Buddha after Nirvana

By Eliza 

 

Buddha was supposedly a “marked” child having the 32 signs of holiness ever since his birth. He possessed long ear lobes, curly hair and many other “signs” of wisdom. I didn’t know there were two types of Buddhists before, the once who follow the disciples like Dalai Lama and the ones who only follow what Buddha had left behind. Talking to the guide in front of one of the most famous Buddha sculptures about the concepts of Nirvana and reincarnation had made me think more about the strangeness of belief. It is indeed very brave to be able to blindly believe in something you have not lived before. People, such as Dalai Lama, do not want to reach Nirvana in order for them to be able to come back in other lives and help people reincarnate. What is Nirvana though? And how do you reach that? And most importantly, how do you know when you are close to reaching it?

The guide made a very interesting analogy. He said: When you play football. Let’s say you are the main player and you want to score. You are in front of the goalkeeper but you can’t score as long as he is there. That is the first step, knowing what direction to go. The second step is when the goalkeeper goes away and you can freely score and the third one is the Nirvana when you hit the ball and score. There is no way back from there though. Once you score, you can never be part of the same team again. Once you score you will go up in rank and team and won’t see your former team again.

 

 

 

The Story of Buddhism 

By Tori 

There are two men named Buddha who remain important in modern society for their philosophies. The first one, often dubbed “Smiling Buddha” is known for his ability to make people, especially children, smile. As we learned about him, the guide related him to a “Santa Claus” figure of sorts, in the sense that he would carry sweets and toys for the children as he travelled. He made people laugh until the very last moment of his existence on Earth, as his funeral turned from a place of mourning to a place of uproarious laughter. When Smiling Buddha realized he was close to death, he made three requests to his good friend:

Do not remove any clothing from his body.
Do not wash his body after death.
Cremate him, rather than bury him.

Of course, his friend abided by his wishes and did not change his clothing, bathe him, or bury him. Instead, when his body was lit aflame, fireworks began going off from the burning man. It turns out, he hid fireworks in the interior pockets of his coat in order to give his loved ones one last laugh.

The other well known Buddha is the one famous for his preachings, which then led to Buddhism as a religion. Buddha was born with thirty two strange marks on his body, such as his curly hair and long earlobes. Because of this, he was prophesied to change the world. However, his father was warned not to expose the child to suffering, lest this prophecy change. So, for the first decades of his life, Buddha was sheltered from all suffering. Eventually, after he was married and had conceived a son, he decided it was time to end his quarantine from pain. As soon as he left home, he was exposed to his first understanding of what is is to suffer: an old man, close to death. From that, he learned of mankind’s mortality. Then, he saw a man who was sick and learned of the suffering of life. Yet, amongst all the suffering he was exposed to in his travel, he discovered an old monk with minimal possessions. Despite his lack of luxury, the monk was happy. And because of this contentedness, Buddha decided to follow the monk’s beliefs. Therefore, Buddha became a monk.

In his journey in being a monk, he pledged to fast until he became enlightened. Therefore, he did not eat any food (except for a grain of rice every day) for many months. Then, one day, as a starving Buddha sat underneath a tree, close to complete starvation, a woman approached him and offered him her rice pudding. He accept the gift graciously and then became enlightened. He realized that life would only lead to suffering if it was lived to the extremes. Instead of giving away everything you have or indulging in every craving you desire, it is best to live the middle life, often called the “Golden Path”.

 

The “Golden Path” of Buddhism

By Anna 

The Buddha’s first sermon after obtaining enlightenment took place in Deer Park. The Buddha’s speech began with the teachings of “the middle way” or Golden Path of life he had come to find.
He taught that the path to awakening is not found in extremes but lies in balancing self-indulgence and self-destruction. Buddha himself had given up the extremes of both luxury and asceticism. These things disturb the mind. A calm mind on the other hand leads to insight.
When our guide told us this, it reminded me of what he had earlier explained about Yoga philosophy. Both yoga and Buddhism have in the west been subject to a major misconception.
Yoga is believed to be about physical posturers, but in true yoga this is just an aspect in the practice of yoga to help gain focused control of body and mind to calm the mind for meditation which leads to realization. Similarly, Buddhism is not about austerity and abstinence but the to cultivate a balanced mind to reach realization.
As in Hinduism, life is seen as suffering and the goal is hence to be liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth. Buddha described four insights which today has become known as the four noble truths. The first being that life is suffering, second principle being that the cause of this suffering is our perpetual cravings. He goes on to say that cessation of suffering is possible. In the fourth and last truth he explains how freedom from suffering, liberation, is possible through following eight life principles, today known as the 8 limbs of Buddhism. The middle path is hence eight-fold and consists of 1) right speech, 2) right action, 3) right livelihood, 4) right effort, 5) right mindfulness, 6) right concentration, 7) right attitude 8) right view.

A stupa stands today in the spot where the Buddha delivered his first sermon.
Buddhists from all over the world visit this place. They walk around the sacred stupa to worship the Buddha. The teachings Buddha give in Deer Park many centuries ago have evolved since the Buddha’s time. Yet the core teachings of suffering and liberation remain the same and many people today follow his wise words.
I was surprised to learn that Buddhism is not widely practiced in India anymore. When asking our guide specifically about this I learnt that the small percentage of Buddhists found in India today are mostly due to the conversion that happened in the early 20thcentury when the lowest cast, the untouchables, were severely suppressed. The Buddha lives on in India amongst the rest of the Hindu population as one of the 300.000.000 Hindu gods.
For myself I see it as a philosophy that is very useful, and this seems to be a shared consensus amongst many in the West today. I think the growing popularity of Buddhism in the West is no surprise in today’s era of extreme lifestyles that moves one away from the calm mind and the middle way that Buddha taught. Also, another appealing part in the secular age is that Buddha placed great emphasis on direct insight. He didn’t want his listeners to simply believe what he said. Rather, he taught that if they followed the path, they would realize the truth for themselves.In other worlds he did not want to cultivate devotion in himself to create a religion but rather he wanted people to reach enlightenment and become Buddha’s themselves.