Love Dharma. Geri Larkin

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СКАЧАТЬ lessons on working through, and with, abandonment.

      Khema was one of the two women responsible for running the first community of nuns. She came from a ruling family and was so beautiful that her skin was described as the color of pure gold. As a young woman she was the chief consort of King Bimbisara, eventually giving up even that relationship for a shot at enlightenment. Khema reminds us that life is much too short. We need to stay clear on what really matters.

      Unlike most of the other women, Kisagotami came from a poor family. As a young bride, she was terribly mistreated by her in-laws. When she bore a son she was better treated. She became a model wife and mother until her baby died as a toddler. Insane with grief, Kisagotami went to Buddha, begging him to bring her baby back to life. Her story is about the compassion we all experience that springs from a deep loss. In these places we realize that the most important thing in life is not a relationship with someone else, it is the relationship we have with ourselves. It is how we nurture that relationship.

      On the other end of the social scale was Mallika, the queen of Kosala. The spunky and independent-minded wife of King Pasenadi, Mallika cajoled him with so much vehemence to listen to Buddha that he finally gave in to save their relationship . . . and became one of Buddha’s disciples himself. Theirs is a long, happy love story. When Mallika dies before her husband, he goes insane with grief. Mallika’s story alone could fill a book. She faced jealousy and competition at every turn—the down and dirty, mean and ugly components of relationships, yet she was able to overcome them all.

      Patacara was one of the most powerful leaders among the women disciples. A skilled and gifted teacher in her later years, Patacara was one of the few nuns who actually preached to laypeople. Her story is important because it clarifies the appropriateness of women as teachers. Patacara came from a banker’s family and was supposed to marry a young man of equal rank; instead, she ran away with her lover, one of the family servants. Basically, her life went downhill from there until she resolved to follow the Buddha, quickly making a name for herself as a disciplined and knowledgeable nun. She teaches about the cost of lust and the need to be clear about what we really mean when we say, or think, we love someone.

      Samavati was a prominent laywoman from a merchant family of Bhaddavati. She learned about Buddha from her slave woman Khujjuttara, who spent every cent she had on flowers for a little altar after she heard Buddha’s first teaching. Samavati couldn’t believe how happy her slave was and had to see what was going on for herself, knowing that following her slave’s footsteps could mean giving up her relationships and her social standing. Samavati’s story reminds us of an important question: How much do we really need when it comes to relationships? Do we really need to be swept off our feet? Are we really looking for a prince? Was Cinderella a total setup?

      Sirima and Uttara were both members of Buddha’s harem when he was a young prince. In fact, their lives were more like those of indentured servants. As the story goes, they both loved Buddha so much that they decided to follow him even when they thought he might be completely nuts. While their lives had been difficult in the palace, at least there they had shelter, food, and clothing. The two made a pact to give even these things up to follow Buddha on the chance that he really had something to teach. Happily, he did. Sirima and Uttara teach us the value of friendship between women and the rewards that come with putting our spiritual work at the top of our to-do list.

      Again and again we are faced with the same burning question: What really matters?

      Subha was a later addition to the group. Born into an eminent Brahmin family in Buddha’s hometown, Subha decided at an early age that she wanted to become a nun under Pajapati. When she is almost raped by a man in love with her “beautiful eyes,” she blinds herself so he will no longer be attracted to her. Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme, but you get her point. Subha teaches us about the distractions that come with beauty and about how we need to be clear about what is truly important in our all too short lives.

      Vasuladatta and Magandiya were also consorts of King Udena. Both were actually offered to Buddha as wives when he was young. When he said no, they became wives of King Udena. Apparently they never quite got over Buddha’s rejection, at least Magandiya never did. She became so hateful, and so jealous of the king’s other wives, that she actually burned her biggest rival to death. That the young woman could commit such a heinous deed and later become a nun is a tribute to the power of salvation in a heart so sincere that it not only wants forgiveness but awakening, too. Her story is a literal reminder that jealousy can kill.

      Vimala was the daughter of a prostitute and decided to follow her mother’s career path. She was also apparently quite a beauty. So overwhelmed with lust at the first sight of him, Vimala did her darnedest to seduce Moggallana, one of Buddha’s top disciples. His response was to call her some pretty horrible names. This so shocked her that she wanted to find out what had given him the ability to reject her. That curiosity led to her becoming a nun and, later, enlightened.

      Her story reminds us that so much opens up to us when we let go of our need for physical beauty—ours and our partner’s.

      And finally, there is Visaka. She was the loving wife of an eminent man who, after hearing the Buddha teach, decided he would never touch a woman again. Visaka decided to follow Buddha as well and gave up her social standing for a life of meditation in the country. After some time she returned home to find that her husband had decided not to renounce the world after all. Rather than respond in anger, Visaka became her husband’s teacher. Buddha was known to say that she was such a skilled educator that her words were his words. Some people believe that portions of the Dhammapada, one of the most well-known collections of Buddha’s teachings, are actually the teachings of Visaka. Her story demonstrates the truth of our potential as teachers.

      For most of the women who followed Buddha, problems in their relationships caused the pain that led them to him. In most cases, relationships were ripped out from under them for one reason or another. In others, the women themselves walked away from their husband or lover—an awesome act of courage given the time and the place. In each of the 166 stories that have lasted through the centuries, miracle of miracles, enlightenment arrived through each woman’s understanding of the impermanence of all of the components of relationships— youth, beauty, well-defined roles, commitment, acceptance. Sometimes enlightenment happened quickly. Other times it took years. Out of these women’s lives emerged a deep humility and compassion and a driving need to surrender to the reality of their situations. As a result, “the great ball of doubt” or momentum toward the experience of enlightenment was allowed to grow until at last a deep, secure, and abiding happiness laid at their feet. And we rejoice. Because if they can, you and I can. In the wake of their experiences arose relationship dharma. Wisdom that we can use to figure out our own lives, to set our relationships upright, to find our own awakened hearts.

      SOME OF THE WOMEN described in this book have become known to us because their lives show up in Buddha’s own teachings. Their sincere efforts, demonstrating an abiding faith in the four noble truths, were so strong that he singled out their behavior as an example to other spiritual seekers. For most of the women, however, the journey of their stories to our place in time was much different, much quieter. These women shared the stories of their enlightenment in the form of prose poems that were memorized and passed along, generation by generation, for some say 350 years. At that point they were finally written onto palm leaves during a major Buddhist council that was held in Sri Lanka somewhere around 80 b.c. Long neglected, the poems resurfaced in 1909 in a translation by a wild woman adventurer named Caroline Rhys David. After that, silence again until K. R. Norman published an academic translation of the Therigatha in 1971. It took another twenty years for Boston-based Susan Murcott to trip over Norman’s translation during a stay in Melbourne, Australia, and find the time, heart, and energy to further free the stories from the old texts.

      Thank Buddha she did. You and I need the stories of these ancient women. We need them as proof that we all have sadness in our lives. We all СКАЧАТЬ