Epilogue
For a storyteller, it would be ideal if Buddha’s life came to a spectacular end. We’re holding our breath for it. First came the fairy-tale beginning as a handsome prince, then a second act with a wandering monk who goes through all manner of trials and suffering, reaching a brilliant climax when enlightenment is achieved in a single night under the bodhi tree. Where did this stunning life finally wind up?
Squarely back on earth, as it turns out. Buddha lived quietly for another forty-five years, traveling throughout northern India as a renowned teacher before dying at the ripe old age of eighty. The cause of death was eating a bad piece of pork, an embarrassingly humble and mundane way to depart.
To satisfy our dramatic longings, we have to turn to the incidental characters in the tale. The ones who were intimates of Siddhartha enjoyed a warm reunion with him. His wife, Yashodhara, and son, Rahula, became devotees of Buddha, which seems fitting enough. They were revered to the end of their days. Other characters had a more curious fate. The ever-widening circle of monks around Buddha, known as the Sangha, came to include two misfits, his archenemy, Devadatta, and the rough-hewn warrior Channa. According to tradition, Devadatta remained proud and resentful; even as a disciple he caused trouble. In one famous episode Devadatta tries to kill Buddha by starting a rockslide; in another he gets an elephant drunk on liquor and sends it on a rampage against the Compassionate One. (Buddha deflects the danger in both cases.) As often happens, the villain of the piece is too much fun to let go, so there are other stories of political intrigue with a neighboring prince named Ajatashatru and more mundane tales of Devadatta objecting to the rules Buddha laid down for his monks. A storyteller has a hard time making much drama out of ashram politics.
Following the rules didn’t sit well with Channa, either. Having given up his role as brave charioteer, Channa chafed at being reduced to the status of a holy monk. His chief sin was pride. He never let anyone forget that he had been Siddhartha’s best friend. He treated Buddha with too much familiarity, causing distress among the other devotees. At a certain point Channa’s misbehavior became too much for even Buddha’s tolerance. The head disciple, Ananda, who historically was Buddha’s cousin, was sent to reprimand him, and from there the road divides. In one version Channa sullenly takes his scolding and reforms. In the other, he sinks into despair and commits suicide.
But we would be wrong to be disappointed in our hero. Enlightenment was just the beginning of Buddha’s spiritual ascent, which was spectacular by any measure. Buddhism caused an earthquake in the spiritual life of India, crushing the privileges of the Brahmin caste and raising even the despised untouchables to spiritual dignity.
Buddha blew through the temples like a strong wind and with the simplicity of genius reduced the human predicament to one key issue: suffering. If suffering is a constant in every life, he said, then until there’s an end to suffering, enlightenment is pointless. Equally pointless is talk of God or the gods, heaven and hell, sin, redemption, the soul, and all the rest. This was reform of the severest kind, and a lot didn’t stick. People wanted God. Buddha refused to speak on the subject of whether God even existed. He adamantly denied that he himself was divine. People wanted the comfort of rituals and ceremonies. Buddha shunned ceremony. He wanted each individual to look inside and find liberation through a personal journey that began in the physical world and ended in Nirvana, a state of pure, eternal consciousness. Nirvana is present in everyone, he taught, but Nirvana is like pure water lying deep beneath the earth. Reaching it requires concentration, devotion, and diligent work.
It’s no wonder that Buddha’s call to awakening proved so enticing and so difficult. The Middle Way, which gained its name because it was neither too harsh nor too easy, proved very appealing, but the journey to Nirvana is solitary and contains little in the way of entertaining scenery. Yet there was no arguing against the teaching. Everything Buddha preached grows logically from the First Noble Truth, which also happens to be the first thing Buddha said to the five monks after he became enlightened: life contains suffering. The next three teachings sound more like modern psychotherapy than conventional religion:
FIRST NOBLE TRUTH: Life contains suffering.
SECOND NOBLE TRUTH: Suffering has a cause, and the cause can be known.
THIRD NOBLE TRUTH: Suffering can be brought to an end.
FOURTH NOBLE TRUTH: The path to end suffering has eight parts.
Now we’ve gone beyond the role of the storyteller, since these four simple statements created an explosion of theology that spread throughout Asia and the rest of the world. Thanks to Buddha’s decades of teaching, a cadre of disciples totally committed to the Buddhist path crossed the Himalayas and journeyed everywhere it was possible for sandals to tread. The list of cultures that these ascetic wanderers revolutionized is staggering: Tibet, Nepal, China, Japan, Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, and far into Malaysia and Indonesia. In many cases a handful of Buddhist missionaries actually created a new culture. Any outside observer can only stand back in awe.
Why did people accept this new teaching so readily? Because the First Noble Truth was undeniable. People knew that they were suffering, and instead of showing a way out, their old religions gave them surrogates, in the form of dogma, prayers, rituals, and the like. At its simplest, Buddhism walked into the village square and said, “Here are eight things that will open the way to peace instead of pain.” The Eightfold Path asks for each person to change how the mind works, plucking out what is wrong, inefficient, and superstitious, then exchanging those outworn habits for increasing clarity. In other words, the waking-up process, which Buddha experienced in one night, is laid out as a lifelong program:
Right view or perspective
Right intention
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration
Some of these steps sound natural. We all want to believe that our actions and words are virtuous. We don’t want to go wrong in our effort and intentions. Other parts of the path need special guidance. What is right mindfulness? Right concentration? These aspects have their roots in the meditation practices of Yoga, which Buddha also reformed and brought within reach of ordinary people.
As a storyteller, I didn’t feel it was my place to spread Buddhism. That’s best left to the modern equivalents of the wandering missionaries who first preached Buddhism. It would be unseemly for me to step on their toes. But I’d like to speak to you, the reader, who might be coming to Buddha from the cold. I came to Buddha that way, and I asked the obvious question: What can this teaching do for me? Is there something that will open my eyes and make me more awake, right this minute?
Personally, I found three things. They are known as the three Dharma seals, or to put it in plain English, three basic facts about Being. They spoke to me far more than the Middle Way because of their universality, which extends far beyond the boundaries of religion.
1. Dukkha
Life is unsatisfactory. Pleasure in the physical world is transient. Pain inevitably follows. Therefore, nothing we experience can be deeply satisfying. There is no resting place in change.
2. Anicca
Nothing is permanent. All experience is swept away in flux. Cause and effect is endless and confusing. Therefore one can never find clarity or permanence.
3. Anatta
The separate self is unreliable and ultimately unreal. We apply words like soul and personality to something that is fleeting and ghostly. Our attempts to make the self real never end but also never succeed. Therefore, we cling for reassurance to an illusion.