A Buddha’s Sacred Biography
No one questions Buddha’s existence in India, but there are debates on when the events actually occurred and there are disagreements about his teachings (Strong 2001: 1). In a similar way, the biography of a Buddha follows an unquestioned pattern, although it may demonstrate variations in local detail.
Buddha explored new ways to practice religion and looked at the world and the pleasures that come with it without rose-colored glasses. Participation in the religious community was important to him, and he stressed the role of discipline. He was an innovative in his time and very charismatic (Strong 2001: 2). There are many versions of his stories and many tales as well. The fictions of his life are just as real as the facts because this is what makes him Buddha and what makes people follow him. There is more about the Buddha of Story than there is of the Buddha of History. Scholars try to see him in the middle road between human and god but see him in different things based on their bias (Strong 2001: 4). His stories are also told in local languages with local twists to them (Strong 2001: 6) which shows that people adapt the Buddha’s story to their lives and how they can apply it from culture to culture, region to region. The places of where things happened were equal in importance. Major events were tied to distinct sites and each site comprised of not just one story and were seen as episodes or cycles in his life (Strong 2001: 7).
The Buddha’s stories were not limited to scriptures but extended to art as well (Strong 2001: 8). Buddha lives on in his teachings today among his followers and it is only in the future when he is forgotten or lost that his life story will truly come to an end (Strong 2001: 14). His path will be taken again by another Buddha as he took the path of all Buddhas before him. This path will be lived again and again. All Buddhas will follow this Buddha-life blueprints and have to meet the acts that make one a Buddha (Strong 2001: 15). A Buddha’s life is “a manifestation of a transcendent, unchanging, eternal Body of Truth” (Strong 2001: 18).
Bodhisattvas (Buddha-to-bes) are variously reborn in different realms. Nirvana and being a Buddha are not just due to years of meditation in a lifetime but a gradual perfection through ages and ages and aeons and aeons (Strong 2001: 19). There are a lot of similarities between jatakas, which are stories of Buddha’s past lives, and fables from all over the world. This was done to strengthen his life story by associating it with heroes and divinities that people already held in high regard. As Buddhism spread, the faith also allowed for it to be tied into local cultural and religious beliefs (Strong 2001: 20). The characters in these jatakas are matched with the people in Buddha’s life to integrate karmic relationships and connections and show their collective karma with each other (Strong 2001: 21-22). The themes are cyclic as well (Strong 2001: 22) and show the same story through different angles, showing what would happen with different elements (Strong 2001: 24).
Jatakas demonstrate that buddhahood can be open to everyone. All Buddhas start out as an ordinary being who faces a lengthy and arduous path. It is not just in a single lifetime but various lives as different beings, although never as female (Strong 2001: 24). If one was female, it was never official and had to be done as a male (Strong 2001: 33). The journeys of Buddhas span incalculable ages, multiple aeons and world-cycles (Strong 2001: 30). This does not happen in just the world as we know it but in multiple other worlds we barely even can imagine. Jatakas show the various perfections that the Buddha practiced in his previous lives (Strong 2001: 37). But as karma is two-sided and contains both positive and negative, jatakas also show his longings and desires and the consequences that rose when he followed through with the negativity (Strong 2001: 43).
There are five periods of cause that all Buddhas go through. The first is the period of “great cause” where one has a mental resolve for buddhahood but no confirmatory prediction from a Buddha. The second is the period of the “very distant cause” where there are verbal resolves by the future Buddha but still no confirmatory prediction. The third is the period of the “distant cause” where the future Buddha makes physical resolves and receives confirmatory prediction from a living Buddha. The fourth is the “near cause” where the bodhisattva goes on quests for enlightenment. Finally, the fifth is the “proximate cause” which is the period after the bodhisattva attains enlightenment and the period where he has become a Buddha and preaches the Dharma (Strong 2001: 32). People in this world are given to passion and pleasure and are generally considered ignorant about spiritual things and are not able to understand the Buddha’s teachings. There is a choice to preach or not for each Buddha and some lived in isolation. But in Gautama’s case, the gods intervened and wanted him to spread the Dharma (Strong 2001: 104).
All Buddhas experience events that cause them to leave home. They then depart from their home after seeing suffering. They are made into monks who find teachers to learn and develop meditation techniques. They then practice austerities and find the middle path. An offering of milk-rice is made to them to nourish them in their journey to enlightenment. A last battle with Mara results in the defeat of desire, craving, and seduction. The bodhisattva then gains enlightenment and buddhahood is achieved. This will be the last lifetime the Buddha will live as he will reach nirvana upon his death and never again be reborn.
Similar to other historical figures and stories, there are a lot of different variations found in the history of Buddha. The essence of the path is unchanged but the way it is presented differs from one another. This is because a Buddha’s job is not to tell us exactly what to do but rather show us the path to enlightenment and this can take on many different forms.
Word Count: 1,053 words
2014-03-28
