April 2004 Newsletter

Our next on-line Meditation Course begins on April 24th, 2004 and there are still a few days left in which to register. The course has been offered since 1997 and serves as a practical introduction to samatha (tranquility) and vipassana (insight) techniques from the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. Intended primarily for beginners, the 90 day course is also suitable for experienced meditators who wish to explore different aspects of the tradition. The course is led by Andrew Quernmore, an experienced meditation teacher based in England.

Registration details are available at:

"What the Buddhist meditator seeks to do is to create a situation where anger has no need to arise." Wow! that seems like nibbana. Anger, of course, is a difficult emotion. It arises itself because of the conditions of our lives and thoughts. Certainly not cognitive or even volitional. The neuro scientists believe that the emotions bypass the cortex/cognitive centers and affect directly the lower brain centers. Do you think the emotions can be volitional in beings with no mind control practice? Can you provide more discussion. I think that anger can be useful. It is often what energizes us to make changes in our lives. Alas, I also know how dangerous anger is and that it can hijack our volition allowing catastrophe to occur. But for anger to be fully exorcised . . . ? For all my practice I still note the judgements and irritations that arise in me before I have a chance to consider or banish them. However, I also notice that there has been a definite absence of intense anger for some years now. Is this what you are talking about?

A mind free of anger, craving and delusion is that of an arahant (a fully Enlightened one), so we should not be too surprised that most of us (a little way, perhaps, from attaining this goal!) face these mental states on a daily basis. The absence of anger is synonymous with the presence of lovingkindness. Anger and lovingkindness cannot exist simultaneously. Lovingkindness is a characteristic of an Enlightened being - so much so that the Buddha continued to practice metta even following his Enlightenment. Anger is wholly absent from one who is Enlightened.

Nothing in this world "arises itself"; everything - including anger - arises because of conditions that have been created. Almost all of these conditions are related to our previous volitional actions and so we have a responsibility for any anger that arises in us. It is not merely something from which we suffer, or with which we cope, but something we have caused to be.

Emotions themselves are not volitional, but the acts which cause them to arise certainly are. We are currently cultivating the positive emotion of Lovingkindness by the volitional actions of meditating and behaving ethically. Negative mental states, such as anger, are the products of the less skilful actions and behaviour we chose earlier. By aligning our behaviour to the precepts, practising Right Livelihood and developing our meditation practice we can ensure that our current chosen actions are skilful and will not give rise to anger in the future. If anger is present, this is due to earlier volitional acts - acts that we cannot undo. The meditator can usefully and skilfully work with this mental state and observe it as an arisen phenomenon (using specific vipassana practices) rather than commit new acts, mindlessly, in reaction to it.

Anger will lessen as we bring our lives more into line with the Buddha's teachings. By choosing to work to develop sila (virtue), samadhi (meditative concentration) and panna (wisdom) we leave no room for unwholesome acts and cannot, therefore, engender angry states of mind. If you are already finding that the intensity of the anger that you experience is reducing this is probably one encouraging indicator that you are working well in applying the Dhamma to your life.

Edifying Poetry. - If an Eastern scholar desired to ascertain the facts about the life of Christ he would not have recourse to such works as Klopstock's Messiah or Milton's Paradise Regained. They do not even purport to be historical. Such value as they have is due to the literary skill with which they recast a story derived from earlier documents; and perhaps also to the part they play as Tendenzschriften, as supporting a certain trend of opinion. The historical inquirer would go to the original documents, he would ignore the later poetry.

It is unfortunately precisely such later books of edifying poetry that have been the source of modern popular notions about the life of the Buddha. Sir Edwin Arnold's well-known poem, The Light of Asia, is an eloquent expression in English verse (based on the Lalita Vistara) of Buddhist beliefs at the time when, centuries after the time of the Buddha, the Sanskrit poem was composed. Any one who wishes to know the truth, so far as it can now be ascertained, about the actual events of the Buddha's life will obviously ignore these productions, however edifying, of literary imagination. He will go to the earliest documents.

No Buddhist Gospel. - The first discovery he would make is that there is no book in the Buddhist Canon exactly corresponding to a gospel. The nearest approach to one is the Mahaparinibbana-Suttanta, the Book of the Great Decease, describing the last journey of the Buddha, and his death. [Translated in my Dialogues of the Buddha, vol.. ii.] Besides this we have two considerable episodes: one describing the time before his attainment, under the Wisdom Tree, of Nirvana, and the other describing the events that immediately followed .[Majjhima, i. 163-175, and Vinaya, i. 1.44.] Apart from these consecutive narratives there are accounts more or less circumstantial, in many of the Dialogues, of various episodes in Gotama's career. Some of the ancient ballads and poems also relate to such episodes; and there are other incidental references elsewhere in the literature.

The Buddha not a King's Son. - From these notices, scanty as they are, it is quite possible to piece together a very clear idea as to the main events in the life of the founder of Buddhism. His father is, in one passage, [Digha, ii. 7. Compare Buddhavangsa, xxvi. 13.] called a raja. But raja is a courtesy title used of any member of the recognised clans ; and the texts, always punctilious in the use of titles, never use this word of a king, who is invariably styled maharaja. The family is lauded, in half-a-dozen passages, as well connected, and of high repute; but not once as royal. We may be sure, from the context, that had the future Buddha's father been really a king the fact would, in this connection, have been clearly stated. As used of the clansmen generally the title raja, though really of not much more weight than our modern `esquire,' was more polite, as the word connoted a position of hereditary importance in the clan, and perhaps even a temporary official post, of an honorary character, such as consul or archon. In any case this was the simple basis on which the latter legends of royalty were built up.

The Family and Clan. - His father's name, Suddhodana, Pure Rice, is suggestive of the occupation followed by the clan. It occupied a small territory, not exceeding about nine hundred square miles in extent, partly on the lower slopes of the Himalayas, partly on the plains below. There the clansmen had their rice-fields watered by the unfailing streams fed from the heights behind. All the year round they had in full view the glorious snow peaks of the great mountains, and the breezes from the north brought down to them the breath of the glaciers. When I was in the lower part of the Sakiya territory, just over the Nepal frontier, in January 1900, the climate was cool and pleasant. No doubt in the summer it would be desirable to escape into the hills. And we are told [Anguttara, i. 45. Compare Digha, ii. 21.] that, in his youth, the future Buddha had three homes, one for the winter, one for the summer, and one for the rainy season; and that he was clad, not in coarse cloth, but in fine muslin of Benares.

The Lumbini Garden. - The boy was named Siddhattha, that is 'desire accomplished,' and the meaning of the name may have given rise to the story, found only in the later legends, that he was born after the hope of a son had almost passed away. The family name was Gotama. By that he was usually addressed in after life by non-Buddhists, and it is the name we shall use in this sketch.

This was a pleasaunce half way between Kapilavastu and the chief town of the Koliyans, neighbours and relatives of the Sakiyas. The later explanation, that his mother was then on her way to be confined at her mother's house, sounds very probable. The exact spot assigned by tradition to this event has lately been rediscovered. A pillar, erected on the site by Asoka, in the middle of the third century B.C., states that 'Here the Exalted One was born.'

The going forth. - Gotama was married ; and had one son whose name was Rahula. When he (the father, that is) was twenty-nine years of age, he left his home and became a religieux ' to seek after what was right.' [Digha, ii. 151.] Thus early in the career of the future teacher do we find the ethical trend of his mind and action emphasised. Many writers in East and West have suggested reasons for this momentous step; and some things plausible, some beautiful, have been said. Our authoritative texts have but two short utterances on this point, both put into the mouth of the Buddha himself. The first is as follows :-

'An ordinary unscholared man, though himself subject to old age, not escaped beyond its power, when he beholds another man old is hurt, ashamed, disgusted, overlooking the while his own condition. Thinking that that would be unsuitable to me the infatuation of a youth in his youth departed utterly from me.' [Anguttara, i. 146.]

'Before the days of my enlightenment, when I was still only a Bodhisat, though myself subject to rebirth, old age, disease, and death, to sorrow and to evil, I sought after things subject also to them. Then methought : Why should I act thus? Let me, when subject to these things, seeing the danger therein, seek rather after that which is not subject thereto, even the supreme bliss and security of Nirvana.' [Majjhima, i. 163.]

4. To the king's town the Buddha [This expression is suggestive. In our sense of the word, Gotama was not yet a Buddha. To the mind of the poet Buddha meant merely 'awakened' (its literal meaning). The corresponding word in Christian technical usage would be 'converted.' And the mind of the converted man is awakened, but to different conceptions. It is very doubtful whether in old texts the word Buddha ever means anything more than 'awakened.'] went, to Giribbaja in Magadha. Full of outward signs of worth, he was collecting alms for food.

His Teachers. - Gotama had now become a Wanderer. Whether before or after his interview with the King of Magadha we do not know, he attached himself as a disciple first to Alara Kalama, and afterwards to Uddaka son of Rama. Centuries later certain writers pretend to know their doctrines. In the old texts we are only told that each of these teachers held out as an ideal a particular stage of mystic ecstasy (whether mental only, or the result of self-induced hypnotism, or partly one, partly the other, is not stated).[Majjhima, i. 163-166.] And two mystic utterances of Uddaka's have also been preserved [Samyutta, iv. 83, and Pasadika Suttanta in the Digha.] Beyond this we know nothing of what, or even where, they taught. Whatever it was, Gotama so quickly mastered it that they each asked him to become co-teacher of their band of disciples. But these offers he refused, as he had refused Bimbisara's, and went out into the forest round Gaya to struggle on by himself to the light.

No attempt is made to give a consecutive or chronological relation of what happened in the six years during which it lasted. The various severe penances that Gotama inflicted on himself are described at length ; and various thoughts that occurred to him, subjects that he discussed with himself, are enumerated. At the end of the penances, when he was worn to a skeleton, and indeed at the point of death, he resolves that this is not the right path to enlightenment, and begins again to take nourishment. Thereupon, we are suddenly told: [Majjhima, i. 247.] 'Then those five mendicants [of whom no previous mention had been made] forsook him, and went away, on the ground that he had given up the struggle, and gone back to a life of abundance.'

The Nirvana. - Then comes the reaction, the victory. This is uniformly described as a mental state of exaltation, bliss, insight, altruism. The different Suttas emphasise different phases, different facets as it were, of this condition. But they
regard it as one and the same upheaval of the whole mental and moral nature,-will, emotion, and intellect being equally concerned. Thus one Sutta (the Maha-saccaka) lays stress on the four Raptures, and the three forms of Knowledge ; another (the Dvedha-vitakka) on the certainty, the absence of doubt; another (the Bhayabherava) on the conquest over fear and agitation ; another (the Ariya-pariyesana) on the bliss and security of the Nirvana to which he then attained.

'When this knowledge, this insight, had arisen within me, my heart was set free from the intoxication of lusts, set free from the intoxication of becomings, set free from the intoxication of ignorance. In me, thus emancipated, there arose the certainty of that emancipation. And I came to know : "Rebirth is at an end. The higher life has been fulfilled. What had to be done has been accomplished. After this present life there will be no beyond." This last insight did I attain to in the last watch of the night. Ignorance was beaten down, insight arose, darkness was destroyed, the light came, inasmuch as I was there strenuous, aglow, master of myself.'

There is nothing miraculous in it all, nothing supernatural. Supranormal it undoubtedly is. But recent researches in psychology, such as are summed up, for instance, in James's 'Varieties of Religious Experience', show that phenomena of a similar kind, though not quite the same, are well authenticated in the lives of men of deep religious experience. And no one of all the experiences described in these accounts is, in the canonical books, confined to the Buddha. Each of them is related, in other passages, of one or other of the men and women who afterwards adopted the new teaching and fell under its influence. These conditions are constituent parts of the state of mind called Arahatship. They all recur in the standard description, repeated in so many of the Dialogues, of the manner in which Arahatship is reached. [Translated in full in my Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. i. pp. 79-93.] And the sum of them is, in this connection, called Nirvana , [Majjhima, i. 187.] one of the many epithets of Arahatship. [Ibid. 173.] In the opinion of the early Buddhists their Buddha was an Arahat; but in his case there was no limit at all to the depth and intensity of his insight, or to the grace and perfection of those powers and characteristics he shared with other Arahats. The distinction between Arahat and Buddha became the main factor in the subsequent history of the community. [See Later Buddhism, published in this series of small manuals, and my note on Sambodhi in the Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. i. p. 190.] In the early passages here referred to as descriptive of this crisis, there is no mention either of Buddha or of Buddhahood.

After Gotama had thus attained Nirvana (if we use the expression of the text), or attained to Buddhahood (if we use the expression which soon became of use in the community), he remained for four times seven days 'enjoying the bliss of emancipation.' [Vinaya, i. 1-4.] The records give us several episodes revealing the thoughts that passed through his mind during that time. He reiterates the twelve Nidanas, the links in the chain of dependent origination, and then gives utterance to three stanzas, to the effect that when an Arahat, in moments of intense insight, sees into the real nature of things, how they all have a cause and how the causes tend to pass away, then his doubts fade away, and he remains steadfast, putting to rout the armies of the Evil One, just as the sun fills the dark spaces of the sky with light. [Vinaya, i. 2, translated by Oldenberg in Vinaya Texts, i. 78.]

The phrase in this last verse is probably the origin of the legend in another authority [Digha, ii. 112, translated by the present writer in Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. ii.] that the Evil One then came to him and tempted him, now that he had won the victory, to pass away at once. But he refuses to do so 'till the wonder-working truth shall have been spread abroad, well proclaimed among men.'

The Hesitation. - At the end of this period of bliss follows a period of hesitation, in which Gotama doubts, whether, after all, it will be of any use to proclaim to a world sunk in darkness a doctrine not only so difficult to grasp, but so repugnant to the ordinary mind. We may estimate the importance attached by the early church to this matter by the fact that Brahma himself, the highest of the gods, is introduced as coming on the scene to urge that there will still be some who will have eyes to see. Then the Buddha, 'out of compassion for sentient beings,' determines to preach the word. A similar experience is related in identical words [Digha, ii. 37.] of other early Indian teachers, the previous Buddhas. And this overpowering sense of utter apartness, aloofness, is an experience that falls sooner or later to the lot of all great leaders of thought.

The First Discourse. - When this resolve to preach the word had become clear in the Buddha's mind, he is said to have walked to Benares, about one hundred miles to the northwest, to tell his former companions, who were then in a wood near that city, of the discovery he had made. He did so in a discourse entitled, the 'Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness,' in which his new views of life were summarised in a way they would understand. This summary has been preserved to us in two places in the canon, and will be translated and explained in the next chapter. Buddhist poets have been moved to descriptions of the scene, descriptions remarkable for much subtle beauty. Buddhist sovereigns have lavishly decorated with architecture and sculpture the spot memorable for what they considered so memorable an event. Had a Greek been passing at the time he would have scarcely stooped to notice the few barbarians seated under the trees, talking quietly in earnest tones ; and would have scarcely realised that one of them was giving utterance to ideas that would move the world.

The Buddha had no easy task in trying to persuade the five to give up their belief in penance. Only one of them, a Kondanna by birth, was at first convinced - to be known for the rest of his life as 'the Kondanna who understood.' But in the course of a few days all of them had given way, and become disciples. Gotama then advanced a step further, and discoursed to them on the absence of any sign of soul in the constituent elements of a human being. An outline of this discourse has also been preserved in several parts of the scriptures; [Samyutta, iii. 66, and iv. 34; Majjhima, i. 135 and 300 ; Vinaya, i. 14.] and when they had been convinced of this the record states, 'Then there were six Arahats in the world.' From being merely disciples, followers, they had become Arahats.

The Sending Forth of the Disciples. - Then ensued what has many points of analogy with a modern revival, but it must have been of a strangely dignified and intellectual sort. Residents in the neighbouring townships came to listen to the new teacher. The number of adherents, laymen, and laywomen, Bhikshus and Arahats, increased until the record states, 'Then there were sixty-one Arahats in the world.' At that time Gotama said to them that he and they `'were free from snares, whether human or divine. Let them, therefore, go forth as wanderers for the sake of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the good and the weal and the gain of gods and men. No two were to go together. They were to make known the teaching, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation, both in the spirit and in the letter; to explain the higher life in all its fullness and in all its purity.' [Samyutta, i. 105, reproduced in Vinaya, i. 21.] As for himself he was going back to Uruvela with that purpose in view.

According to our authorities, the success of this first mission was very great. It is but natural to suppose that it loomed somewhat larger in the eyes of the early Buddhists than the facts actually warrant. But it has been shown above how very favourable were the conditions for a new movement of this kind ; and, either then or soon afterwards, we know that the new teaching did become a power in the land. From this time forth Gotama, who from being a Wanderer had become a Hermit, now became a Wanderer again. Those of his followers who 'went forth' became members of the Order he founded, and were also Wanderers, that is, they abjured all penance and self-mortification (unless their vow of celibacy be reckoned as such). Both he and they spent nine months of each year in wandering from village to village, and making the new doctrine known, as they went, to such as cared to hear. They held no public meetings, gave no set discourses : the propaganda was by way of conversation only.

Gotama's Daily Life. - The manner in which Gotama spent each day is somewhat as follows. He rose quite early, about 5 A.M. If he were to stay at the place where he had slept he would remain alone till it was time to go on his round for alms to the neighbouring village. If he were moving from one place to another, a walk of from eight or ten miles would occupy the time. He was often invited for the morning meal, the principal meal of the day, to some particular house. If not he took his bowl, and went from house to house, collecting enough for the meal, which was always over before sun-turn. When he was an invited guest he would, after the meal, 'give thanks,' as the phrase ran, in the form of a talk on some one or other of the more elementary points of religion. When he carried his meal back to his lodging-place this thanksgiving would take the form of an exhortation or dialogue with the disciples on one of the deeper matters of the faith. The heat of the day was given up to repose or meditation. As the afternoon drew in, either the journey to the next stage was resumed, or if the stay in the same place was to be prolonged, an informal reception was held under the trees. The folk from the neighbouring villages would come in, bringing presents of flowers ; and one of the visitors, either a layman or a recluse of some other Order, would ask questions or start a discussion, the rest listening as they sat round on the grass under the trees. By sundown the assembly was dismissed. Then Gotama, should he feel so inclined, was wont to take his bath ; after which he would talk with the disciples, perhaps far into the night.

The current Methods of Publishing. - In so steady and warm a climate such an open-air life was not only possible but agreeable ; and in the absence of any books, libraries, or newspapers, such a method of instruction and of propaganda was probably the best available. Any one who had anything to say could not sit in his study, write a book, and publish it to the world. He had to gather round him a number of adherents, followers, disciples (call them what you will), persuade them to understand, and learn by heart, his doctrines ; and then send them forth into the world. They were his books. His personal influence over them, their adaptability, earnestness, and intelligence were factors quite as important for his success as the intrinsic value and fitness for the times of his teaching itself. It was a method of publication that had been used before, and was being used in Gotama's time by others besides himself. The necessity of adopting this method was also one of the main practical reasons for the establishment of an Order. Without the Order the new teaching could neither have been propagated among the people then, nor have been preserved for future generations.

For forty-five years after his attainment of Nirvana, Gotama went up and down through the plains of Northern India and the neighbouring highlands of Nepal. During this period he had ample time both to work out his system very fully, and to instruct the disciples in its details. They are really very few and simple. Such difficulty as European scholars find is concerned with the translation into Western language of certain of the technical terms that were used. There is none of the elaborate minuteness characteristic of the priestly books of ritual exegesis. Most of the earlier Buddhist technical terms must have been chosen and defined within the teacher's life-time; and it is highly probable that the actual words of the short paragraphs in which most of the essential points - the Three Signs, the Four Truths, the Five Hindrances, the Eightfold Path, the constituents of Arahatship, and so on - were also settled by him.

Gotama died, full of years and held in high esteem by the clansmen, when he was eighty years old, at Kusinara ... [now known as Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh, India]. After the cremation, carried out by the clansmen of the Mallas, in whose territory the town lay, the ashes are said to have been divided into eight portions. Of these six were given to the six clans in the neighbourhood, one being the Sakiyas, one was given to the King of Magadha, and one to a brahmin in Vethadipa near by. Stupas or cairns are said to have been put up over all eight ; but only one of these has as yet been rediscovered. This is the one put up by the Sakiyas in the new Kapilavastu, built after the destruction of the older town a few years before the Buddha's death, by Vidudubha, King of Kosala.

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