20 MINUTES TO MASTER … BUDDHISM. Kulananda

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ even knowledge of his wife and father, he stole away from home, leaving behind wife, child, family and social status. He cut off his hair and beard, swapped his warrior garb for the rag robes of a religious mendicant, and began his search for truth and liberation.

      It was an unsettled time. Rival kings, striving to establish ever larger kingdoms, were gradually absorbing and centralizing the earlier family – and tribe-oriented social structures. The old religion of the Vedas and its Brahminical priesthood was increasingly associated with these centralized governments, and a new class of religious practitioner was emerging. These were the wandering ascetics, who, dissatisfied with social conventions and with the empty ritualism of established religion, gave up their homes and social positions to wander at will in the world, living on alms and seeking spiritual liberation.

      Siddhartha became a ‘wanderer’.

      He sought out the most famous spiritual teachers of his time, but soon surpassed them in spiritual attainment and, realizing that even the lofty heights to which they had led him didn’t provide the answers he was looking for, he left each of them in turn and continued on his quest alone.

      It was a commonly accepted belief at the time that one liberated the spirit by weakening the prison of the flesh, and for the next six years Siddhartha engaged in the practice of extreme religious austerities. He wore no clothes, didn’t wash and went without food and sleep for increasingly long periods.

      All my limbs became like the knotted joints of withered creepers, my buttocks like a bullock’s hoof, my protruding backbone like a string of balls, my gaunt ribs like the crazy rafters of a tumbledown shed. My eyes lay deep in their sockets, their pupils sparkling like water in a deep well. As an unripe gourd shrivels and shrinks in a hot wind, so became my scalp. If I thought, ‘I will touch the skin of my belly’, it was the skin of my backbone that I also took hold of, since the skin of my belly and my back met. The hairs, rotting at the roots, fell away from my body when I stroked my limbs.1

      Renowned for the extent of his asceticism, his fame ‘rang like a bell’ throughout northern India, and he began to attract a following. But he was still not satisfied. Six years after leaving home, he was no nearer to resolving the fundamental questions of existence than he had been at the beginning of his quest. Realizing that his austerities had led him nowhere, despite his great name and reputation as a holy ascetic, Siddhartha had the moral courage to abandon his previous course. He began to eat in moderation, and his former disciples, scandalized by this backsliding, left him in disgust.

      He was now completely alone. Family, clan, reputation, followers – all abandoned. All his attempts to break through the veil of ignorance had failed. Desolate, he didn’t know which way to turn next. Only one thing was certain – he would not abandon his quest.

      At this point a memory rose to the surface of his mind. When he was quite young, sitting in the shade of a rose-apple tree, he had watched his father ploughing. Relaxed by the slow, steady rhythm of the ox-team, content in the cool shade, he had spontaneously slipped into a concentrated meditative state – might that be the way to Enlightenment?

      In this state of acute existential solitude, his determination unshaken, according to legend Siddhartha sat down under a tree with this declaration:

      Flesh may wither away, blood may dry up, but I shall not leave this seat until I gain Enlightenment!

      For days and nights he sat there in meditation.

      The legends present a vivid account of the existential struggle which Siddhartha was now engaged in. It was time for his confrontation with Mara, the Evil One – the archetypal embodiment of all that stands between us and the truth.

      Seeing Siddhartha sitting thus determinedly in meditation, Mara shook with fright:

      He had with him his three sons – Flurry, Gaiety and Sullen Pride – and his three daughters – Discontent, Delight and Thirst. These asked him why he was so disconcerted in his mind. And he replied to them with these words: ‘Look over there at that sage, clad in the armour of determination, with truth and spiritual virtue as his weapons, the arrows of his intellect drawn, ready to shoot! He has sat down with the firm intention of conquering my realm. No wonder that my mind is plunged in deep despondency! If he should succeed in overcoming me, and should proclaim to the world the way to final beatitude, then my realm would be empty today. But so far he has not yet won the eye of full knowledge. He is still within my sphere of influence. While there is time I will therefore break his solemn purpose, and throw myself against him like the rush of a swollen river breaking against the embankment!’

      But Mara could achieve nothing against the Buddha-to-be, and he and his army were defeated, and fled in all directions – their elation gone, their toil rendered fruitless, their rocks, logs, trees scattered everywhere. They behaved like a hostile army whose commander had been slain in battle. So Mara, defeated, ran away together with his followers. The great seer, free from the dust of passion, victorious over darkness’s gloom, had vanquished him.2

      Siddhartha sat calmly beneath the tree, allowing his mind to become still. Gradually, all the different currents of his psyche began to flow together. Steadily, his concentration increased. As it grew more and more focused, Siddhartha’s mind became clearer and brighter. Not allowing anything to impede this process, Siddhartha let it grow and strengthen. On and on, deeper and deeper into meditation, his mind became clear as a blazing diamond, glowing with ever increasing brilliance. It was intensely pleasurable, but Siddhartha wasn’t distracted by the pleasure – letting go of it, he entered states of increasingly profound equanimity.

      Gradually, the bright rays of his concentrated mind began to light up the past. He remembered all the details of his past, back to his earliest childhood and then, suddenly, he saw back even further than that, and he began to recall his previous life. As his concentration deepened he saw further and further back – an endless stream of lives, arising and passing away in unceasing succession. Here he had been born, with this name, lived in that way, died at such an age and had been reborn in such a place – again and again, over and over. He saw each life in complete detail. On and on, the rhythm repeated unendingly. Birth, growth, disease and death; birth, growth, disease and death – an endless round.

      Then the barriers which had divided him off from others fell away and he saw before him the lives of countless other beings, their struggles, successes and failures, and he felt the unfailing rhythm of their lives: birth and death, birth and death, birth and death – the timeless pulse of suffering humanity.

      Siddhartha began to discern a pattern within this ceaseless flux of change. Those whose lives had been based in kindness and generosity were reborn in happy circumstances, those who gave way to greed and hatred were inevitably reborn in states of suffering. Watching life after life he found that he could predict the outcomes of people’s actions. Those who spread happiness generated happy circumstances for themselves; those who caused pain and separation found themselves alone in a hostile world. It was so clear and yet, preoccupied with their petty dealings, people failed to see it.

      Siddhartha began to identify each step of the process whereby the unending stream of birth and death took place. Birth and death followed from craving. It was their deep craving for existence which led beings from life to life in an endless round of suffering. With the ceasing of craving, birth, death and suffering also ceased. Having directly apprehended the link between craving and suffering, Siddhartha could no longer be misled into believing that craving could bring happiness in its train. This brought about a dramatic change in his being. All traces of his own craving died away. Birth and death dissolved. The limited, human personality ‘Siddhartha’ simply dropped away. All that was left СКАЧАТЬ