- Reference
Introduction
The Bodhirājakumāra Sutta (MN 85) is a profound dialogue between the Buddha and Prince Bodhi. It provides insights into the Buddha’s personal history, detailing his life of luxury prior to his renunciation and the spiritual realizations that guided him to enlightenment. This sutta offers a narrative that explores the motivations for the Buddha’s quest for truth, as well as the philosophical implications of detachment and the pursuit of a meaningful life.
Spiritual Journey Before His Enlightenment
The Buddha recounts his spiritual journey before his enlightenment, which includes his time studying under Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta. These accounts provide insight into the Buddha’s quest for understanding and the limitations of the teachings he encountered, which ultimately led him to seek and discover a unique path to awakening.
Training with Alara Kalama
- Who was Alara Kalama?: Alara Kalama was a highly esteemed spiritual teacher known for his meditative attainments and philosophical insights during the time of the Buddha.
- What the Buddha Learned: The Buddha, then known as Siddhartha Gautama, studied under Alara Kalama and quickly mastered his teachings. Alara’s doctrine centered on achieving a meditative state called the “realm of nothingness” (ākiñcaññāyatana), a high level of meditative absorption.
- Outcome and Limitation: Although Siddhartha achieved the same level of meditative attainment as his teacher, he was not satisfied with this as the final goal. He realized that while this state offered profound tranquility, it did not lead to the ultimate liberation from suffering and rebirth. Therefore, he left Alara Kalama to seek a deeper, more comprehensive solution to the problem of suffering.
Training with Uddaka Ramaputta
- Who was Uddaka Ramaputta?: Uddaka Ramaputta was another prominent spiritual teacher of the era, known for his teachings on achieving an even more refined meditative state than that taught by Alara Kalama.
- What the Buddha Learned: Uddaka’s teachings led to the attainment of the “realm of neither perception nor non-perception” (nevasaññānāsaññāyatana), considered one of the highest possible states of meditative consciousness.
- Outcome and Limitation: Siddhartha also mastered this teaching, reaching the level of Uddaka’s own teacher, who had passed away. However, he again found that despite the elevated state of consciousness achieved, it did not constitute final liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Realizing this, Siddhartha concluded that even the most advanced meditative states taught by Uddaka did not equate to the end of suffering.
Conclusion and Enlightenment
After leaving Uddaka Ramaputta, the Buddha decided to pursue his own path, which eventually led to his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. His profound realizations about the nature of suffering, the cause of suffering, the possibility of cessation, and the path leading to cessation (the Four Noble Truths) became the cornerstone of his teachings.
- Key Insight: The Buddha realized that true liberation required not just advanced meditative skills but a complete understanding and eradication of the roots of suffering—ignorance and craving.
- Development of the Middle Way: This understanding led him to formulate the Middle Way, which avoids the extremes of sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, focusing instead on a balanced, ethical, and meditative approach to spiritual practice.
The experiences with Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta were critical in shaping the Buddha’s understanding of the spiritual landscape of his time and highlighting the necessity for a new path that addressed the fundamental causes of human suffering.
Three Profound Knowleges
The Buddha describes his attainment of three profound knowledges (tevijjā) during the night of his enlightenment. These three knowledges are crucial milestones in his spiritual journey, providing the insight and understanding that characterize his awakening. Here’s a summary of each:
1. Knowledge of Past Lives (Pubbenivāsānussati-ñāṇa)
- Description: This knowledge involves the ability to remember one’s own past lives. The Buddha recounted experiencing many past births, seeing his names, appearances, sustenance, experiences of pleasure and pain, and how he passed from one life to another. This insight helped him understand the endless cycle of birth and rebirth and the workings of karma across multiple lifetimes.
- Significance: By remembering his past lives, the Buddha gained a direct understanding of the first noble truth of suffering and the impermanent nature of all conditioned existence. This knowledge also provided empirical evidence for the doctrine of rebirth, a central tenet in Buddhism.
2. Knowledge of the Death and Rebirth of Beings (Cutūpapāta-ñāṇa)
- Description: The second knowledge allowed the Buddha to perceive how beings die and are reborn according to their karmic actions. He observed beings who conducted themselves virtuously ascending to higher realms or favorable rebirths, and those who conducted themselves unvirtuously descending to lower realms or suffering rebirths.
- Significance: This knowledge illustrates the law of karma: moral and immoral actions determine the nature of one’s rebirth. It reinforced the ethical dimension of the Buddha’s teaching, showing that moral behavior leads to beneficial outcomes, while immoral behavior leads to suffering.
3. Knowledge of the Destruction of the Taints (Āsavakkhaya-ñāṇa)
- Description: The third knowledge involved the understanding and direct experience of the eradication of the taints or mental defilements (āsavas) that bind beings to the cycle of suffering. These defilements include sensual desire, desire for existence, and ignorance.
- Significance: With this knowledge, the Buddha achieved full enlightenment and liberation (Nibbāna). He understood completely the causes of suffering and how to eliminate them, which culminated in his realization of the Four Noble Truths at a profound level. This final knowledge confirmed that he had extinguished all forms of clinging and aversion, freeing himself from the cycle of rebirth.
These three knowledges, gained on the night of his enlightenment, represent the culmination of the Buddha’s spiritual quest and are essential components of his awakening. They provided him with the comprehensive insight needed to formulate and teach the Dhamma to others, aiming to help them achieve the same liberation from suffering.
Brahma Sahampati’s Request
After achieving enlightenment, the Buddha was initially reluctant to teach the Dhamma. He perceived the truth he had discovered as subtle, profound, and hard to understand. Given the depth and complexity of his realization, he doubted whether others would be able to comprehend and appreciate the teachings. The Buddha feared that the effort to teach would be vexing and tiring.
Intervention by Brahma Sahampati
- Appeal to Teach: Brahma Sahampati, a high divine being from the Brahmaloka, having perceived the Buddha’s hesitation, came to implore him to teach the Dhamma. Brahma Sahampati recognized the potential benefit for humanity and other beings who could be freed from suffering through the Buddha’s teachings.
- Brahma’s Request: Brahma Sahampati descended from his heavenly realm and appeared before the Buddha. He bowed, stood to one side, and respectfully addressed the Buddha. He appealed to the Buddha’s compassion, urging him to look upon those beings who are struggling in the mire of samsara but have little dust in their eyes and are capable of understanding the Dhamma.
- Persuasive Argument: Brahma Sahampati emphasized that there would be beings who could understand the deep and subtle truths that the Buddha had realized. His plea was an appeal to the Buddha’s great compassion and sense of duty to help those who are suffering.
The Buddha’s Decision
- Surveying the World: Moved by Brahma Sahampati’s appeal, the Buddha surveyed the world with his enlightened vision to assess the capacity of beings to understand the Dhamma. He saw beings with varying degrees of defilement and potential for enlightenment.
- Decision to Teach: Seeing that there were indeed beings who could understand the Dhamma, the Buddha decided to teach. He recognized that his teachings could lead many out of ignorance and suffering, guiding them toward enlightenment and liberation.
- Significance: The decision to teach was a turning point not only in the Buddha’s life but in the spiritual history of the world. It marked the beginning of the Buddha’s role as a teacher and the spread of the Dhamma, which would eventually become a major world religion.
This episode highlights the Buddha’s profound empathy and his ultimate decision to share his insights, despite initial doubts about the receptiveness of others. This narrative illustrates the compassionate foundations of Buddhism and the Buddha’s dedication to alleviating suffering through the transmission of his enlightenment experience.
Five Critical Qualities
Lastly, the Buddha outlines five critical qualities or attributes that individuals should develop on their spiritual journey. These attributes are essential for living a virtuous life and for progressing on the path towards enlightenment. Each attribute contributes to an aspect of personal development and is intertwined with Buddhist ethical and meditative practices. Here’s a closer look at each of these five attributes mentioned in the sutta:
1. Faithful (Saddho)
- Description: Being faithful involves having confidence in the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings), and the Sangha (community of practitioners). Faith in this context is not blind belief but a confident trust based on understanding and agreement with the principles of Buddhism.
- Importance: Faith acts as a motivating force that encourages practitioners to engage sincerely in their practice, follow the teachings, and partake in the community’s activities.
2. Healthy (Arogo)
- Description: Health here refers not only to physical health but also to mental well-being. Being healthy means having a body and mind capable of engaging in practice without significant obstacles imposed by illness or mental disturbances.
- Importance: Good health is crucial for meditation and other spiritual practices, as it allows one to maintain consistency and vigor in practice without being overly hampered by physical or mental ailments.
3. Honest (Attaññu)
- Description: Honesty in this context means being honest with oneself about one’s faults and virtues, as well as being truthful to others. Understanding one’s true nature and limitations is critical for personal development.
- Importance: Honesty supports moral integrity and is essential for introspection, which is necessary for recognizing and overcoming defilements and for progressing in meditation.
4. Energetic (Āraddhavīriyo)
- Description: Energy here refers to the effort put into the practice. It involves diligence, perseverance, and the enthusiastic exertion towards the accomplishment of the noble path.
- Importance: Energy is vital to overcome laziness, to sustain meditation practice, and to engage actively in the tasks that lead to enlightenment.
5. Wise (Paññavā)
- Description: Wisdom in Buddhism is the deep understanding of the nature of reality, particularly the impermanent, unsatisfactory, and non-self characteristics of all phenomena. Wisdom is developed through listening, reflecting, and meditating on the Dharma.
- Importance: Wisdom is the direct antidote to ignorance, the root of all suffering. It enables practitioners to see things as they truly are and to make choices that lead to the cessation of suffering.
These five attributes provide a foundation for ethical conduct, mental development, and the attainment of deeper wisdom, all of which are essential for achieving Nibbāna. The Buddha highlights these qualities to guide Prince Bodhi and other practitioners on the path of spiritual cultivation, showing how these attributes interplay to support one’s spiritual advancement.