Life of
the Buddha
A Brief History: Life of the Buddha
1 of 1
The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
Excerpted from the transcript of a public talk on Buddhism (New
Brunswick, Canada 1999)
More than twenty-five hundred years ago, in ancient India, a very
inquisitive young prince began to explore his world. He explored
the environment of his lifestyle within the royal palace, as well
as the different walks of life outside. His father, the King, had a
great fear of his son discovering the true nature of life, which
from the Buddhist point of view, is full of suffering, pain, and
struggle. It was said that if the young Prince discovered this, he
might renounce his princehood and become a saint, a practitioner of
the spiritual path. Therefore, the King tried his best to prevent
his son, the Prince, from seeing the true nature of the world.
Consequently, he offered the Prince everything he wanted. The King
did everything in his power to prevent the Prince from seeing the
true nature of life.
Recognizing The Nature Of
Life
However, one day, the Prince looked out of his window, and he
accidentally saw several things. First, he saw a very old person.
Next, he saw a very ill person. Finally, he saw a corpse being
carried to a funeral. Afterwards, the Prince asked his friends in
the palace about what he had seen. The prince then thought to
himself that the nature of life is such that: you are born, you
grow up, you get old, and young or old, you sometimes you get sick,
which leads to death. That is the nature of life. The prince then
asked, "How can we prevent these sufferings of sickness, old age
and death?"
Seeking Freedom From
Suffering
The Prince found that there is only one way to overcome this
suffering, which is to discover the true path of spirituality.
Therefore, he renounced his life as a prince and ran away from the
palace. This is a very important part of the Buddhist teachings:
that he was born a prince and later ran away, renouncing his
palace. He ran away from his palace as we sometimes run away from
our house. However, we go back home, but the Prince never returned.
He went away for many, many years. He went into the jungles,
somewhere in the northeastern part of ancient India. There, he
found many Hindu practitioners, followers of the ascetic path of
Hinduism, and he practiced with them for many years.
The Middle
Way
After a time, he discovered that undertaking the religious trip of
asceticism was not the way to overcome our pain, our suffering and
causes of suffering. At that point, he renounced the path of
asceticism. In other words, he renounced the path of religious
fanaticism. Now, we can see what he was going through. First, he
renounced ordinary life and entered the path of asceticism. Next,
he renounced the ascetic path or the trip of being a religious
fanatic. Then, where did he go from there? He found the "middle
way," the path that does not fall into either of the "two extremes"
of completely trusting and believing in the religious path of
asceticism, or of totally ignoring our pain, our suffering and
causes of suffering, which we try to deny. Twenty-five hundred
years ago, we did that and the tradition of shielding ourselves
from our pain still continues today. In fact, we are finding better
ways today to ignore our pain. We have a highly developed medical
science and other resources through which we can totally deny our
pain.
Complete
Awakening
Through having found the middle way devoid of these two extremes,
the Prince achieved the spiritual insight, the spiritual
realization, which is called "complete awakening," true awakening.
That awakening is like waking from a dream state. When we are
sleeping, and we dream, we have a variety of experiences; we might
have the beautiful experience of hiking a high Himalayan mountain.
We are on top of a high mountain, seeing a beautiful view from the
peak of the mountain, even the clouds are in the dream. There are
such beautiful experiences in our life. At the same time, we could
have a dream in which we are being chased eternally by a poisonous
snake, like an anaconda. We could have that kind of nightmare going
on and on and on, but not being able to wake up. Being in that
state of dreaming and not recognizing that we are dreaming is what
the Buddha called "samsara," the confused state. Whereas, when we
wake up from that, it is called "enlightenment" or "buddhahood." We
become buddhas, awakened ones, fully awakened ones.
When the Prince achieved the state of the inner awakening, in the
northeastern part of India, in a place called Bodhgaya, in his last
stage of practice on the spiritual path, he was sitting under a
beautiful tree called a "bodhi" tree. "Bodhi" means "awake" in
Sanskrit; therefore, bodhi tree means something like "awake tree."
The prince was sitting under that tree on a cushion of kusha grass.
He was peacefully resting his mind, exploring further and further
the nature of mind, the nature of suffering, the pain that he was
going through in his mind, and the calmness that he was
experiencing through his meditative spiritual journey. Then,
finally, one day under that tree in the early morning (Rinpoche
snaps his fingers), he just clicked in. He just (snaps fingers)
awakened in that click, all the way; finally, (snaps fingers) he
clicked in and that was the experience of enlightenment,
awakening.
Teaching
The Buddha shared his experience of the path, the spiritual
journey. He shared his experiences of realization, of spiritual
insight into the nature of mind. In one of his earliest discourses,
the Buddha addressed his audience of monks and lay people and said,
"You should examine my teachings thoroughly. Like a gold merchant
looking to acquire pure gold, you should thoroughly go through the
process of analyzing these teachings." Buddha said that a substance
could be examined to see if it were pure gold by first striking it,
then cutting it, then rubbing it with different cloths. Through
this testing, it is possible find out if a substance is pure gold
or fake gold. In a similar way, Buddha said, "It is extremely
important for you to analyze and examine my teachings, and then, in
the end, you can decide whether to adopt them. If there is any
wisdom, you can adopt it. If there is nothing, just leave it. You
do not have to accept these teachings." Buddha said, "Do not accept
my teachings because they are taught by a King, or a Prince. Do not
accept them because they are taught by someone called "Buddha."
However, accept them if they are logical, if they are reasonable,
if there is wisdom in them, and if there is some benefit."
