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| Life of the Buddha : First Sermons |
This essay is a continuation of Life of the Buddha : Pre-Enlightenment
Life of the Buddha : First Sermons
The moment the world had been waiting for was at hand. Siddhartha now begun the great meditative trance from which he was to emerge on the full moon day of the month of Vesak as a Fully Enlightened One, a Buddha. Mara, who had been shadowing Siddhartha constantly throughout his spiritual quest, now trembled as he saw that if Siddhartha attained enlightenment he would forever be beyond his power. He realised he would have to shatter Siddhartha's resolve and thus began an onslaught of threats, intimidation and temptation. It culminated in Mara summoning a terrifying horde of monsters of every conceivable description but even something as horrific as this still left Siddhartha unmoved, unperturbed. Instead he transformed the weapons which these monsters threw at him into lotus petals which exuded a lovely fragrance as they gently floated down to earth.
In desperation Mara challenged Siddhartha with a reign of fire, a deluge of burning blinding sheets, but in response to all this Siddhartha simply remained untouched and profoundly composed. Mara screamed at Siddhartha what right he had to sit on the sacred seat which had seen countless Buddhas enlightened in lives many aeons before him. Siddhartha calmly explained that he was there due to countless previous lives of practising generosity as well as the rest of the ten transcendental virtues. At this point Mara shrieked at Siddhartha what witness he had to back up such statements, to which Siddhartha reached down and touched the earth with his fingertips. "The earth is my witness," he told Mara. At this point there was an immense booming and rumbling which made the earth shake. Mara's host of monsters and Mara himself fled in panic, utterly defeated.
With those distractions finally out of the way Siddhartha could now get on with the work of reaching his goal of enlightenment. There was a full moon in the sky which shone softly and Siddhartha soon entered the first level of meditation, and as the moon continued to rise in the sky so Siddhartha entered deeper and deeper levels of concentration until he reached the fourth and deepest, at which point his concentration was bright and unblemished, full and balanced. At this point he turned his mind to untying the knot of birth, old age, sickness and death and he realised that what began and perpetuated this never ending cycle was when basic intelligence slipped into unawareness of its own nature and adopted a sense of self.
Penetrating the nature of these processes further increased the clarity and openness of his mind. In the first watch of the night Siddhartha's inner vision became completely unobstructed, a state called the opening the divine eye. He then turned his attention to the past and to reviewing the circumstances of his own and others' lives stretching back over many aeons and world ages. From what he saw by doing this he concluded that in relation to himself and all other beings he had died and been reborn an incalculable number of times.
In the second watch of the night he saw beings being born, living their lives and then passing away in accordance with the indestructible law of karma, the law of cause and effect. Put simply, past deeds create certain inclinations which shape the conditions and circumstances of each individual life. He saw the fortunate and unfortunate going on their various ways and how, ignorant and suffering, they were tossed on the stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.
By the third watch of the night Siddhartha applied himself to rooting out this suffering once and for all. He had understood the law of dependent arising and how the lives of beings were driven by the powerful force of karma and so he turned his attention to seeking the means of liberation. Through his meditative insight he saw suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering and finally the path which led to cessation. By the end of the third watch, at the first light of dawn, the bodhisattva saw through the last trace of ignorance in himself and had thus attained complete and perfect enlightenment. He had now become a Buddha. Later when talking about his experience he said, "Now the cycle of rebirth is ended for me, this world no longer matters."
Some accounts state the Buddha remained for seven days in this state of trance without moving, resting without thought suffused with well-being, before emerging just as the sun was rising and the full moon of Vesak was setting. He then spent further periods of time in the vicinity of the Bodhi tree and many other events laden with symbolic significance are said to have taken place during this period.
At first the Buddha thought that he would not teach the Dharma as it was too profound and difficult to teach, its essence was beyond concept and therefore very difficult to grasp. He would rest in silent illumination as he thought it would be futile to convey it to others. The god Sahampati, however, on learning of the Buddha's decision left his heavenly realm and entreated the Buddha on behalf of all beings to "turn the wheel of Dharma". He said there were many seekers of the truth with but a little dust in their eyes and that if the Buddha would teach there would be many beings who would attain liberation. Having been requested in such a manner the Buddha was moved by compassion and he consented to Sahampati's request by remaining silent.
It is said that in all the Buddha spent 49 days meditating and fasting beneath the Bodhi tree. At the end of this period two wealthy merchants, Trapusha and Bhallika, came by. Struck by the majesty and presence of the Buddha they made him an offering by preparing a meal of rice cakes and honey from their stores. After only speaking a few words to them the Buddha gave them refuge and they became his first lay-disciples. Later followers of the Buddha would take a three-fold refuge which would involve taking refuge in the Buddha, his Dharma, or teachings, and his Sangha, or community of followers. At this time however there was no Sangha.
When the merchants had departed the Buddha considered whom he might teach. The first people who came to his mind were his two former teachers Arada Kalama and Rudraka Ramaputra, however his divine eye revealed to him that these two Brahmins had already died. He next thought of his five former followers from the time he had been engaged in
ascetic practices. He knew that they were staying at the Deer Park in Sarnath, which was close to the holy city of Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges, and he therefore decided to go there.
On his way to the Deer Park the Buddha met a naked ascetic by the name of Upaka who was struck by the Buddha's serenity and radiance. He enquired of the Buddha who his teacher was, to which the Buddha replied that he had become completely enlightened without a teacher. The ascetic merely said to the Buddha that he hoped that he was right, and then he continued on his way, clearly not willing to commit himself to following the Buddha.
After many days travelling the Buddha arrived at the Deer Park. From a distance the five ascetics who had been his attendants made scornful and sarcastic remarks to each other about him and agreed with themselves that they would ignore him. As he approached them however they began to see that he had drastically changed; his majestic, authoritative air soon ensured that any hostility they might have had soon evaporated. One of the ascetics took his blanket and bowl, another arranged his seat and a third fetched water for him to wash his feet.
The Buddha then delivered the first sermon of his teaching career that evening, known as the First Turning of the Wheel of Truth, he gave it to those first five disciples and it is a teaching that forms the foundation and essence of all of the Buddha's teachings. It contained teachings on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path; the former of which stands as the basis of the Buddha's philosophy. The first three truths are stages of a logical argument which parallels the Buddha's own early progress from the comfortable life of a prince to the search for enlightenment.
The first truth states that life is full of suffering because of illness, ageing, discontent and the overpowering presence of death. There is a famous passage from this sermon that has been recounted many times, and in which the Buddha says -
Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering. Involvement with what is unpleasant is suffering. Separation from what is pleasant is suffering. Also, not getting what one wants and strives for is suffering.
The second truth states that the cause of suffering is desire, or attachment to the world in such a way as to become liable to suffering. So the origin of this suffering is bound up with desire, a thirst that makes us cling to possessions, to persons, to life itself. It is a thirst which can only be occasionally satisfied but not ultimately assuaged.
Therefore the way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate desire, the third truth. There is a thing such as freedom from, or the cessation of this unsatisfactory state. This will come with the rooting out of its causes, the elimination of that ongoing thirst, described as being "without passion, a state of cessation, forsaking, abandoning, renunciation."
Finally the fourth noble truth then reveals the way to achieve this removal of desire and that the way is the central part of the Buddhist discipline, or the Middle Way : the Noble Eightfold Path, a form of conduct which avoids the extremes of both self-indulgence and self-mortification. The eight limbs are categorised as follows : right views and right discrimination are related to wisdom; right speech, right action and right livelihood are related to correct ethical conduct; and right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration are related to meditation.
Soon after this first sermon the Buddha related his teaching on suffering to two other cornerstones of Buddhist doctrine : his teaching on non-self and his teaching on impermanence. The Buddha's teaching on non-self is an idea which on the face of it conflicts with many other religions and raises the question of whether in fact Buddhism can be called a religion at all. The idea of an eternal self, an ego, or soul connected with the divine principle in the universe was of course a central tenet of Hinduism.
The Buddha taught that the concept of self falls away as soon as it is seen; that it is merely a temporary composite of form, feeling, perception, conceptual formations and consciousness, called the five aggregates. Closely connected to this was the understanding that the body as well as the aggregates was unstable and subject to change. With this the five ascetics came to realise what the Buddhist tradition was to later call the "three marks of existence": namely that all composite things are characterized by suffering, impermanence and not-self. When the five ascetics realised these truths through the power of the Buddha's teaching they attained enlightenment and they were freed from the intoxicating influences that bound them to the world.
Following the conversion and enlightenment of the five ascetics the community or order which lived and organised itself according to the discipline laid down by the Buddha grew rapidly. So began a forty-five year ministry during which the Buddha travelled widely throughout northern and eastern India, consolidating his core teachings and establishing a monastic community both of which still remain in existence to this day. |
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