified mind to the perception of the disappearing and reappearing beings. to the notion of impermanence and reverse. And using his vision, he sees this whole cycle of reverse. That's in the second watch. In the third watch, he sees he

[48:38]

develops what they call the comprehension of the cessation of corruptions. And what this is, is the realization of the Four Noble Truths, which is really his unique discovery. He sees that all of existence and the very nature of our body is marked by, let's say, Dukkha. This is what next week's class is going to be on, actually, the Dukkha, the truth of suffering, the truth of Dukkha, the cause of Dukkha, which is clinging, thirst, the truth of the cessation of Dukkha, that one can be liberated from this cycle of suffering, and then the Fourth Noble Truth is the path to the cessation of dukkha, which is the Eightfold Path.

[49:42]

Having done that, there are different verses of what his awakening was, but in this one it says, he knew, delivered, am I, and he realized rebirth is ended. the holy life is fulfilled, what must be done has been done, and I will not come again to this physical state. In our tradition, we say, and this is, it's wonderful because it's paired with, his verse at birth was, I alone am the world-honored one. His verse at enlightenment is, I am awakened together with all beings. So the vision that he had was a vision of the complete interpenetration of existence.

[50:46]

And he realized that what he had become and brought forth was, in fact, within each of us. So that's his awakening. Let's take a little break. Well, now we get to my favorite. This is about my favorite story. So he spends seven weeks consolidating his understanding and just enjoying his understanding. And he comes to this point. So he comes to the point, he enjoys this very much.

[52:08]

But he doesn't think he can teach it. Anyhow. The Brahma King comes down from Brahma Heaven and says, what Buddha says is, you know, this is too subtle, nobody's going to get it. You know, I'm just going to enjoy this and I'm free. And the Brahma King says, no, everybody needs this. And he says, OK, I'll try. So. How many years does he enjoy it? Seven weeks. He's just sitting, sitting and walking. Oh, here it is, okay. Now, while the Blessed One was alone in his retreat, this thought arose in me.

[53:24]

This Dhamma that I have attained, is profound and hard to see, hard to discover. It is the most peaceful and superior goal of all, not attainable by mere rational summation, subtle for the wise to experience. But this generation relies on attachment. But this generation's culture relies on attachment, relishes attachment, delights in attachment. Sounds familiar? It is hard for such a generation to see this truth. That is to say, specific conditionality dependent arising. It's hard to see this truth. in the stilling of all formations. And if I taught the Dharma, others would not understand me, and that would be wearying and troublesome for me. And thereupon came to me spontaneously these stanzas never heard before. Enough, this is all from the sutras. Enough of the teaching of Dharma that even I found hard to reach, for it will never be perceived by those that live in lust and hate.

[54:24]

Men died in lust and whom a cloud of darkness lapsed will never see. What goes against the stream is subtle, deep, and hard to see, abstruse. Considering thus, his mind favored inaction and not teaching the Dharma. Then it occurred to Brahma Samapati, who became aware in his mind of the thought of the Lesser One's mind, the world will be lost, the world will be utterly lost, for the mind of the perfect one, accomplished and fully enlightened, favors inaction and not teaching." So he goes down and convinces him. The Blessed One listened to Brahma, Sambhavati's pleading. Out of compassion for beings, he surveyed the world with the eye of a Buddha. Wide open are the portals of the deathless. Let those who hear show faith. If I was minded to tell not the sublime dharma I know, it was that I saw a vexation in the telling."

[55:29]

And he's convinced. So he tries to figure out who to teach, and he thinks about his earlier teachers, and they both died. And so that's a source of grief for him. He says, well, to whom shall I first teach the Dharma? The bhikkhus of the group of five who attended me while I was engaged in my struggle were very helpful. Suppose I taught the Dharma to them first. Then he thought, where are the bhikkhus of the group of five living now? And the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, he saw that they were living at Benares, the deer park. So he goes and hits the road. Between the place of enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, the monk Upaka saw him on the road. He said, Your faculties are serene, friend.

[56:37]

The color of your skin is clear and bright. Under whom have you gone forth? Or who is your teacher? Or whose dharma do you confess? When this was said, the Blessed One addressed the monk Upaka in stanzas. I am an all-transcender and all-knower, unsullied by all things, renouncing all, by craving ceasing freed. This I owe to my own wisdom. To whom shall I concede it?" And he goes on and on. The victors like me, Upaka, are those whose paints are quite exhausted. I have vanquished all states of evil, and it's for that that I am a victor. When this was said, the monk Upaka replied, may it be so, friend. Shaking his head, he took a sidetrack and deported. It's a great story. He just lays it all out. And the guy said, well, good on you.

[57:40]

I'll see you later. So it's really interesting. His first teaching failed. he had to develop as a teacher. Now, he was an extremely quick study, so he got it, you know, within the next day or two when he got to these ascetics. Wandering by stages, the Blessed One came at length to Benares, to the deer park at Isipitan, where the bhikkhus of the group of five were. They saw him coming in the distance, then they agreed among him Friends, here comes the monk Gautama, who became self-indulgent, gave up the struggle, and reverted to luxury. We ought not to pay homage to him or rise up to him and receive his bowl or outer robe. Still, a seat can be prepared. Let him sit down if he likes. But as soon as the Blessed One approached, they found themselves unable to keep their back.

[58:42]

One went to meet him and took his bowl and outer robe. Another prepared a seat. Another set out water, footstool, and towel. The Blessed One sat down on the seat prepared and washed His feet. They addressed Him by name and as friend. When this was said, He told them, Bhikkhus, do not address the Perfect One by name and as friend. The Perfect One is accomplished and fully enlightened. Listen, Bhikkhus, the Deathless has been attained. I shall instruct you. I shall teach you the Dharma. By practicing as you were instructed, you will, by realizing yourself here and now, enter upon and abide in the supreme goal of the holy life, for the sake of which we go forth from the house life into homelessness." He was able to convince them. They heard the Blessed One, they listened and opened their hearts to knowledge. And then the Blessed One addressed the people, the group of five, by turning the wheel of dharma for the first time.

[59:55]

I have so much emphasis on eating, drinking separate, special, low-glucose, and what, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I always find it really difficult when they want to understand if I had a house of my own. Supposedly, I would take a complete bite of it, and then they recognize it was a speech to me. How are you enlightened when you're just talking about sharing things in your head? It just seems kind of contradictory. How are you truly enlightened if you need to address yourself to other people? is exploring hierarchical. Well, OK. Well, let's get into that. I think this is a good place to stop the story. The other thing that I wanted to talk about was his death. We might do that next week, I think we can. But I think this gives us what we need to look at this question. Well, how do other people think about that?

[61:16]

I had actually an identical thought at the same time when you were saying he addressed himself as the perfect one. And at the same time, he wants to share this teaching. I felt instantly like he's got this split identity where he's full of hubris and the most humble person walking on earth at the same moment And it just seemed contradictory to me. It seems to me that it seems more like it's our interpretation of those words that make it seem like humans. So I just think it's so weird that he's achieved this understanding. So that's what he calls that sort of being. And maybe it's just how we define the religion today, 2005.

[62:20]

It's also how we define, maybe how we define the notion of evil. Why did he even have to say anything? Because, and this is, this is the, when you read the other sutras, It's really interesting because a lot of them are kind of, a lot of them are arguments, are actually taking views that are presented or questions that are presented and deconstructing them. But what's quite wonderful is deconstructing them without ever falling into a metaphysical position. So there are questions that he won't address. He never will talk about whether there is or is not a self. He will never talk about the beginnings or ends of the universe.

[63:24]

These kinds of things that we love to speculate on and feel that we need to know, he just won't address them. He slips aside, he slips around it every time, and does it in a way so as to help the person in this disputational context to wake up. So it's interesting. I mean, it's one wonders, I know how you respond. It's not that I'm immune from it. I think there's a real interesting question about, it's a question about our own relationship to, say, for lack of a better word, spiritual authority, or even authority within this culture, where we have a kind of horizontalizing

[64:33]

That's what we tend to do. It's built into our kind of democratic principles. And what's really interesting in the context of the Sangha that got built was the Sangha was a kind of primitive democracy with a spiritual authority at the head of it, but very but organized very horizontally, particularly as it was a community of people who were all theoretically liberated. And his power was such at this point that he could just teach in a direct way and people would get it. And so I don't know that it's ego. What's interesting to me about that earlier, that section before he teaches that, and his failure, was that he didn't have a grasp of his own, the scope of his own understanding of knowledge.

[65:57]

And what's really interesting to throw another element into it, because I just read a book called The God of Biography, which looks at the narrative flow of the Hebrew scriptures. And what you see in the initial chapters of Genesis, and then as the scriptures evolve, is that God is similarly inconsistent and uncertain about the scope of his powers. You know, he can do great things like create the world, but then he gets really pissed off when Adam and Eve eat the apple. I mean, he just, he gets really angry. So, I think this is a, you know, maybe this is a feature

[67:00]

of this kind of initial stage of development of vast spiritual opening. People are told to believe it as God's will, but it was transmitted through dozens and dozens of different people, and many, many years of compiling. And it just seems, the evidence of human mediation upon the truth of what was said is so tangible and invisible. It's hard to take that doctrine seriously in the middle of the day, because it just seems like so much of it is amplified and so much of it is tainted by people. They transmitted it to say what they wanted it to say, but it was completely different to say. It was completely different for a different force at the time.

[68:03]

And so it's interesting to listen to you talk about it, because I think it's appealing. And this real connection to these ideas, to this practice, in a way, that I haven't had in a long time, is that you're too efficient in your life, and I hear you say things as they are. Well, that's a reasonable, I think that's a reasonable question. There's a wonderful sutra called the Kalama Sutra. Do you know that? Where is it? It's in the Angatara Nikaya.

[69:15]

And they come to him and say, Lord, Some monks and Brahmins come to Kesabhuta and they expound only their own tenets while they abuse and rend and censure and rail at the tenets of others. And other monks and Brahmins come to Kesabhuta and they too expound only their own tenets while they abuse and rend and censure and rail at the tenets of others. We are puzzled and in doubt about, O Lord, which of these reverend monks is spoken truly and which falsely. And Buddha said, ìYou may well be puzzled, Kalamons. You may well be in doubt, for your doubt has risen precisely about what ought to be doubted. Come, Kalamons, do not be satisfied with hearsay, or with tradition, or with legendary lore, or with what has come down in your scripture, or with conjecture, or with logical inference, or with weighing evidence, or with liking for a view after pondering over it, or with somebody else's ability, or with the thought, the monk is our teacher. When you know in yourself these ideas are unwholesome, liable to censure, condemned by the wise, being adopted and put into effect, they lead to harm and suffering, then you should abandon them.

[70:32]

Similarly, when you know in yourselves these things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, being adopted and put into effect, they lead to the welfare and happiness, then you should practice them and abide with them. So this is a key sutra, and it's basically the sutra that says, you really have to figure this out. You have to be the judge. Don't take anything on anyone else's work. And that's a remarkable religious testament right there. It's putting it back on us. Now, of course, this was offered in the context of Sangha. You know, these Kalamas were coming to ask him, but it was being offered literally, quite literally, sitting in a circle, sitting kind of like this, and the Kalamas were coming, sitting here and asking this really hard-held question, and all the monks and nuns were around.

[71:58]

And at the end, the Kalamas said, actually it was a tribe by the tribe, And as often happens in these sutras, at the end of the sutra, they all join the order. But joining the order, and it's very interesting because in the history as well, there are There are all kinds of aberrations. There are murder attempts on Buddha. There is jealousy. His cousin, Devadatta, tries to take over and starts another sect. So all of the human frailties are also present. In fact, they're increasingly present as time goes on and the Sangha becomes larger. But he keeps throwing this back

[72:59]

that actually people have to make their own judgments about what to do. And in fact, at his death, this is another one of those great comedic moments. At his death, he tells Ananda, Ananda says, well, what about the precepts? They had all these these 280 or so precepts for the monks and 250 or so for the women. And Buddha said, ask for the precepts, just keep the major ones and you can dispense with the minor ones. And when it comes to the council, they asked Ananda, well, what did he say about the precepts? just keep the major ones and not the minor ones. And they said, well, which ones are the minor ones?

[74:05]

And Ananda said, I forgot to ask. And so in the context of human form, like you were saying, he said, you know what, we're going to keep them all, which may not be wise. Well, I think we should get into this a little bit in the third class. I'd like to read you some of the rules, because some of them are pretty bizarre. But the way they came about, they weren't just the Buddha making rules. Here's the way this community works. Each one of them was brought to him, except for the initial really major ones, these precepts were brought to him. So he said, well, so-and-so is piling his food up like a volcano. And the Buddha would say, well, don't do that. One of the monks is having sex with a knothole in the tree. And he said, no, don't do that. And these would be then rules.

[75:07]

And they're down in the Vinaya like this. Was that a major one? There's a minor one. I'm pretty sure it's a minor one. But it evolved as a living body of regulations. And then for myself, I think it's unfortunate that it got locked down as dog food. But that's... we had some Theravadan monk or nun for whom the practice is actually, the living of these rules is their practice, and it's wonderful. It's very difficult. Some of you, have any of you met, practiced with Acharn Amaro? It's very powerful.

[76:15]

It's a very powerful way to live. I'm telling you these stories not because this is the truth, but just because it's a way of looking at things, that raises questions in a lot of ways. I would like to mention, too, that the thing that I was most struck by is that when you choose perfect enlightenment, you say, well, I'll just sit here and meditate and let everybody else suffer. And that, that's fine. But that, you know, I don't know. Well, I'm not sure that's what he did. I mean, I'm sure that isn't what he did. Well, isn't what he did, but that was his first, maybe that was the misperception of what was being said.

[77:18]

Maybe it was just more like, well, I don't know how to teach himself. I think that's exactly, that's more of what I think it was. And I felt like, you know, if you read this kind of week by week, he was integrating his insight. which is a necessary process for any awakening, any transformative experience, that the transformation itself is not enough. The question is, how do you integrate it in your life? So, I tend to think his teaching was going to be unavoidable, because sooner or later, he either was going to have to leave that tree, or people would come by and he would have to have human interaction and discourse with them. And there was no way that he could keep from teaching in that setting.

[78:25]

But, you know, he was also enjoying this process of integration, but it had gone on as long as it needed to. I'm still thinking about all the different examples that you were talking about relative to duality. And I think that maybe when I was listening to you, I was really caught up in the words. Can you talk a little bit about how one should think about interpreting the way these stories have been passed down? Are there terms that are used, like the perfect one, or that's just an example of a story was relating back. And I thought a little bit more about it after you responded, and you made me think, well, maybe I should think of it as he's actually just saying, hey guys, listen up, I found the answer, and I want to help you out and teach you.

[79:27]

That is what he came to, once he agreed to go forth. Rather than getting caught up in how he actually defined words today versus thousands and thousands of others. Well, it's hard to know. But he does say over and over again, and this comes up in the Sushis over and over again, is what must be done has been done. This is said in reference to many, many people who come forth. So it's not just finding him. But I think we should probably stop and pick it up next week. Thank you. So next week, if you want to study up, if I can, I'll put a handout on the bulletin board on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. And I think it's always really enjoyable to get into that.

[80:34]

I think of the Four Noble Truths is actually the best analytical tool that we have, and we can use it for a lot of different things, not just looking at the early teachings of Buddha, but actually looking at our own lives and actions, and what paths we follow towards liberation. It's a basic teaching and way of framing the existence of that community. So we'll go to the board. Thank you.

[81:12]

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