Buddha's Enlightenment
Photo by Céline Haeberly
What is it like to embody an unshakeable determination founded on the calm and peace within oneself, unbothered by apparent obstacles and naysayers? This talk picks up on Herman Hesse’s imagining of the period before the Buddha’s enlightenment, focusing on his unwavering aspiration, as well as that of the Buddha’s mother and first nun, Mahaprajapati.
Zuisei encourages us to ask ourselves: what would we accomplish if we didn’t let ourselves be stopped?
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Friday was Bodhi Day, the day that marks Buddha’s enlightenment at the foot of the peepal or bodhi tree. I didn’t know that the Japanese term Rohatsu means “the 8th day of the twelfth month.” I thought Rohatsu referred to the intensive sesshin Zen groups do leading up to Buddha’s enlightenment as a celebration and embodiment of the Buddha’s awakening. And I thought that the term somehow implied the intensive sitting we do during this particular sesshin, in emulation of the Buddha’s own practice. But, one of you told me about the meaning of Rohatsu, pointing to the fact that we too could call our own little sesshin Rohatsu Sesshin.
As we close our own celebration, I want to bring into our virtual zendo the image that I wrote about recently, of Siddhartha standing before his father and requesting his permission to join the śramaṇas—the band of ascetics whose lives were dedicated to the pursuit of enlightenment.
It’s a different story than the one told in the sutras. In Herman Hesse’s version, the Buddha doesn’t slink away in the middle of the night, leaving behind his wife and newborn son—whom he’d named Rahula or “fetter.” In this version he stands, proud and determined. He stands filled with his own aspiration, but because of the relationship he has with his father, also not wanting to just ignore his wishes.
It’s fiction, what Hesse wrote in Siddhartha, but it’s interesting to me that he thought it important to have the Buddha begin his journey in this way. Not hiding but out in the open. Granted, in this version there’s no wife and no child—they’ve been erased from the story—and that’s not an improvement. But I appreciate the re-imagining. It’s a kind of second chance. How would you do it over if you could? Now we need a woman writing a version in which the Buddha asks Yashodara’s permission to go—a version in which what happens next evolves very differently.
But in this story, Siddhartha, prince of the Shakyas, approaches his father as he’s sitting on a woven mat. Siddhartha approaches him quietly and stands behind him, waiting to be acknowledged. And whenever I think of this image I think of dharma encounter at Zen Mountain Monastery. The teacher sits at the front of the room, and behind them stands their attendant, holding a small kyosaku (the flat wooden staff we use to relieve pain or tiredness during meditation). And after the teacher introduces the theme of the encounter and invites students to come up so they can face each other, face the dharma, the attendant and the teacher exchange sticks. The attendant hands the teacher the kyosaku and the teacher gives the attendant their own teaching stick to hold, which they do for more than an hour, without moving, as the dharma encounter happens. And some attendants will not move at all, not a muscle, not a hair, not a twitch or a blink—nothing. Others look at each student as they come up and smile and crack up, completely involved in the exchange. I can tell you that either way, an hour is a long time to be standing in one place, in front of a roomful of people whom you know are watching to see what you do. It’s not very comfortable—at all. But the visual is quite effective. It’s very dramatic.
So, the Buddha-to-be approaches his father, King Suddhodana, and stands behind him, like a sentinel.
“Is that you, Siddhartha?” the king asks. “Say what you want to say.”
And Siddhartha comes around and he says, “With your permission, father, I came to tell you that I want to leave the palace tomorrow. I want to join the śramaṇas. Please don’t oppose this.”
And the king is livid, but it’s unseemly for a king to show anger, and so he’s quiet for a long time, and finally he says, “I don’t want to hear this request from you again.”
That’s it. I don’t want to hear this from you. (And you know, this parallels the moment, later on, when Mahaprajapati, the Buddha’s aunt and then stepmother asks him if she can become ordained and study with him. He says no, and she asks again. Again he says no. She asks three times, and three times he says no. But Siddhartha must have gotten some of his determination by example, because Mahaprajapati decides she won’t take no for answer. She goes home and shaves her head and puts on saffron robes with 500 women, and together they walk the one hundred and fifty miles from Kapilavastu to Vaiśālī, where the Buddha had gone to spend the rains retreat.
This gold sea sweeps into Vaisali and the women stand outside the Hall with the Pointed Roof in the Great Wood, and they wait to be received by the Buddha. And as they’re standing, silent and determined, Ananda sees them. He sees this one vast female body that will not be budged, that will not be turned away. He goes back to speak to the Buddha and he says to him, “My Lord, Prajapati is standing outside with swollen feet, covered with dust and crying because you won’t allow women to renounce their homes and enterinto homelessness. It would be good, Lord, if women were to have permission to do this.”
And the Buddha says, “Enough, Ananda, enough! Do not ask me any such thing!” (This is how karma repeats itself) But like the Buddha will do, and like Mahaprajapati, Ananda doesn’t get discouraged.
He says, “Well, my Lord, but if women were allowed to leave home and join the sangha, couldn’t they enter nirvana?”
And the Buddha, caught, says, “Yes, yes they could.”
“Well, my Lord, this is your aunt, your foster mother and nurse. She raised you and fed you milk from her own breast, and she wants to enter the sangha—as do your wife and many other women who’ve known you since you were a baby. It would be good, Lord, if women were allowed to enter into homelessness.”
And the Buddha has no choice but to agree. He recognizes they won’t be deterred.
Just so, Siddhartha doesn’t budge when his father says, “Don’t ask again.” He just remains standing quietly, and after a while, the king stands up and father and son face each other.
“What are you waiting for?” asks the king.
“You know,” says Siddhartha.
How do you argue with a mountain? You don’t, so the king leaves the room and he goes to bed. But he can’t sleep, and after tossing around for an hour, he gets up and he goes out to the garden, where he stands pacing. And he looks through the window, and there’s Siddhartha, standing as if he’s always stood there, as if he’ll always stand there, until time folds back into itself and the king gives a different answer.
Picture this, for a moment: the Buddha’s faith, his certainty, that what he must do he must do, even if his father and the whole kingdom opposes it.
To me, the strength of this story is his conviction. It’s his faith in something he’d only sensed but couldn’t have known with certainty. He couldn’t have known that he’d go off with his friends, the ascetics, that he’d study everything they had to teach him, and that at the end of his training he’d realize, This isn’t it. He couldn’t have foreseen what he’d do next and what would be the result of it. He could only take a step based on what he’d felt before in meditation, and try and see if that path would lead him somewhere he wanted to go.
Think of your own life. Think of the pull you feel toward zazen—a pull that doesn’t always make sense to those who don’t feel it. Think of the mystery—the miracle—it is that you sit down quietly each day, seemingly doing nothing, and when you get up, your life is better… brighter… sharper, as if someone had turned up the focus. Think of why it is that you keep coming back to your seat, even when your practice feels stuck, when you feel maybe it isn’t working, or you’re doing something wrong. Think of the trust, the faith, you must have to keep trying, despite everything. Now nurture that trust, guard it carefully, because it’s one of the best things you have.
In the palace, Siddhartha stands, not moving a muscle, maybe not thinking of anything except the act of standing and maybe not even that. Upset, King Suddhodana goes back to bed, but he still can’t sleep, and after another hour passes he again gets up and he goes outside, and he sees that the moon has risen. As before, he looks through the window and sees his son, his face calm and his body a sheer cliff, and only his knees shaking imperceptibly.
And when the first rays of light enter the room, the king follows them and he stands in front of the prince.
“Siddhartha, what are you waiting for?” he asks.
“You know,” says Siddhartha.
“Will you always stand that way and wait, until it becomes morning, noon, andevening?”
“I will stand and wait.”
“You’ll become tired, Siddhartha.”
“I will become tired.”
“You’ll fall asleep, Siddhartha.”
“I will not fall asleep.”
“You’ll die, Siddhartha.”
“I will die.”
This is when the king wakes up. This is when he realizes what’s actually happening. He’s already lost his son—the son he thought he had, the prince—and so he touches Siddhartha, the Buddha-to-be, on the shoulder and says:
“Go. Go into the forest, and when you’ve found peace, come back and teach me.”
I love this moment. He finally recognizes that Siddhartha has reached enough peace with himself and his path that he’s willing to die in the search. The king is not at peace; he sees that too. He wants his son to be what he wants. To live the life he’d planned for him, but in that moment where he’s met with Siddhartha’s fire, his unshakeable determination, he lets go. He lets go and he says, Okay, you’ve seen something I haven’t, so please come back and share with me what else you see.
And Siddhartha ggHe goes, leaving behind everything he’s known, without any assurance that he’ll find what he’s seeking. And I’ve asked myself whether he had any inkling that what he was about to do would change the course of history. I think No, how could he? Then again, what are the limits of the possible? Maybe he didn’t need to know—not with the kind of knowledge that measures and weighs. The kind of knowledge that assesses whether what we’re about to do makes sense, is worth it, will give us a return on our investment.
How much do we not do because we rely so heavily on this kind of knowing? Will this work, will it be to my benefit? How long will it take? How can I speed up the process? The problem is that some things just don’t lend themselves to this type of measurement—things like practice, like life, like love. And so, again, we have to trust. We have to trust and we have to step into that trust and give our lives over to it. Because the part that measures and compares, that analyzes and anticipates, is helpful, but limited. You don’t awaken with a spreadsheet. You don’t realize who you are by tallying up your achievements. At some point you have to let go into the unknown.
I’ve been quoting Dipa Ma. She once said to Joseph Goldstein, “You should sit for two days.”
And he realized she didn’t mean, do a weekend retreat, she meant, “Do one sitting that lasts two days.” And he protested, thinking that was impossible.
Her answer, he said, was incredibly compassionate and uncompromising. She simply said, “Don’t be lazy.”
But don’t let this scare you. And don’t think about what you should or shouldn’t do. Simply follow your own heart, your own aspiration. That’s what will give you the energy and the focus and the determination that you need. And don’t limit yourself, never limit yourself.
Dipa Ma also said this: “You can do anything you want to do. It’s only your thoughts that stop you.”
Maybe that’s what the Buddha was thinking as he stood before the break of dawn, waiting for his father to come back into the room: What would I do, what could I accomplish, if I didn’t let myself be stopped—not by my thoughts nor by anything else in this whole wide world?
Explore further
01 : Gotamī Sutta (AN 8:51) translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
02 : Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
03 :Dipa Ma