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After a short period of quiet reflection in a grove near the
river bank where he had parted from Channa, the young Prince who
was now only a wandering beggar, turned his steps southward
towards the Magadha country, and in due time reached the chief
city of that country, Rajagaha by name, where the King of the
country, Bimbisara, had his principal palace. Here, with begging
bowl in hand, Siddhattha went round the streets of the city,
begging his food from door to door like any other religious
mendicant. But he did not look like a common beggar. Those who
saw him pass along could see by his very look that he was no
ordinary religious mendicant, and they put into his bowl the
best food they had.
When he had gathered enough, the prince-beggar left the city
again, and in a retired spot outside the walls, sat down to eat
what he had collected. But O, what a meal it was! Never in his
life before had he, a prince by birth, and accustomed to the
best of food served up in the most attractive and tempting way,
had such a mixed mess as this set before him. His stomach simply
turned in disgust at the sight of that bowl full of scraps and
portions of all kinds of different foods, all flung together
into one dish. He simply could not bring himself to eat the
repulsive mixture. He wanted to throw it away and eat nothing
rather than such a mess.
And then he stopped and began to think: and this is what he
thought and said to himself:
"Siddhattha, you were born of a good family, in a king's
house, where you got everything good to eat that you could wish,
the very best of rice, the richest and tastiest of curries, in
all abundance. But in spite of this you made up your mind
deliberately to live the life of a homeless beggar, and fare the
same as every such beggar fares on what-ever was given you by
the charitable. And you carried out your resolve: you became a
homeless beggar: yet now, what are you doing? You do not want to
eat the food proper for homeless beggars to eat — the food
that is given them, whatever it may be. Do you think that is a
right thing to do?"
In these and in other words the prince-beggar reasoned with
himself, chiding and scolding himself for his daintiness and
fastidiousness in the matter of food, so unfitting in a beggar.
And in the end, after a struggle with himself, he succeeded in
overcoming his repugnance to the food lying in his bowl before
him, and he ate it up without further ado, and never afterwards
had any more trouble about eating what was given him to eat.
Meanwhile, the people of Rajagaha, King Bimbisara's city,
were all talking about the new religious mendicant who had been
begging in their streets that morning, he had looked so
different from the common run of religious mendicants, so
refined, so noble looking! The talk even reached the ears of
King Bimbisara in his palace, and he sent his servants to make
enquiries and find out who the stranger mendicant could be. Very
soon his messengers learned all about Siddhattha, and came back
and told their master that he was the eldest son of the King of
the Sakyas, the heir to the throne; and that he had left
everything behind him in order to become a beggar and try to
discover if he could, some way that would lead men beyond the
reach of old age and sickness and death. As his servants told
King Bimbisara this, he listened to them very much perplexed.
Never before had he heard of a religious mendicant looking for
anything so strange, so extraordinary. But it sounded great and
grand, and worthy of a prince's looking for it and perhaps is
was not so impossible as it seemed, he thought. So he sent his
men to ask the prince-beggar to stay in his city, and he would
provide a place for him to live in, and food, and everything
else he required for his comfort; and he could settle down there
and study and meditate and carry on his search. But Siddhattha
declined the King's kind offer, saying that he could not stay
still anywhere until he had found what he sought. After he had
found it, perhaps then he might be able to stay in one place. So
then the King made him promise that when he had found what he
was seeking, he would come and stay in his city and let him and
his people know about it first.
So the prince-beggar left Rajagaha behind him, and passed
upon his wandering way into the open country towards a hill on
which a great many hermits were living from whom he thought he
might be able to learn something about life and death and how
all the ills connected with them might be overcome.
And as he went along the road, he saw a cloud of dust coming
down the mountain side, and heard the patter of feet; and then
out of the dust there came into sight a herd of sheep and goats
making their way to the plain. But behind them all, painfully
limping along, came a little lamb, its leg hurt, and bleeding,
but still trying hard to keep up with its mates. And when
Siddhattha saw it, and noticed how anxious about it the mother
sheep was, his heart was filled with pity.
He picked up the little creature and walked alongside the
rest of the sheep carrying the lame lamb in his arms. "Poor
little thing," he said, speaking to the lamb, "I was
going to join the hermits on the hills, but it is at least as
good a deed to ease your little heart of suffering as to sit up
there with these praying hermits."
Then he saw the men who were driving the herd and he asked
them where they were going and why they were driving their
flocks away from pasture in the heat of the day instead of in
the cool of the evening. They answered him that they had been
ordered to bring a hundred sheep and a hundred goats down to the
city during the day in order that they might be on hand and
ready for the great sacrifice that was going to be offered that
night by the King. "I will go with you," said the
prince-beggar; and he walked along with them and their flock,
still carrying the lame lamb in his arms.
And now, as he came near to the riverside, a young woman came
up to him, and after saluting him with great respect, said to
him: "O Reverend Lord, have pity on me and tell me where I
shall be able to find that seed which keeps away death."
Siddhattha looked at her as if he would ask her what she
meant.
The woman noticed his look, and went on:
"Do you not remember, Lord? Yesterday I brought you my
little son who was sick, so sick that he was near to dying, and
asked your reverence if there was no medicine at all that would
keep him alive, for he is my only son. And your reverence said
yes, there was something that might save him from dying, if I
could get it — a tola's weight of black mustard seed got from
a house in which no one ever had died."
"And did you get that seed, sister?" said
Siddhattha with a tender, wistful smile.
"Nay, Lord, I did not," said the woman sadly.
"I went round all our village to every house asking for
black mustard seed, and everybody was very willing to give me
some, but when I told them that I only wanted it from them if no
one had ever died in their house, they said that that was a
queer thing for me to say, for everybody knew there had been a
death in their house, and sometimes more then one death. Some
said a slave had died with them. In some houses it was the
father who had died; in some the son; in some the mother; in
some the daughter. But in every home, every house, some one had
died. I could not get my seed. O Reverend Sir, tell me where I
may get that seed before my little son dies. Are there no homes
at all where death has not been?"
"You have said it," Siddhattha answered the now
weeping woman. "In all the wide world there are no homes
where death has not been. Now you have found this out for
yourself. Now you know that yours is not the only grief in the
world. Now you know with your own knowledge that all the world
weeps along with you for some dear one dead. Go home and bury
your child. As for me, sister, I go to find if I can, what will
put an end to your and all men's sorrow; and if I find it, I
will come again and tell it to you."
So Siddhattha passed on his way and entered the city along
with the herd of animals that were going to be killed, and still
went with them right up to the palace where the sacrifice was to
be made. Here the King was standing with the priests all round
him chanting their hymns to the gods; and soon the altar fires
were lit and the priests made ready to kill the animals that had
now arrived. But just as the chief priest was about to plunge
his knife into the throat of the first goat that had been picked
for the sacrifice, Siddhattha stepped forward and stopped him.
"No, Maharaja,' he said to King Bimbisara, "do not let
the priest strike that poor goat." And before any one knew
what he was going to do, he untied the rope of grass with which
it was fastened, and let it go back to its mates. And no one,
not even the King nor the chief priest, thought of trying to
stop him from doing it, so great and noble did he look as he set
the goat free and allowed it to run back to the rest of its
fellows.
Then the Prince-beggar began to speak to the King and the
priests and all who had gathered there to see the great
sacrifice of blood, about what a wonderful thing life is; how
anybody can destroy it, but how impossible it is for any one to
restore it once it has been destroyed. Every creature that
lives, so he told those round him, is fond of its life, fears to
die, just as much as men do. Why then should men use their power
over these poor brothers of theirs only to rob them of what man
himself is most fond of — the wonderful thing, life. If men
wish to receive mercy, he said, they ought to show mercy. If men
kill, then according to the law that rules in the world, they
will be killed. And what kind of gods, he asked them, can they
be who are pleased with and take delight in blood? Certainly not
good gods, he said. Rather they must be demons to take pleasure
in suffering and death. No, he ended, if men wish to taste
happiness themselves in the hereafter, they must not cause
unhappiness to any living creature, even the meanest, here in
this world. Those who sow the seed of unhappiness, of pain and
suffering, will certainly have to reap a full-grown crop of the
same in the future.
In this way did Siddhattha speak to the King and the priests
and people of Rajagaha, and did it so gently and kindly, and yet
so powerfully, that the minds and hearts of the King and the
priests were quite changed. There and then the King issued an
order that henceforth throughout the whole of his Kingdom there
were to be no more sacrifices in which living creatures were
deprived of life. After this day, everybody in his realm, King
and priests and people alike, were to offer to the gods only
such gifts as did not involve the taking of any living
creature's life. They were only to offer as sacrifices to gods,
flowers and fruits and cakes, and other similarly bloodless
offerings.
And now once more King Bimbisara begged Siddhattha to stay in
his kingdom and teach him and his people the good way of
kindliness and pity and compassion towards everything that has
life. The prince-beggar thanked him for his kind offer but told
him that he had not yet found what he was seeking, and until he
had found it, he could not rest, but must still go on searching
for it everywhere among all the wise men of India, in case any
of them knew or in any way could help him in his search.
In those days in ancient India there were very, many
different teachers of religion, the same as there are now, who
took pupils and taught these pupils all they themselves knew.
One of these religious teachers, well known for his knowledge
and attainments, was called Alara Kalama, and to this teacher
Siddhattha now went in order to learn what he had to teach. And
Siddhattha stayed with Alara Kalama a long time and studied
under him and practiced the practices his master taught him so
diligently that at length he had learned and practiced
everything his master knew and practiced. And his master Alara
Kalama thought so highly of him and of his great ability that
one day he said to him: "Now you know everything I know.
Whether you teach my doctrine or whether I teach it, it is all
the same. You are the same as I: I am the same as you. There is
no difference between us. Stay with me and take my place as
teacher to my disciples along with me."
"But have you nothing more you can teach me?" said
Siddhattha. "Can you not teach me the way to get beyond the
reach of life and death?"
"No," said Alara Kalama. "That is a thing I do
not know myself, so how can I teach it to you? I do not believe
that anybody in the whole world knows that."
Alara Kalama only knew what he had already taught Siddhattha
— the way to a state of consciousness called "the realm
of neither perception nor non-perception," which was a very
high state of consciousness, but one which does not save the man
who reaches it from the necessity of being born, and therefore
of growing old, and falling ill, and eventually dying, over and
over again. So, very much disappointed, Siddhattha left his
master Alara Kalama, and went away again to wander this way and
that throughout the country, looking for some one who knew and
could teach him more than he had learned from Alara Kalama.
And after a time he came to hear of another famous teacher of
the name of Uddaka, who was said by everybody to possess great
knowledge and powers. So Siddhattha now went to this Uddaka and
became his pupil and diligently studied and practiced under him
until as with Alara Kalama, he was as clever and learned as his
master, and knew and practiced all that his master knew and
practiced. And Uddaka also, just like Alara Kalama, was so
pleased with Siddhattha's quickness and ability, that he also
wanted him to stay with him, and along with him become the
leader and teacher of his band of disciples. And Siddhattha
asked him the same question that he had asked of Alara Kalama.
He asked him if he had no more to teach him, if he could not
teach him how to overcome birth and death and all the
disagreeable things connected with the same. But Uddaka was in
the same position as Alara Kalama in this matter. He did not
know how men could get out of the round of birth and death
altogether, and had never heard of any one who did know such a
thing. So disappointed once more, Siddhattha took leave of
Uddaka too, and made up his mind that he would not go to any
more teachers to ask about what he wanted to know but henceforth
would try to find it out for himself, by his own labor and
efforts.
Now it was quite a common thing then in India, as indeed it
still is to-day, for those men who leave their homes and follow
a religious life to imagine that by going without food and
making their bodies uncomfortable and miserable in a number of
other ways, that they would earn the right to a long period of
peace and happiness hereafter in the world of the gods. They
thought that if only a man made himself unhappy enough here, he
would make sure of being happy hereafter; and that the more
unhappy he made himself now, the more happy he would be in the
future. And they carried out this belief of theirs in actual
practice just as many of them still do in India to-day.
Some of them reduced the quantity of food they ate, little by
little, day after day, until at last they were eating hardly
anything at all, so that their poor bodies became mere skin and
bones. Some practiced standing on one leg all the time until it
turned stiff and lifeless with the continual strain. Others held
one arm up in the air all the time until it withered and dried
up through the blood not flowing into it properly in that
unnatural position. Others, again, held their fists tightly
clenched, never letting them loose, until the nails at the ends
of their fingers actually grew into the palms of their hands,
and through the flesh, and out at the backs of their hands!
Others never lay down at night except on a bed of thorns, or
else on a board with sharp nails all over it, their points
sticking upwards.
And Siddhattha, because he was anxious and determined to find
out what he wanted to know, and did not care how much trouble
and pain he had to go through if only at last he might succeed,
did very much the same as these other ascetics who were seeking
religious truth. He did not know any better way than to do just
as the others did. He honestly hoped and believed that if only
he tortured and tormented his body enough, at last as reward he
would obtain enlightenment of mind.
Here is part of the story of what he did in those days, as he
told it himself in after years to one of his foremost disciples,
the Thera Sariputta.
"I practiced the holding in of my breath," said the
Buddha to Sariputta, "until it made a great roaring in my
ears, and gave me a pain in my head as if some one was boring
into it with a sharp sword, or lashing me over the head with a
leather whip. In my body also, I suffered pains as if a butcher
were ripping me up with a knife, or some one had flung me into a
pit of red-hot coals.
"And then I practiced loneliness. On the nights of the
new moon and of the full moon, I went out to lonely places among
the trees where the dead lay buried, and stayed there all the
night through hearing the leaves rustling and the twigs dropping
when a breeze blew, with my hair all standing on end with
fright. When a bird came and lighted on a bough, or a deer or
other animal came running past, I shook with terror, for I did
not know what it was that was coming up to me in the dark. But I
did not run away. I made myself stay there and face the fear and
terror I felt until I had mastered it.
"I also went without food. I practiced eating only once
a day, then only once in two days, then only once in three days,
and so on until I was only eating once in fourteen days. I have
lived eating nothing but grass, nothing but moss, wild fruits
and roots, wild herbs and mushrooms, wild rice, and the dust I
scraped up of thrashing floors. I covered my body only with
garments made out of rags from graveyards and dust-heaps, with
old skins of animals that had died in the fields, with woven
grass, with patches made of birds' wings and tails that I found
lying here and there.
"In the lonely forests I lived alone never seeing a
human being for weeks and months. In winter, when it was cold at
night, I stayed out in the open without a fire to keep me warm.
And in the day-time, when the sun came out, I hid myself among
the cold trees. And in the burning heat of summer, I stayed out
by day in the open under the hot sun; and at night I went into
the close, stifling thickets.
"I also practiced what was called 'purification by
food'. I lived on nothing but beans, then on nothing but sesamum
seed, then on nothing but rice. And I reduced the quantity I ate
of these day by day, until at last I was eating only one bean a
day, one sesamum seed a day, one grain of rice a day.
"And through eating so little food, my body became
terribly thin and lean. My legs became like reeds, my hips like
camel's hoofs. My backbone stood out on my back like a rope, and
on my sides my ribs showed like the rafters of a ruined house.
My eyes sank so far in my head that they looked like water at
the bottom of a deep well and almost disappeared altogether. The
skin of my head grew all withered and shrunken like a pumpkin
that has been cut and laid out in the sun. And when I tried to
rub my arms and legs to make them feel a little better, the hair
on them was so rotted at the roots that it all came away in my
hands.
"And yet, Sariputta, in spite of all these pains and
sufferings, I did not reach the knowledge I wanted to reach,
because that knowledge and insight was not to be found that way,
but could only be got by profound reasoning and reflection, and
by turning away from everything in the world."
In this way, for six or seven long years, Siddhattha put his
body to all kinds of torment, thinking that by doing this, if
only he went on long enough, at last he would get to know what
he wanted, all the while wandering about here and there through
the country of Northern India.
At length, in the course of these wanderings, he came to the
land of Magadha again, to a nice quiet place in a bamboo grove
beside a broad, smooth-flowing river, with a good bathing-place,
and a village close by where he could easily go and beg food. He
liked the look of this place as soon as he saw it. "This is
a good place to stay in," he said to himself, "for any
ascetic like myself who wants to strive and struggle for
knowledge. Here I will stay."
So in this place, called Uruvela, Siddhattha now took up his
fixed residence, under the trees meditating and striving hard,
fasting and otherwise treating his poor body very badly, all in
the hope that by such pains and endeavors he would gain a
knowledge of the truth he sought.
Meanwhile there had gathered round him a little band of
disciples who admired him very much as they saw how he starved
himself and otherwise made himself undergo severe hardships. And
these disciples, five in number, waited upon him and attended to
his few wants, for they thought that an ascetic who could make
himself suffer such pains and privations, and persevere in them
as did Siddhattha, must be no common man. They thought, indeed,
they felt sure, that an ascetic with so much endurance and
determination, must be certain to get what he was looking for,
and that when he had found it, then he would tell it to them,
his pupils and followers.
But one day it happened that as he sat alone under a tree,
the poor prince-ascetic, all worn out with fasting and
hardships, and added to that, the strain of intense and
prolonged meditation, fell down in a dead faint, and lay there
on the ground so completely exhausted and without strength that
perhaps he would never have risen again but died there just
where he lay. Fortunately, however, a boy who was watching some
goats near by happened to come along by the tree under which
Siddhattha lay in a swoon; and when he saw the holy man lying
there, the boy at once guessed that he was dying for want of
proper food, for everybody round about knew that he was a very
holy man, and went without food for days and days. So the boy
ran back to his goats and brought up one of them, and milked
some milk from its teats into the half-open mouth of the holy
man, without touching him with his hands, for he did not dare,
he a common herd-boy, to lay his hands on a saint.
Very soon the good, fresh milk began to produce its effect
upon the half-dead Siddhattha. After a little while he was able
to sit up, feeling very much better than he had felt for a long
time. And he began to think about why it was he had fainted, and
why he was now feeling so much refreshed in body and mind. And
these are the thoughts that passed through his mind:
"O how foolish I have been! I left my wife and family
and home and everything, and became a homeless wanderer because
I wanted to get to know the truth about man's life and how he
must live it to the best purpose. But in order to gain a
knowledge so difficult to gain as this, I needed to have a brain
and a mind as strong and vigorous as I possibly could get, so
that I might be able to think and meditate steadily and
strongly. And then I went and made my body weak and wretched
with starvation and those other practices I practiced! But how
can a man have a strong and healthy mind if his body is weak and
miserable and unhealthy? O how foolish I have been to make
myself weak just when I need all the strength I can get to carry
through the great task I have set myself to perform! After this
I shall eat all the food my body requires to keep it in god
condition. I shall not eat too much, for that will make me dull
and heavy and sleepy, and then I shall not be able to think and
meditate properly. But I shall eat enough to keep me well and
strong, so that I may have a clear, unclouded mind, and so
perhaps, at last, I shall be able to gain the truth I want to
reach."
So, with thoughts like this in his mind, Siddhattha turned to
the goat-herd boy who now was kneeling before him in veneration,
and asked him if he would kindly give him a little more of his
goat's milk in a dish, as it was doing him very much good.
"O Reverend Lord," said the boy, "I cannot do
that. I cannot give you milk in a dish that has been touched by
my hand. I am only a common herd-boy of low caste, and you are a
holy man, a Brahmin. If I were to touch you with anything I had
touched, it would be a crime."
But Siddhattha replied: "My dear boy, I am not asking
you for caste: I am asking you for milk. There is no real
difference between us two, even although you are a goat-herd and
I am a hermit. It is blood that flows in the veins of both of
us. If some robbers were to come and cut us both with swords,
the blood that would flow from both our bodies would be of the
same red color. And if it went on running and nobody stopped it,
we should both of us die with no difference between us. If a man
does high and noble deeds, then he is a high and noble man. And
if a man does low and ignoble deeds, then he is a low and
ignoble man. That is all the real caste there is. You have done
a good kind deed in giving me milk when I was almost dead for
want of food; therefore you are of good caste to me. Give me
some more milk in a dish."
The herd-boy did not know what to say to these strange but so
very pleasant words from this extraordinary hermit who did not
send him away from him because he was a low-caste herd-boy, but
instead wanted more milk from him, and would take it out of a
dish. But he went off, and soon came back with a bowl full of
his best goat's milk which he joyfully offered to the kind
hermit who had told him that he was of as good a caste to him.
Then he took back his empty bowl, and after bowing down before
the hermit and asking his blessing, went back glad and happy to
his goats.
But the prince-ascetic, now thoroughly refreshed with the
good drink of milk, sat on beneath the tree, meditating more
successfully than he had done for a long time. And as he still
sat there in the dark after the sun had gone down, he heard the
sound of girls' voices singing. It was a band of professional
singers and dancers going to a neighboring town to give an
entertainment; and as they passed along close to where he sat,
he distinctly heard the words of their song which was about the
instrument they played when they sang, called a lute. They were
saying, in their song, that if the strings of the lute were hung
too slack, they made very poor music; and if they were stretched
too tight, then they broke and made no music at all. Therefore,
so they sang, it was best to stretch the strings neither too
slack nor too tight, but just medium, and then they would give
proper music.
"That is true what these girls sing," thought the
prince-ascetic as he heard them. "These girls have taught
me something. I have been stretching the strings of my poor body
far too tight this long time, and they have come very near to
breaking altogether. If that boy had not come and brought me the
milk to-day, I should have died, and then what would have become
of my search for the Truth? There and then it would have come to
an end. My search for that which I and all men need to know
would have failed miserably just for want of a little food for
my body. This harsh way of treating the body cannot be the
proper way to find Truth. I will give it up at once and treat my
body with proper care and attention henceforth."
So when, next day, a young woman called Sujata, who lived
near by, came to him in his hermitage among the trees with a
bowl full of extra good rice boiled with very good rich milk,
which she had specially prepared for him, saying as she gave it
to him: "May you be successful in obtaining your wishes as
I have been!" He did not refuse her gift, but accepted it
with pleasure, and felt the benefit of it at once in a greatly
strengthened body and mind.
After this, Siddhattha went out again every morning to the
village to beg food, and eating what he got there each day, he
soon became strong again and his skin became a good color,
almost as clear and golden as it used to be in the old days when
he lived in his father's palace.
But although he himself now saw that the pains and hardships
to which he subjected himself were just like trying to tie air
into knots, or weave ropes out of soft sand, for all the help it
was to him in his search for the Truth, the five disciples who
believed in him and had hitherto stayed with him through
everything did not think this at all. They still believed, like
everybody else in India in those days, that the one only way to
find the Truth in religious matters was to make yourself
miserable in body.
So when they saw the master and teacher they had hitherto
admired, so much for the way in which he starved and in other
ways ill-treated and tormented his body, beginning to eat all
his body required of the rice and curry he got when he went out
begging, they were very much disappointed with him, and they
said among themselves: "Ah, this Sakya ascetic has given up
striving and struggling. He has gone back to a life of ease and
comfort." And the whole five of them turned away from their
old master and left him, for they felt sure that there was no
use in staying any longer with a teacher who did not starve
himself and in other ways make himself miserable. Such an
ascetic, they were sure, could never possibly attain to any
great knowledge of religious truth.
How very much mistaken, how very far wrong, these five
disciples of the prince-ascetic were, was soon made clear to
them. Their master and teacher, far from having turned back from
his goal, was now on the very point of reaching it.
Any one to-day who wishes to see the very spot where,
twenty-five hundred years ago, Prince Siddhattha of the Sakya
race at last found the Truth he had sought so long and with such
painful efforts, need only go to the town of Buddha Gaya in
Behar, and from there walk six or seven miles along a road which
more or less follows the course of a broad, sandy stream now
called the river Phalgu, but which in those days was called the
Neranjara. As he comes near his destination, he will see rising
above the neighboring flat fields on a slight elevation, a tall
solid structure of dark stone, with a few terraces running round
its oblong form, which rises into the air, growing smaller and
smaller towards the top where there is a small open platform
from which rises a spire of stone, of the solid Hindu pattern,
the whole structure being decorated with a great variety of
sculptured work of all descriptions. This is the celebrated
monument of Buddha Gaya. And in the shadow of this great
memorial structure, surrounded by a low stone wall, the visitor
yet may see the tree beneath whose branches Prince Siddhattha at
last obtained the light he sought; for it was towards this tree
that he turned his steps one evening, having resolved to make
one last mighty effort of mind and will, and penetrate the final
secret of life and all existence.
And as he went towards that tree — in memory of
Siddhattha's great achievement ever since called the Bodhi Tree,
or Tree of Enlightenment — Sujata's words to him must have
been in his ears: "May you be successful in obtaining your
wishes as I have been!" For now he sat down beneath the
tree and made a solemn vow to himself that even if all the blood
in his veins dried up, and all his flesh wasted away, and
nothing was left of his body but skin and sinews and bones, from
this seat he would not rise again until he had found what he
sought, reached his goal, discovered for himself and for all men
the way by which they might gain the highest happiness, be
delivered once and for all from the need to be born and to die,
again and again in a wearisome, never-ending round of the same
pleasures and pains, over and over again. He sat down there
under the Bodhi Tree, resolved to sit there, no matter what
might happen to him, until he had discovered the way that leads
out of Samsara, the world of birth and death and change, to the
constant, lasting, deathless state called Nibbana.
This was a tremendous resolve to make. It had never been made
before by any mortal man of our epoch of the world. There were
indeed many other ascetics and hermits in Siddhattha's native
land of India, who had spent long years of bodily hardship and
severe mental labor, in order to obtain what they thought was
the highest good possible. But what they won after all their
years of toil and struggle of mind and will, was the attainment
of a very great happiness, only it was not a constant, lasting
happiness. It was not permanent. It was not for ever secure
against all chance and change. After a time, when the energy
they had put forth in order to bring them to these high states
of bliss in the heaven-worlds was all exhausted; all spent, then
these people, these ascetics and hermits, fell down again from
these blissful states to lower states of existence, to life on
this earth again, with all its unpleasantness and
disappointments. It was with them as it might be with a man who
had gathered together a lot of money in a box, and started
spending it all. Very soon it would all be spent, the box would
be empty, and he would have to begin getting more. And so with
these hermits and ascetics, if they wanted to enjoy great
happiness again, they had to begin all over again the painful
things they had done before, so as to get to the heaven-world
again and enjoy its delights. And this they would have to do
again and again as long as they wanted such delights. Again and
again they would have to go through a course of misery endured
on earth so as to get happiness in heaven, and then the same
again, always and always, without any end. Their way of doing
was like that of a man who with great trouble rolls a heavy ball
to the top of a high hill, only to find it roll back to the
bottom again; whereupon he has to go through all the labor of
rolling it up the hill again, and has to do this over and over
again, without any end to his labor.
But what Siddhattha wanted was to find some way by which he
and all men would not need any more to be for ever rolling the
ball of life to the top of some high peak of happiness, see it
roll down again into the valley of unhappiness, and then have
all their work to do over again, if they wanted happiness again;
and this for ever and ever, without any end to it. He wanted to
find some state that would be permanent and lasting, some kind
of wellbeing that would not be lost again, so that those who
reached it once, would not need any more to be always striving
and struggling to get it again. And on this great night under
the Bodhi Tree at Uruvela he was determined to find such a state
of lasting wellbeing, or perish in trying to find it. And now
when Siddhattha wished to give the whole force of his mind to
this great work, his mind fought against his will, and turned
itself to dwell upon all the unlasting, all the passing,
temporary delights and pleasure of life that he ever had tasted.
He wanted to leave aside whole thoughts of worldly things, and
concentrate all his attention upon trying to find out how all
things arise, but his thoughts, in spite of all he could do,
turned back to his former pleasant life, and brought before his
mind's eye the most attractive pictures of the happy life he
used to live in his father's palace before he came out on this
painful search for Truth.
Again he saw before the eye of his mind, the splendid rooms
and halls of his palace, its beautiful grounds and gardens, its
lovely lotus-ponds and bowers of delight; and the many
attendants who had nothing else to do but wait upon his will and
minister to his pleasure. And then he saw his beautiful young
wife; her lovely pleading eyes, her pleasant charming ways rose
before him in vision; her very voice, so low and sweet, sounded
in his ears. And then he saw his little son, his only child, a
merry little babe who might grow up to be a son of which any
father might be proud. And he saw his father, too, grey-haired
now, and getting on in years, and grieving that his eldest son
was not beside him to help him to govern the country and take
his place when soon he would have to give it up through sheer
old age.
With his mind's eye the prince-ascetic Siddhattha Gotama saw
all this, and his heart misgave him as the thought he did not
wish to think, forced itself into his mind:
"You might have had great glory and power as a famous
king if you had stayed in household life like everybody else.
But you have gone and left behind you all that sensible people
prize and value, in search of something nobody but yourself has
ever even thought about, something that perhaps never can be
found at all, perhaps does not even exist for anybody to find!
How do you know you are not a fool or a madman to leave behind
all these real, solid things you certainly once had and enjoyed,
to look for something you cannot even be sure exists for you to
find?
"But even if you so want to leave the good things of the
world behind you and go in search of something beyond them which
you think is better, why could you not continue to search for it
in the same way that other religious men search by fasting and
mortification and the other religious practices all the other
ascetics and religious men of the country follow? Is it likely
that they are all wrong in their way of looking for religious
truth, and that only you are right? And any way, why cannot you
be content to gain the same kind of happiness they are content
to gain, even if it is not as lasting as you would like it to
be?
"Life is short. Men soon die: soon you too will die. Why
do you not use the little time you have to live in getting all
the pleasure you can out of it before the night of death comes
on, when you cannot have pleasure any more? There is love: there
is fame: there is glory: there is the praise of man: all to be
had if you try for them: all solid, certain things: all of them
things you can feel, not dreams and visions made out of thin
air. Why should you make yourself wretched in this lonely forest
looking for something nobody has ever found?"
Thus did Siddhattha's thoughts torment him on that great
night when he sat down beneath the Bodhi Tree to seek the way of
deliverance from birth and death, tormenting him with the keen
memory of the pleasures he had left behind, with doubts about
his power ever to find what he sought, with uncertainty about
whether he was seeking it in the right way. But he did not allow
himself to be turned from his purpose. Rather did he the more
strenuously pull his mind together for a yet stronger effort to
discover what he wanted.
"Begone, Mara, Evil One!" he cried. "I know
you who you are. You are the evil spirit that would keep men
back from everything that is good and great and noble. Try no
more to keep me back from what I have set out and am determined
to do. My mind is made up. Here I sit until I have found what I
seek, even if I have to sit until all the blood in my body dries
up, and my flesh wastes all away, and nothing is left of my but
dry skin and bone."
And there Siddhattha sat and still continued sitting,
striving and struggling, laboring and wrestling with all his
mind and will to find what would bring to an end all infelicity,
all undesirable and unpleasant things, searching for what would
end all evil things for ever, and bring in their place a
wellbeing, a happiness that would not pass away, a felicity that
would be sure and lasting, eternally beyond the reach of any
change.
And he was successful. After a time as he still persisted in
his meditations, putting away out of his thoughts all evil
things that were trying to disturb him and distract his mind, at
length his mind became still and quiet like a still and quiet
lake. It ceased to trouble him with memories and suggestions of
pleasures he once had owned and enjoyed. It vexed him no more
with doubts and uncertainties about what he now was seeking. In
the calm, close concentration of his mind, now wholly calmed and
collected, in the intense power of his will now directed towards
one thing only, there where he sat under the Bodhi Tree, Prince
Siddhattha, the ascetic of the face of the Sakyas, of the family
of Gotama, became the Enlightened One, the Awakened One, the
All-Knowing One; he became Gotama the Buddha, the bringer of the
light of truth to the men of this epoch of the world, to the
whole human race that now lives on the earth. For now He was
enlightened in a way compared with which all other men were
stumbling and groping in the dark. Now He was awake in a way
compared with which all other men are asleep and dreaming. Now
He knew with a knowledge compared with which all that other men
know is but a kind of ignorance.
For now He had penetrated the real true meaning of life
through and through from its root upward. Now He knew how and
why men were born and died again and again, and how they might
cease thus to suffer repeated birth and death. But the first
thing He saw clearly with His new and penetrating insight this
night as He sat meditating under the Bodhi Tree, was the long
line of His own lives and deaths through ages after ages, in all
kinds of bodies, in all kinds of conditions of life, low and
high, humble and exalted, gross and refined, until at last He
was born in this present life as the son of King Suddhodana and
Queen Mahamaya.
Then with His keen, penetrating power of mind, He next
perceived how all men are born and pass away again, to be born
elsewhere anew, strictly according to the deeds they do. He saw
how some are born to happy lives because their deeds were good
deeds; and He saw how others were born to lives of unhappiness
because the deeds they did were evil. He saw as plainly as
anything that it is men's own actions and nothing else whatever
which make them happy or unhappy in this and in all worlds.
And then, last and greatest of all He saw on this great
night, He saw and understood clearly, beyond all doubt, that is
it not well for men always to be at the mercy of the continual
changes of the world; that it is not good that they should be
now happy and now unhappy, now up and now down, like boats
tossed on a sea. He perceived that the reason why men come in to
existence to be thus tossed about on the waves of the changing
world, is because they are fond of, and cling to all the little
bits of happiness that existence in the world provides at times.
He saw that men are caught in the snare of existence in the
world because like deer they fling themselves greedily upon any
little bit of pleasure they see. Then He saw that if men do not
want to be caught in the snare of existence, the only way for
them to do is not to jump heedlessly upon every scrap of
pleasure they see, not to abandon themselves recklessly to its
enjoyment, not to set their hearts so eagerly upon the things
existence offers. And then He saw the Way by following which men
at length would be able to refrain from flinging themselves
recklessly into enjoyment of pleasure, because they would have
learnt to know and like something better, and so they would no
longer be bound to come back to the world where such pleasures
are found, to the world of change and disappointment and
uncertain happiness, and would be able to attain the true and
certain happiness of Nibbana. And this Way or Path, He called
the Noble Eightfold Path, because it is the Path followed by
everybody who has noble aims and desires; and it has eight
distinct branches or parts or members.
The first branch or part or member of this Noble Eightfold
Path to deliverance from all things evil taught by the Buddha is
called — Right Seeing. This Right Seeing means, to see that
everything in the world, even one's own existence, is
changeable, not really solid and lasting, and so only leads to
disappointment and pain when we cling to it too closely. Right
Seeing also means to see that good deeds always lead to
happiness and evil deeds to unhappiness, both here and
hereafter.
The second member of the Noble Eightfold Path was called by
the Buddha — Right Mindedness. This means an attitude which,
because it sees rightly the nature of the world and everything
in it, turns away from clinging tightly to it. Right Mindedness
also means a right attitude of mind in which we have pity and
compassion for all beings who, through clinging too close to
worldly things, are suffering distress of body or mind, while at
the same time we have a keen desire to relieve their suffering
and help them as far as possible.
Right Speaking, the third part of the Buddha's Noble
Eightfold Path, means speaking only what is true and kindly and
sensible. It means to avoid lying and rude and slanderous and
silly talk.
Right Doing, the fourth part of the Noble Eightfold Path,
means to refrain from killing, and stealing, and impurity, and
the drinking of intoxicating liquors which make men mad and
reckless so that they do things they otherwise would never have
done.
Right Living, the fifth part of the Eightfold Path, means
earning one's living in any way that does not cause hurt or harm
to any other living creature.
Right Endeavor the sixth part of the Noble Eightfold Path,
means endeavoring, trying to control one's thoughts and feelings
in such a way that bad, harmful thoughts and feelings may not
arise, and that those which unhappily may have arisen, may die
out. It also means trying to keep alive and strong in our minds
all good and helpful thoughts and feelings that already are
there and causing to arise in our minds and hearts as many as we
can of new, good and helpful thoughts and feelings.
Right Remembering, the seventh member of the Noble Eightfold
Path, means always remembering, never forgetting, what our
bodies really are, not thinking of them as finer and grander
than they are actually. It also means remembering all the
movements and actions and functions of the body as being just
the movements and actions and functions of the body, and nothing
else beside. Right Remembering also means remembering what our
minds are, a constantly changing succession of thoughts and
feelings in which nothing is the same for two moments together.
And it means, lastly, bearing in mind and never forgetting the
various steps Buddha has taught us we must take in order to set
the mind free from all bondage and bring it at last to the state
of perfect freedom — Nibbana.
And Right Concentration, the eight and last member of this
Noble Eightfold Way to Nibbana made known by the Buddha means
not allowing our minds to wander about as they like, but fixing
them firmly upon whatever we are thinking about, so as to arrive
in this way at a correct understanding or whatever we are trying
to understand.
Such are all the eight parts or members of the Noble
Eightfold Path which Prince Siddhattha Gotama, who now became
the Buddha Gotama, discovered under the Bodhi Tree at Uruvela
twenty-five hundred years ago. The last three parts or members,
Right Endeavoring, Right Remembering and Right Concentration, in
their full and perfect meaning are mainly intended to be
practiced by men who are trying to follow the Buddha closely,
and in order to do this better and more easily, have left the
household life and become Bhikkhus. But every one, whether he is
a Bhikkhu or not, can practice them to a certain extent as they
are here described.
The first two members of the Eightfold Path, also, Right
Seeing and Right Mindedness, in their full perfection are only
possessed by those men who, after many years of training and
practice of meditations, at last have come very near to
understanding and realizing the true nature of things in the
same way that the Buddha did. Yet still, every one who wishes to
follow the Buddha, must have a little of Right Seeing, and a
little of Right Mindedness. They must think sometimes how all
things round them are not really so fine and splendid as they
often seem to be. And they must sometimes entertain in their
minds the thought that some day they will turn away from the
transient things of the world to something better, to something
more sure and lasting.
But the three middle members of the Noble Eightfold Path are
for everybody to practice to the fullest extent of their powers.
Everyone ought to try to live without doing harm to any one
either in word or in act. Every one ought to try, and can try to
avoid wrong-speaking and wrong-doing; and according as they do
this, they prepare the way for some day controlling their
thoughts and properly training their minds, and so coming at
last to true knowledge and insight, that knowledge and insight
which the Buddha discovered and teaches, which is truly called
Wisdom.
And when they come to this true wisdom, then the mind is
delivered from clinging any more to anything in any world. And
because it does not cling any more to such things, therefore it
does not any more for ever take shape or form in any world. That
is to say: For if there is no more being born into the world,
and so no more of all the troubles and unpleasant things that
follow men who are born into the world; and so the whole mass of
distress of any kind is brought to an end for ever. All this the
Buddha discovered beneath the Bodhi Tree: He discovered the
Noble Eightfold Path of Right Seeing and Right Mindedness, of
Right Speaking and Doing and Living, of Right Endeavoring and
Remembering and Concentration, which is also called by the name
of the Triple Path of Right Behavior, Mind-culture and Wisdom;
or in the Pali, Sila, Samadhi, and Pañña.
Chapter 8 ![[go to top]](../../images/scrollup.gif)
Making Known the Teaching
As a man who long has struggled to swim across a wide and
stormy water and at length after much effort reaches the safe
shore, lies down awhile to rest his wearied limbs and look back
with satisfaction on the dangers he has safely passed, as a man
who has climbed into the cool pleasant air of a high mountain
slope, when he gets there turns round, pleased and contented,
and looks down upon the hot, dusty plain whose stifling air he
had left behind, so now, his long toil past, his labors
successfully accomplished, there in the quiet wood of Uruvela
the victor in this fierce fight, rested Himself for a time,
enjoying the relief of release from toil and labor, tasting in
peace well-won, the fruits of truth and knowledge He had gained.
Then having rested Himself sufficiently beneath the tree of
victory, Siddhattha Gotama, now and henceforth Gotama the
Buddha, passed from under that tree and went towards another
near by under which the goatherds of the place were accustomed
to take shelter from the sun while they watched their flocks.
As He sat resting here, a Brahmin happened to come past that
way, and after the usual greetings to the ascetic under the
goatherd's tree, he said to Him, "Gotama, what makes a man
a real Brahmin? What qualities does he require to possess in
order really to be a man of the highest caste?"
And the Buddha, taking no notice of the proud Brahmin's
rudeness in addressing Him by His family name of Gotama without
any title of courtesy before it such as "reverend
Sir," or the like, pointedly replied to him in this verse:
"The Brahmin who has put away all evil, Has put off
pride, is self-restrained and pure, Has learning, follows out
the Holy life, He alone has the light to be called Brahmin, He
nothing has to do with worldly thing."
And the Brahmin went away muttering to himself: "This
ascetic Gotama knows me, this ascetic Gotama knows me."
A few days after this, while the Buddha was still staying
under the goatherd's tree, two merchants who were going about
the country selling their wares, came along the road, and seeing
the ascetic sitting there under the goatherd's tree so calm and
content, enjoying its fruits in the peace and quietude it has
brought him, they offered Him an offering of the best food they
had, and struck by His noble and majestic look, asked Him to
accept them as believers in Him. These two merchants, whose
names were Tapussa and Bhallika, were thus the first persons in
the world who became the followers of the Buddha Gotama.
But now, having rested long enough, the Buddha began to think
about what He should do next. He had found the Truth He sought,
and now it seemed to Him that He ought not to keep such precious
knowledge to Himself, but that He ought to tell it to others, so
that they too might taste the comfort it brought. This was what
He thought at first. But then other thoughts came into His mind.
"This doctrine of mine is not a very easy doctrine to
understand," he said to himself. "It is deep and
subtle. Only the thoughtful and reflective can grasp it fully so
that it will do them good. But there are not many men who are
thoughtful and reflective. The great majority of men do not want
to take the trouble to think and reflect. They want something
easy; something that will amuse and entertain them. Their minds
are inclined only to what promises to give them pleasure and
delight. They are altogether given over to love of pleasure. If
I were to preach this doctrine to them, they would not know what
I was talking about. They would not pay attention to me. I
should only be giving myself trouble all for nothing."
Thus did the Buddha consider within himself almost making up
his mind not to tell the Truth He had found to anybody, but just
to keep it and enjoy it by Himself, since it did not seem to Him
that anybody else in the world would want to hear it or thank
Him for telling them.
However He did not stop at this point in His reflections or
else the world would not know as it does to-day, the Truth He
taught. He went on to consider the matter further; and this is
what He next thought:
"Yes, it is true that most of the people in the world,
will not want to hear this Truth I have found, and would not
understand it even if they did hear me tell about it, they are
so fond of what is easy and pleasant and comfortable and costs
them no trouble. But still, everybody in the world is not alike.
There are sure to be some, not very many, but still some who are
not satisfied with the way they are living now, who want to know
more than they know now, who are not content to follow pleasure
wherever it may lead them. What a pity it would be that I should
know this Truth which would bring to these few comfort and
happiness, if only they heard it, and yet never give them a
chance to hear it! No, I shall not do like that. I shall go
forth now and make known, to all men I meet, these Four Noble
Truths, these Four Great Facts I have discovered, of Ill, and
its Cause, and its Cure, and the Way in which it can be cured;
and among the many I speak to, there will always be a few who
will listen, and listening, understand me.
"Just as in a lotus pond where all kinds of lotus lilies
are growing, pink and blue and white, many of them have grown
only a little way about the muddy bottom of the pond; and some
have grown half way up through the water; and some have reached
the top of the water and rest there; but a few grown up so as to
lift their blossoms right out of, and above the mud and water,
into the open air and the sunshine. So there are some beings
whose minds are much sunk in the mud of passions and desires;
and there are some that are not so much sunk in that mud; while
some, a few are only a little touched with the mud of passion.
These last will be able to understand my teaching when they hear
it. I will let them hear it. I will go forth now and preach it
to all men everywhere."
And then the Buddha began to consider who would be the best
people to whom to tell His doctrine first, who would be the most
likely to listen to Him and quickly understand what He said.
Then He thought about His old teacher Alara Kalama, and how
learned and thoughtful, how quick in the brain, how pure in his
life he was. And He said to himself: "I will go and tell
Alara Kalama first. He will very quickly understand."
But as He was getting ready to go to Alara Kalama, some one
came and told Him that Alara Kalama was dead. The Buddha was
very sorry to hear this, for He felt sure that so good and so
wise a man as His old teacher would have been sure to understand
His doctrine as soon as he heard it. Then He began to think who
else there was who would be likely to understand His doctrine.
And the thought came to Him that perhaps the other teacher He
had studied under in former days, Uddaka the disciple of Rama,
would be a good person to whom to tell it, for Uddaka too, like
Alara Kalama, was quick to understand anything new when he was
told it. But when He made enquiry where Uddaka was staying, then
He learned that he had died just the night before.
So once more He had to consider who among all those He once
had known, would be most likely to listen to Him and understand
the Truth He wanted to tell them. And then He remembered the
five hermits who had waited upon Him and attended to Him so
faithfully during the time when He was striving by Himself at
Uruvela. After enquiring where they had gone to when they had
left Him, He learned that they were staying in a deer-park near
the city of Benares. So, rising up and leaving Uruvela, the
Buddha set out to walk to Benares, about a hundred and fifty
miles away, to find His former attendants and disciples and tell
them what He had found. And wandering on day after day from
place to place, at length one evening He drew near to the grove
in the deer-park where those five ascetics were staying.
And they say Him approaching in the distance, and said to one
another:
"Look yonder! There is that ascetic Gotama coming here
— a luxurious fellow who gave up striving and fell back into a
life of ease and comfort. Don't let us speak to Him! Don't let
us show Him any respect! Let nobody go and offer to take His
bowl or His extra robe from Him. We'll just leave a mat there
for Him to sit on if He wants to, and if He doesn't want, He can
stand. Who is going to attend on a good-for-nothing ascetic like
Him!"
However, as the Buddha came nearer and nearer, they began to
notice that somehow He was not the same as He used to be in the
days when they had lived with Him and studied under Him. There
now was something about Him, something noble and majestic, such
as they never had seen before. And almost in spite of
themselves, before they well knew what they were doing, they had
forgotten all they had just agreed on as to how they were going
to receive Him.
And one was hastening forward to meet Him, and respectfully
taking His bowl and robe from Him, another busily preparing a
seat for Him, while a third hurried off and brought Him water
for His feet.
Then, after He had taken the seat offered Him, the Buddha
spoke to them and said:
"Listen, ascetics. I have found the way to
deathlessness. Let me tell you. Let me teach you. And if you
listen and learn and practice as I instruct you, very soon you
will know for yourselves, not in some future life but here and
now in this present lifetime that what I say is true. You will
realize for yourselves the state that is beyond all lives and
deaths."
Naturally the five ascetics were very much astonished to hear
their old master and teacher talking like this. They had seen
Him give His hard life of going without proper food and rest;
they had seen Him cease, as they thought, from all efforts to
find the Truth, and here He was actually coming to them and
telling them that He had found the Truth! They simply did not
believe Him; and they told Him so.
"Why, friend Gotama," they said, "when we were
living with you, you practiced all sorts of stern austerities
and bodily mortifications such as were practiced by no other
ascetic we ever heard of in the whole of India, and that was why
we took you for our master and teacher. Yet with all you did,
you never found out the Truth you wanted to find. How is it
possible you can have found it now when you are living a life of
luxury, have ceased from striving, and turned to live in ease
and comfort?"
But the Buddha replied: "You are mistaken, ascetics. I
have not given up all efforts. I am not living a life of
self-indulgence and idle comfort and ease. Listen to me. I
really have attained supreme knowledge and insight. And I can
teach it to you so that you also may attain to it and possess it
for yourselves."
But still the five ascetics could not believe what their old
teacher now was telling them. It seemed to them impossible that
such a thing could be true, even though He begged them once more
to listen to Him and believe what He said.
Then when He saw that they did not believe Him when He said
He found the Deathless, He looked at them very earnestly, very
seriously, and said:
"Listen, ascetics! In all the time that you used to be
with me, did I ever say anything like this to you before? Did I
ever before tell you that I had found the supreme knowledge and
insight that leads beyond birth and death? Come, answer
me!"
The five ascetics had to answer the Buddha that it was true
He had never said anything like this to them before.
"Very well," urged the Buddha. "Listen to me
now when I tell you that I really have found the way to
deathlessness. And let me show you what I have found."
So gravely and impressively did the Buddha speak these words,
so gravely and impressively did He look at them as He spoke,
that the five ascetics found themselves unable any longer to
refuse to listen to Him. They invited their old master and
teacher to stay with them and teach them. So, day after day,
during the next few months, the Buddha taught these five old
disciples of His, the new Truth He had discovered. First He
taught two out of the five, while the other three went out with
their begging bowls to the city, and collected enough food for
the whole six of them. Then these three stayed at the deer-park
and were taught by the Buddha while the other two went out
begging and brought back sufficient for them all. Thus the
little party of the five pupils and their teacher lived happily
together, He teaching, the other five busily learning and
practicing, until in a short time (for they were all diligent
pupils, and they had the best master and teacher in the world)
the whole five of them, one after another, reached and realized
for themselves the Truth their Master had found. They came to
know even while alive in this body, the state that is called
Nibbana.
Out of these five ascetics, the one who was the first thus to
learn and realize for himself what his Master taught, was called
Kondañña. The names of the other four were, Bhaddaka, Assaji,
Vappa, and Mahanama. These five ascetics were the first five
Arahants that appeared in the world; for Arahant is the name
that is given to one who in this life, in the body he now is in,
comes to realize the state that cannot be touched by birth and
death, the state that is called Nibbana. These five Arahants
were the first members of the Sangha or Brotherhood of Bhikkhus
who acknowledged the Buddha as master and teacher and guide for
all their life.
While the Buddha thus was staying in the deer-park at
Isipatana, there came to see Him a rich young man of the
neighborhood called Yasa. And after the young man Yasa had heard
the Buddha explain his teaching and what it led to, he was so
well pleased with what he heard that he became a Bhikkhu there
and then, and stayed on with the Buddha in order to hear and
learn more.
But towards evening that day an elderly man came to where the
Buddha was, and told Him that his son had left home that morning
saying he was going to visit the Buddha, but he had not come
again, and his mother was crying for him thinking that he must
have been killed by robbers on the way. Then the Buddha told the
man that his son had become a Bhikkhu; and He began to explain
His doctrine to the new Bhikkhu's father. And so well did He
speak that when He had ended, the father also asked to be
allowed to become a Bhikkhu, the same as his son had done; and
he too, stayed with the Buddha and did not return home. And next
morning, when the Buddha and the new young Bhikkhu went to his
mother's house for food, she was quite pleased to learn that her
son and her husband had become disciples of so great a teacher,
and she herself became a lay-follower of the Buddha.
After this, four close friends of young Yasa, when they saw
what their companion had done, also did the same, and became
Bhikkhus also, disciples of the Buddha Gotama, members of His
Sangha. And in this way, more and more young men became Bhikkhus,
until at last the Buddha had gathered round Him there at
Isipatana, a body of about sixty young Bhikkhus, all of the best
families, and all of them eager and diligent in study, and
strenuous and persevering in practice under their Master's
training, so that in no very long time, all of them had realized
for themselves the supreme knowledge and insight, and become
Arahants.
But the Buddha did not allow them to stay there with Him. Now
that they had learned all He had to teach, He told them that now
they must go out and teach others, so that these others who were
ready to accept His teaching, might hear It and learn It, and be
saved from all trouble and distress.
"Go forth," He said to them, "and make known
the Teaching which is excellent in its beginnings, excellent in
its progress, and excellent in its goal. Proclaim the perfect
life, holy and pure. There are in the world beings not
altogether blinded with the dust of passion and desire; and if
they do not learn my doctrine, they will perish. They will
listen to you: they will understand."
And the Buddha sent out these first sixty disciples, not in
pairs nor in groups of three or four. He sent them out one by
one, and each of them in a different direction, so as to make
sure that His teaching should be spread as far and wide as
possible. And these sixty Arahants did as their Master told them
to do, and carried a knowledge of His Teaching and Discipline,
North and South, and East and West. They were the first men in
the world who went abroad into foreign countries for the sole
purpose of spreading a knowledge of the religious truth they
believed in. They were, in fact, the first duly appointed
missionaries of a religion the world has seen.
And they were brave men, these first missionaries of the
Buddha's religion.
One of them came to the Buddha and told Him that he wanted to
be sent to a certain country where everybody knew the people
were very wild and rough.
"But what will you do there, Bhikkhu," said the
Buddha, when He heard his request, "if the people of the
country abuse you and say all sorts of bad things about
you."
"Then," answered the Bhikkhu, "I shall say to
myself: 'These people are very good people; they only use their
tongues to me; they do not beat me with their fists.'"
"But suppose they beat you with their fists, Bhikkhu,
what will you do then?" asked the Buddha.
"Then I shall say to myself: 'These people are very good
people; they do not thrash me with sticks,'" replied the
Bhikkhu.
"But if they thrash you with sticks, what then?"
"Then I shall say that they are very good people; they
do not cut me with swords."
"And if they cut you with swords?"
"Then I shall say they are very good, they do not kill
me."
"But if they make to kill you, O Bhikkhu; what will you
do then?" said the Buddha.
"Then Lord," said the Bhikkhu calmly, "I shall
say to myself: 'These people are doing me a great favor, for
this body of mine is an evil thing of which I shall be glad to
be rid; and these good people are going to rid me of it.'"
Then the Buddha said:
"Go O Bhikkhu, and make known my Teaching among these
people. Bhikkhus like you are the proper kind of Bhikkhus to
publish abroad my Doctrine among all the peoples and nations of
the world."
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