Psychology of Buddhism. Monograph

-And does it happen to everybody?

-Yes. All people who live on earth once fall ill and turn into a stinking corpse, or get old with time and then turn into a lifeless body, rotting and attracting flies.

Siddhartha was especially disappointed with this discovery.

And when he returned to the palace, he began to see everybody with the eye of death. Wherever he looked he saw decaying corpses: dead relatives, dancers and soldiers. Death made them all equal. They were just corpses eaten by worms. They all became food for other living beings.

Thus Siddhartha discovered disease, old age and death. He understood that it was the lot of all people.

Siddhartha left his palace for the fourth time and met a strange man on a glade near the forest. The man was sitting in the lotus position. His face was calm, his body was tranquil. It seemed that he had reached the state of complete equanimity. And it came to

Siddhartha’s mind that the ascetic sitting in front of him existed somewhere beyond illness, old age and death.

Channa explained to him the nature and aspirations of ascetics.

The four great meetings changed the prince’s personality, consciousness and values completely. Earthly joys and hopes became vain. Health, power, strength, money and luxury lost their value. The koan of illness, old age and death appeared in front of him.

Every person on earth faces this koan, but resigns himself to it. Prince Gautama could not resign to it, as he could not live in the world of samsara, where nothing had sense, even a breath. When he acquired the eye of disease, old age and death, he could not see anything else but these three phenomena of earthly life.

I do not think that Siddharta dreamed of a quiet monastic life or wanted to surrender to abstinence and meditation. Perhaps he just imagined that somebody could tell him how to escape from illness, old age and death.

After the fourth symbolic meeting, a messenger brought him news about his newborn son.

- These are other strong chains, - said Gautama with calm, - that I will have to break.

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The people of Kapilavastu celebrated the birth of the heir, the king’s only grandson. When Gautama returned to the palace, his chariot was surrounded by musicians and people screaming with delight.

A voice from the crowd attracted his attention. It was his wife’s cousin, she praised him thus: “My father is saved, my mother is saved, the wife of such son and husband is saved”. For Siddhartha, the word “saved” meant that he could save himself from the chains of life.

In gratitude for being reminded of the purpose of his life at the moment of celebrations, Gautama took off his precious pearl necklace and sent it to the girl.

According to the myths, that evening he paid no attention to dancers and even fell asleep during celebrations.

Awakened, he jumped up, “ready to work” like “a man who has learnt that his house is on fire”, as Sinhalese chronicle says.

He did not say goodbye to his wife and his newborn son.

He asked who was on guard at the moment and when he learnt that it was his charioteer, he ordered to saddle his horse.

Channa fulfilled his order and both of them left the palace on the night of the full moon in the month of July.

There are two stories that describe his parting with worldly life.

When they left the palace and reached the edge of the forest, Prince Gautama decided to say goodbye to his charioteer, who opened his eyes to reality. He gave him his favorite white horse with royal harness.

Then he went down the path into the woods and met a poor tramp.

Siddhartha changed his clothes with the poor man, giving the tramp his royal robes.

He put on the tramp’s rags and went deep into the forest. He became the Samana Gautama, a forest ascetic, but unlike other ascetics, he decided to find a way to overcome illness, old age and death. He did not leave the ascetic brotherhood for six years, from that very moment till his awakening.

According to the second existing version, after meeting the tempter Mara, who offered him to become the emperor of the universe in a week, if he did not continue his way,

Gautama traveled all day long till he reached the river Anoma. There he stopped, cut off his

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long hair with his sword, took of his royal robes and sent them back to Kapilavasta. Although this version seems to be more sensible, it makes the transition from the worldly life less dramatic.

Spending the next seven days alone in the mango grove, he went to the town of Magadha, which was under the rule of Bimbizara, one of the most powerful kings in the Gang valley at that time.

Bimbizara, a friend of Siddhartha’s father, gave him a warm welcome. The king asked him to become a Brahmin priest at the palace, but Gautama said that he was not ready to be a preacher.

First of all, he wanted to become a disciple of the famous Brahmin named Alora, who was a master of Vedas, Brahmanic ceremonies and yoga. Then he joined the sage and philosopher Udraka from whom he learnt Indian philosophy.

But the knowledge he got from Alora and Udraka was not enough. He still could not solve the koan of disease, old age and death.

So he went deep into the forests of Uruvela, and, according to one of the written sources, lived there for six years with five faithful followers, fasting and practicing selftorture.

Another version says that he studied at various ascetic schools and learnt from different gurus. He was an excellent pupil, he could easily achieve the basic states of consciousness that were popular in the forest brotherhood and easily grasp the knowledge he was given. He left his teachers soon, in spite of their offer to become their successor. But no monastic brotherhood and no teacher could help him solve his koan.

He was so spiritualized and showed such a great zeal for his studies that his fame spread all over the world, “as the ringing of a bell hanging from the vault of heaven”, said the Burmese chronicle.

Unable to solve the major problem of his life, he made up his mind to take the extreme step. He resolved to practice the greatest austerity. Extreme fasting finally led him to such exhaustion that he lost consciousness.

One version says that shramanas who surrounded him thought that he was dead, but he recovered, gave up the practice of self-torturing and began to lead a proper life.

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According to another version, the decision to fast was made only when he left other shramanas and stayed alone. He was found half-dead by a shepherdess, who “brought him back to life by giving him milk of forty cows”. When he recovered, Gautama made a very important decision. He came to the conclusion that fasting was as extreme and bad as indulging in food. He decided that the proper way of life was somewhere in the middle: there should be neither ascetic fasting resulting in twilight consciousness and helpless body, nor surfeit.

Moreover, he realized that his body deserved attention and care.

And so he began to eat regularly and his body became stronger. Then he went to the river, washed, cut his nails for first time in six years, anointed his body with oil and did his hair.

When he finished, he felt extreme happiness.

Once, the disappointed and dissatisfied prince rejected everything that was dear to people, became a monk and sought consolation in science and later in ascetic self-denial.

He realized that he could not reach the truth and solve his koan by mastering somebody else’s Brahmanic wisdom and philosophy or practicing asceticism. No doubt, he attained fame as an ascetic monk, his thoughts and repentance enriched him spiritually, he became a saint in the eyes of others.

But the practice of asceticism led him to a deadlock, made him lose his strength and his faith.

Affection and favor of the shramanas’ community could be a great support for him, but his friends and disciples betrayed Gautama and left him as soon as he chose moderation as the best way of life.

He had already become a stranger to his clan, there was no way back to his wife and son, father and relatives, friends and dancers, to idleness, wealth and power.

Then he gave up asceticism and left his spiritual brothers.

He reached the edge of abandonment and loneliness. Even his closest friends and disciples left him.

He was left alone facing his fate, God and the cosmos.

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So he went to the river and sat in the shade of a huge tree, known from that time as the Bodhi tree or the Sacred Fig tree (Ficus religiosa), with utmost determination either to resolve the koan of illness, old age and death, or to die.

He sat in the shade of the Bodhi tree all day long.

While Siddhartha was meditating, Mara sent him temptations again and again. He was tempted by the sweetness of home, the warmth of love amid the delights of wealth and power. Mara fought against Gautama using his fears, doubts, anguish, desperation, trying his faith and will.

It is possible that Gautama had doubts and suffered from them, but at sunset his faith, will and consciousness won.

He experienced absolute knowledge and understanding of life and sank into nirvana. He felt that his mission was accomplished. He resolved his koan, found the cause of his sufferings and a way to set himself free from them.

He had a choice: either to pass into paranirvana and return to Dharmakaya, beyond the limits of the supreme lokas and gods, or to come back to people.

He looked at the world of the animate and the inanimate with his eyes full of mercy.

And decided to pass his knowledge to people, “to turn the wheel of the Dharma”.

Thus the Buddha was born.

He sat under the tree all night long.

Legends say that he fasted under the Bodhi tree for seven days in order to test his newly-acquired knowledge and understanding of the world.

Gautama’s subsequent life proved that when preaching, he was guided by the feeling of love and compassion for others, which was called “Mahakaruna”.

The first thing Buddha Shakyamuni wanted to do was to tell his teachers Alora and Udraka about his discovery, but he found that they had already died.

So he set off to visit his five former disciples and fellow ascetics, who lived in the Deer Park by the town of Sarnath.

Upon seeing him they addressed him “Honorable Gautama”.

He told them that he was not Gautama anymore, he was the Buddha. He was the one who was awakened and found the way to immortality. He was the one who could show them

the path to eternal life.

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That was when he read a sermon about the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. Thus he turned the wheel of the Dharma and voiced the teaching that would later be called “Buddhism”.

The five former disciples joined him immediately. Gautama stayed in the Deer Park until the number of his followers reached sixty. His main disciple was a very rich young man, Yasa by name. He came to Buddha at night as he was afraid that his relatives were against his new faith, but later he shaved his head, put on a yellow robe and converted many of his relatives into Buddha’s followers. Yasa’s mother and wife were the first women to become Buddha’s disciples. Hermit’s life, said Buddha, contributed to the attainment of the perfect bliss. However, the secular, family life did not deprive people of the possibility to attain the same goal.

When autumn rains passed, Buddha gathered his disciples and addressed them with the following speech: - “People and angels were caught by the giant web of five deadly sins, but I liberated myself from them, and many of you were able to do that too with the help of the teaching. Now we face a great challenge: we are to help other people and angels to find salvation. Now let us divide to go and preach in different places. As for me, I will go to the village of Sena by the Uruvela desert”.

Every year Buddha sent his disciples to preach, keeping by him only the closest

ones.

At those times, three brothers, hermits and fire-worshippers, lived in the deserts of Uruvela. They had a lot of disciples. Buddha went to them and soon they became his followers. It was the place where he gave his first sermon, inspired by the forest fire, which broke out on the slopes of the nearby mountain. In his sermon he warned his disciples against evil passions, which he compared to a fire that brings both pleasure and pain and quickly leads to destruction.

Accompanied by his disciples, Buddha went to Rajagriha, where he delivered a speech in front of the king, telling him that all earthly misfortunes were caused by passions. The king invited him and his students to dine and then gave him a gift of a bamboo grove, where Buddha spent a few rainy seasons and gave most of his best sermons in the course of subsequent years.

There he acquired a lot of followers.

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Meanwhile, the old king Suddhodana, who anxiously followed the life of his son, learned that Siddhartha gave up asceticism and became a wandering preacher and teacher. He sent for his son, asking him to come back home to see his father before his death.

Buddha immediately set off to Kapilavasta. When he got there, he stopped in a suburban grove as he was used to do. His father, uncle and other relatives came to see him, but Buddha gave them a cold welcome, failing to show the proper respect.

Usually preachers like Gautama were invited to the palace on the next day of their stay, but he did not receive an invitation, so he went to the town with a bowl for collecting alms.

His father was so horrified when he heard that his son was begging in the streets, that he went out to him and cried:

-The celebrated Buddha! Why do you put us to shame? Why do you beg in the streets? Do you really think that I am not able to feed all your mendicant brotherhood?

-My noble father, - answered Buddha, - this is the custom of our tribe.

-How is that? – cried his father, - don’t you belong to a royal family? Nobody from

our clan has ever put himself to such a shame.

- My noble father, - said Gautama, - you and your family can claim for royal privileges, but I descend from ancient prophets, and they have always done so, and their customs are good, for this world and for another one, which is awaiting for us. If someone finds a treasure, he must share it with his father, giving him the best part. Let me share with you the treasure I have just found.

The king, confused by his son’s words, accepted the bowl and took him to the palace. Women came to greet him, but Yasodhara was not among them. He had not seen her since he had left her sleeping with their baby seven years ago.

-I will wait and see, - she said, - if I still mean something to him, he will come to me or ask about me.

Gautama noticed that his wife was not there. Remembering that hermits could not touch a woman, he said:

-The Princess has not yet set herself free from desires as I have done. She has not seen me for so many years, perhaps she is still angry with me? If her anger does not go away,

her heart can be broken. She can come to greet me.

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She did and the man she saw was not the husband she had been waiting for, it was a monk in yellow robes with a shaved head and a clean-shaven face. She fell to the floor, embraced his feet and started to cry.

Then Yasodhara calmed down and soon became a zealous follower of her husband’s teaching.

On seeing that women also wanted to understand his teaching and experience samadhi, Buddha decided to form a sangha (a Buddhist community) of nuns, which was joined by his former wife.

Next day Buddha’s half brother Nanda was supposed to celebrate his wedding.

Instead of getting married Nanda went to the mango grove, which was near the palace, and became Buddha’s follower.

In a few days Yasodhara dressed her son Rahula and told him that he should go and ask his father for his inheritance.

- I do not know my father, - said the boy, - Who is he?

His mother took him up and showed him his father, who was having his dinner at the

palace.

-The monk, whose face is so bright, - she said, - is your father. He has four sources of wealth, approach him and ask him for inheritance.

Rahula went to his father and addressed him fearlessly and respectfully:

-Father! I am glad that I am with you.

Gautama blessed him silently and rose to leave, and then Rahula followed him, asking him for inheritance.

Nobody stopped the boy and both of them went to the grove, where Rahula became one of Buddha’s disciples.

Rahula achieved a lot on the path of Buddhism. He became one of the twelve

Apostles, to whom Buddha entrusted his teaching. The twelve Apostles were Buddha’s closest disciples, all of them became Arhats. According to the “Tathagata”, Rahula became an Arhat, too.

The king got angry when he learnt that his grandson became a Buddhist. In order to save other parents from the risk of losing their children in such a way, he asked Buddha not

to accept children without their parents’ permission.

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Buddha did as he was asked, returned to the mango grove and soon moved on along the paths of Northern India. There is a belief that the flower of the Shakya clan, the youngest and the strongest of Brahmins and Kshatriyas followed the former prince. It drained the Shakya clan of blood. Then barbarians from the neighboring tribe seized and destroyed their palaces, killing men and capturing women and children.

The description of the subsequent years of Buddha’s life is rather fragmentary.

Once Buddha approached a wealthy Brahmin and farmer, who was plowing his fields, to beg alms.

The farmer said to Buddha:

-If you plowed and sowed like me, you would not have to gather alms.

-But I am a Brahmin too, - answered Buddha, - I sow, I plow and I reap.

-But nobody sees you plowing, - noticed Brahmin.

-Faith is my seeds, - answered Buddha, - self-struggle is the benign rain and wisdom is my plow, guided by modesty. My plow is pulled by persistence and directed by thought. Law is my field. The immortal nectar of Nirvana is my harvest. The one who reaps it, destroys the weeds of sorrow completely.

A merchant from Sunaparanta became a follower of Buddha’s teachings. Feeling a desire to preach it to his relatives, he asked Buddha’s permission.

-The people of Sunaparanta, - told him the Teacher, - are bold and impudent. What will you do if they curse you?

-I will give no reply to them, - said the merchant.

-And if they hit you, what will you do?

-I will not hit them back, - said he.

-And if they want to kill you?

-Death in itself is not evil. Many of us wish for death in order to escape from worldly vanity, but I will make no step to bring it closer or to put it off.

Buddha was satisfied with the merchant’s responses and let him go and preach.

Once Buddha Shakyamuni healed a young woman named Kasagotami, whose grief made her lose her mind.

Kasagotami married early and gave birth to a baby when she was still a young girl.

Soon her baby died. Pressing her dead child to her bosom, the ruthful mother ran from house

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to house asking to be given some medicine. One of the Buddha’s followers told her that although he could not give her the medicine she asked for, he knew a man who could help her. He brought her to Buddha.

-Teacher, - she said, bowing, - do you know a remedy that could save my baby?

-Yes, I do. - he replied, - Bring me a handful of mustard seed from a house where nobody, no son, no parent, no relative, no slave has ever died.

Wherever the woman went, whatever house she entered, she got the same reply when she asked if somebody had died in their family. Everywhere she was told that few were alive and many were dead.

Finally, she calmed down and went back to Buddha, leaving her child in the woods.

-Have you brought the seeds? – asked the Teacher.

-No, I have not, - answered the young woman, - as few are alive and many are dead. Buddha told her about the frailness of earthly creatures. Her doubts cleared away,

she reconciled herself to her misery and became his follower.

Buddha preached for forty-five years. He stayed close to Benares and spent raining seasons in Buddhist community houses.

Some of his relatives always accompanied him. One of his cousins envied his success and instigated king Ajatasatra to persecute Buddha and his followers. There are fantastic legends, which tell how Buddha escaped dangers. The only thing we know for certain is that the new teaching was bound to endure persecutions led by resentful Brahmins.

The last days of Buddha’s life are described in great detail.

The eighty-year old Teacher stopped in the grove at Pava. Chunda, a man who donated the grove to the Sangha, cooked his afternoon meal. After the meal Buddha set off to Kushinagar but soon had to stop and said: “I am thirsty”.

They gave him water, but at the Kukushta river he had to stop again.

Buddha and his disciples slowly continued their way and finally reached the Hiranavata river, where Buddha rested for the last time in his life and spoke with Ananda about his burial and the rules his followers had to follow after his death.

Ananda listened to Buddha and could not hold back a tear. He went away and wept. Gautama sent for him immediately. Telling his follower that he was going to sink into

nirvana, Buddha consoled him thus:

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