January 20, 2025
The Life of Sakyamuni Buddha (9)
By Rev. Shinkai Oikawa
9. Sakyamuni’s Manhood(continued from (6) [No.169])
At dawn He received the wisdom to see through the present, past, and future because everything filthy had gone out of Him and He became completely clean and purified, which is called the “extinction of illusion.”
This was the Buddha after all. Only enlightenment does not make the Buddha. I think He had powers to see through to the heart of things. It was just six o’clock in the morning when He understood He had gotten the powers
Night was divided into three parts in the olden times. Each part is four hours, and they are called the first night, midnight, and later night. The first night is from six to ten o’clock. The next four hours is the midnight. The night nearest to dawn is the later night. It was the later night when Sakyamuni became completely enlightened. It was when the day was just dawning. He realized He acquired the power at dawn.
We interpret “enlightenment” as understanding something. It is not so but it actually means “perfect acquisition of the power.” The power is beyond human powers. We do not call ones who do things that can be done easily by human powers Buddha. He acquired a certain power beyond human powers at the time and became the “Buddha.” Buddha in Indian is a past participle of the word meaning “awaken” and means “awakened” in the morning. But in case of Sakyamuni, Buddha means “to be awakened to the truth.”
Sakyamuni was confined in the darkness. He continued to meditate and practice asceticism for six years saying I cannot understand. He failed asceticism itself, but was awakened to the truth, had His eyes opened fully and found Himself bathed in the light. He could see things that could not have been seen before in a flash under the Bodhi tree.
He could see His past, future, and present. For instance, He came to understand a doctor’s prescription soon. It is a prescription showing what is best for a person, that is, what is best for happiness of a person. He can understand what medicine He gets and when and how He should give it to the person.
It is not sufficient to cure only the illness. We need many kinds of physical therapy to recover completely from illnesses and medical care can totally give us back good health.
The mental cases are quite the same. It is a great pleasure for us that Sakyamuni healed a psychological problem on the first attempt. However, the problem cannot be completely cured easily, though the condition may be improved. He taught various people how to completely cure it in as many ways as possible.
(7) Sakyamuni’s Traveling Practice (7) —Traveling as the Savior
India is a very large country as you know. They had to travel around on foot at the time of Sakyamuni. They walked on the average 10 km a day. This distance to walk in a day is called yojana. Sometimes it took them one month or two to walk in order to reach a destination 300 km or 400 km away.
Sakyamuni took the five men as his first disciples at the “Deer Park” in Baranasi (Benares). But He forbade them from waiting on Him. He drove them away, saying, “Go anywhere in India quickly to save the people living in need and in trouble as I taught you how to save them.” They were also told to go separately, without going together so that they could go to five separate places. I think Sakyamuni decided to save as many people as possible when he was invited by the King of the Brahma Heaven to preach the enlightenment He attained. And He was sure that He could save the people.
Sakyamuni died at the age of eighty. Before He died He said, “Scatter my ashes all over India.” And He added, “Many people who can worship my ashes can be saved. So distribute my ashes to many places where many people can see them.” In a word, all He wished was saving as many people as possible. Later, King Asoka built 84,000 pagodas to scatter His ashes all over India. He did not think of Himself at all but of the people in need. His first disciples went to save the people at once.
Sakyamuni had taken many people as disciples since then. There were many kinds of disciples, some of whom wanted to be taught by Him with sincere adoration, but others wanted to be His disciple in order to live an easy life. Their motivations were never simple.
There were also women who wanted to be His disciples, called “bhiksuni,” Buddhist priestesses. Sakyamuni refused to accept female disciples at first because priests tended to be distracted at the sight of priestesses. It was troublesome, so the Buddha said to the women, “Please do not join us.”
Finally, Mahaprajapati, the Buddha’s foster mother, asked Him to take her as His disciple. He declined her offer three times in vain, and took her as His disciple. Thus she became the first Buddhist priestess.
When Sakyamuni attained enlightenment, there already existed a lot of other trainees and great priests, who had 500 or 1,000 disciples. Sakyamuni occasionally dared to talk to them and took at once as many as 1,500 people as disciples. He had occasionally done such decisive things like this.
I do not quite understand why He went to the wedding ceremony of Ananda, His younger brother or son of King Suddhodana and Mahaprajapati, and forced him to be a priest against his will. I cannot understand why He had done such a horrible thing. He took Ananda away from the wedding ceremony and forced him to become a priest.
Ananda was unhappy and restless day and night because he was newly married and could not forget his beautiful new wife. He could not concentrate on ascetic practices at all under such conditions. Then Sakyamuni said to him, “Ananda, you look pale and unsettled. Try hard to practice asceticism.” Ananda could not listen to Him because he was made a priest against his will. Then the Buddha showed him a divine power “Look, this woman is beautiful, isn’t she?” Sakyamuni said. “Yes, she is almost as beautiful as my wife,” said Ananda. “You think so? Good. Women are beautiful, aren’t they?” “Yes, I agree.” And then Sakyamuni suddenly changed the woman into an old one by his supernatural power. He asked, “What do you think of this woman?” “Yes, she got a little older.” “The same woman, isn’t she?” And this time He made her much older. “She is much older, isn’t she?” Next, He tentatively made her extremely older, shabby, grey-haired, toothless, and bent back. Sakyamuni was preaching his teachings in this way, actually showing that even young women could not escape from this reality.
Ananda was embarrassed. But Sakyamuni did not stop here. This woman died, was discarded at the graveyard. “What do you think?” “Oh, she was dead.” He showed that she had rotted away, been crushed out of shape and become only a skeleton. He showed that people were all like this. Ananda was not pleased, but he could not help saying, “I understand.” He had to say, “People are like what you showed me, aren’t they? I will agree with you. So I will give up my attachment to my wife.”
Although Sakyamuni completely gave up all relations with His father, mother, wife, and child, I cannot give up my relations with my family. The relations are so strong that I cannot escape from them. Sakyamuni was a prince, or a successor to the throne of the country. He had already abandoned all things including His country, family, and people though He was the great hope of the king and the royal families. It can be said that He made His people quite unhappy in a sense. However, I think that He saved all these people in the end. All religious leaders may be said to have such nature. But I must confess that I cannot do the same things as Sakyamuni.
(Trans. by Rev. Kanshu Naito)