Richard Gere, Tina Turner, Uma Thurman, Orlando Bloom, Phil Jackson…what do these celebrities have in common? They are all Buddhists. Though you may associate Buddhists with shaved-headed monks in robes, in actuality most Buddhists are not monks (or even celebrities, for that matter), but everyday people just like you and me.
Who is Buddha?
Let’s first discuss who he’s not. He is not a bald gold guy with a robust belly. He is not a God. And further…he’s not even a Buddhist! The jolly, rotund fellow we know as the “Happy Buddha” originated in China to physically symbolize inner prosperity. A popular depiction, though about as historically accurate as a blue-eyed, light-haired, Caucasian Jesus. Also, though often highly revered, traditionally Buddha is not worshipped. Rather, he is considered a respected teacher or a “spiritual physician.” Finally, just as Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, influenced a new Jewish religious movement, later separating itself as “Christianity,” Buddha was a Hindu who influenced a new kind of Hindu movement, later known as Buddhism.
Buddha was not always “the Buddha” either, but a prince named Siddhartha Guatama. Born 2500 years ago (in a most unusual fashion according to legend), he immediately began talking of his mission to free all creatures from suffering. But, due to a fortune teller’s foreboding, Siddhartha’s Dad (the King), sheltered him from all suffering in a Finding Nemo kind of way. Lavished in riches, Siddhartha grew to be a spoiled rotten kid sheltered from all of life’s miseries and in his Dad’s eyes, a King in the making.
Though he had everything he could ever want, around the age of thirty, Siddhartha began feeling dissatisfied. With the help of his assistant, he snuck out of his palace and out from under his father’s watchful eye to explore the local flavor which had been forbidden to him his whole life. He saw four sights he had never witnessed before: the elderly, the severely sick, death (a cremation) and a holy man (renunciate). With no understanding of these realities, he experienced a kind of mental breakdown, crying out to his friend, “Will sickness and old age and death happen to me? Even to a King?” His loyal friend hesitantly nodded, “Yes, my Lord, even to Kings.”
According to Buddhists, we can all relate to Siddhartha’s story. At one point or another in our life, we have been sheltered, by our own doing or another’s, from the realities of life. The fourth sight, the holy man, inspired Siddhartha to devote himself to this path as well. He renounced all of his worldly and princely duties, much to the dismay of his father. However, after six years of living as a renunciate, this extreme deprivation wasn’t working. With a certain irony, he realized that while he had spent most of his life getting everything he wanted and now the past several years denying himself of everything…he still had no peace.
It was with this notion that he meditated under the Bodhi Tree, in Bodh Gaya, India, vowing to seek the middle path, a true enlightenment, or nirvana. Difficult to define, nirvana is described as “being awake,” a spiritual mind state of ultimate bliss, nonattachment and peace, or seeing the world through completely different eyes. Only then did Siddhartha become the “Buddha,” the very name which means “awakened one.”
What did the Buddha Teach?
Buddha’s first sermon of the Dharma (“Teachings”) took place in the green sanctuary of Sarnath (known today as “Deer Park,” named for its peaceful, grazing deer who munch leaves next to chanting monks). Here, Buddha taught his disciples the Four Noble Truths: Life is dissatisfaction; Our craving and attachment is the cause of this suffering; There is a cure to this suffering; The cure is the Eightfold Path – a systematic holistic lifestyle of practices to follow, including Positive Speech, Behavior, Thought, Awareness and Meditation.
For Buddhists, the Dharma or practice matters most, more than belief or theory. The Buddha himself does not give you salvation. Buddhists teach that you can only find inner peace within yourself (hence, why it’s called “inner” peace). Instructing each disciple to “Be a lamp onto yourself,” he wanted us to light our own way.
An important way to practice this is meditation, constant reflection and quieting the mind as only through an uncluttered mind will we find true peace. We must also accept that everything is impermanent and that nothing external provides lasting happiness…a harder lesson, it seems, to learn in the western world. The Buddha said we cannot control, but at best, only influence our situation, and we must realize that nothing can cause or take away our happiness, only our perceptions of these factors.
According to Buddhists, everything is interconnected and therefore we are all of the same essence. Not just as humans, but as part of the larger ecosystem, therefore our practice of compassion and nonviolence is paramount to our understanding and peace. Because everything is of the same energy, there is not much emphasis on a Creator (most Buddhist explain this divinity as within each of us) nor an independent, definite soul. However, there is much variety among beliefs and practices within Buddhism, influenced by their cultures (as it spread from India across Japan, China, Tibet, Burma, etc.) and the hundreds of different denominations or branches, each as unique as the next.
A Moment of Zen: Buddhists in Pilgrimage
As you walk around the quiet sanctuary of Deer Park, filled with lit candles and burning incense, you see Buddhist pilgrims (mostly Tibetans) spinning their prayer wheels and bowing in silent prayer. You wander over to a Nichiren Buddhist temple and as you take off your shoes and enter the open, spacious sanctuary, you hear the chanting of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo (“Oh Hail the Lotus Sutra”). Two dozen or so local devotees have gathered, with one monk intermittently hitting a giant gong which reverberates through the entire temple, the beams, the floors, and your bones. The drumming begins, softer at first, then louder and louder until you can’t distinguish the external drumbeat from your own internal heartbeat.
Later on, you are back in Bodh Gaya, watching Tibetan monks ritually prostrate in full body prayer, sometimes for hours at a time. An elderly, wrinkled Tibetan man who appears to be about 105 years old, slowly walks and kneels every few steps around the large path of the sacred Bodhi Tree. You notice he has little knee pads and hand blocks. As he lowers his aching body all the way down onto the ground, he brings his hand blocks up above his head together in a wooden “clink,” the sound of prayer here. Then, he lifts himself back up to do it all over again, his act a meditation in motion.
You wander away to sit near a tranquil pond. A tiny, smiling Tibetan woman wrapped in dark shawls is feeding handfuls of pellets to the open, puckered mouths of the colorful, rainbow koi fish underneath the surface. You watch this ancient woman, mesmerized, realizing you have never seen anyone perform such a simple act with mindfulness and joy. She turns to you and gives you a wide, toothless smile, which contagiously causes you smile wide in return and be filled with a feeling of pure radiance.
You end your day back under the Bodhi Tree itself, with its outstretched, thick branches and colorful prayer flags swaying in the breeze. The first Buddhist temple stretches its spire straight into the grayish-blue sky behind the green leaves. You sit down in the dry grass, listening to the rhythmic chanting of the monks in their brightly colored saffron robes. You watch the perfect little green bodhi leaves and multi colored prayer flags dance in the wind around the thick trunk of the tree. You are in sacred space, the tree so magnificent and protective, you find yourself nodding, understanding…why Buddha picked this spot to reach enlightenment over 2500 years ago.