Can we go back to original Buddhism?

Finally, "Buddhism" makes verifiable sense!

THERAVADA Buddhism: Is this what the historical Buddha (Prince Siddhattha Gotama, "the Sage of the Sakas," the Shakyas, the Indo-Scythians) really taught? The Three Baskets (Ti-pitaka) of Suttas, Vinaya, and Abhidhamma (Discourses, Discipline, and Higher Doctrine). The Buddha did not speak Sanskrit, the exclusive liturgical language of Brahmin priests, but rather Magadhi (colloquial Pali, the lingua franca) and Prakrit. He certainly knew and understood Sanskrit, having been expert in it in past lives, a knower of the Three Vedas. The Pali canon is a collection of canonical texts preserved in the ancient Pali language the Buddha likely spoke.

• (Buddha's Wisdom) 

Why do monks and nuns chant in Pali?

The only reason Mahayana uses Sanskrit is because Brahmin (Brahminical Vedic Hindus) used it to whitewash Mahayana Buddhism into a kind of comprehensible form of Hinduism. The goal of Theravada, the "Teaching of the direct Elder enlightened disciples of the historical Buddha," is enlightenment here and now as soon as possible, whereas the goal of Mahayana is enlightenment never, only after an inexhaustible supply of living beings first attain it. When will that be? It will never be, alleviating the need for any Mahayana Buddhist to actually practice and bring what the Buddha taught about in one's own life. Imagining themselves supremely awakened buddhas of the future, there's never a need to do it now, the only time we actually ever have.

• What the Buddha Taught: revised and expanded edition with texts from suttas and the Dhammapada (Ven. Walpola Rahula, Paul Demieville)

Zen Buddhism came much later

(Tao Temple) We can't understand Zen until we understand this first

Bhikkhu Bodhi: A Mahā Kassapa for Today

American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi via Ven. Ānandajoti (dharma-records.buddhasasana.net, May 13, 2012); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Painting of one the Buddha's great disciples Ven. Maha Kassapa (Kizil Caves, China)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This reflection about Ven. Ñāṇavimala by Bhikkhu Bodhi is part of series of articles. Others include Ajahn Brahm meets Ven. Ñāṇavimala, Chittapala’s Ven. Ñāṇavimala’s Advice, and Ven. Ñāṇatusita’s Life of Ñāṇavimala Thera.

A Mahākassapa for Our Time

Ven. Ñāṇavimala (formerly Friedrich Möller) circa 1955

It has often struck me that certain Buddhist monks I [American Theravada Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Bodhi] have known bear an uncanny resemblance to great disciples of the Buddha, at least in so far as we know them through the sutra texts.

This has raised in my mind the intriguing question whether the great disciples represent human archetypes (fixed molds that shape human character and behavior) or whether, to the contrary, Buddhist monastics tend to model themselves on their great predecessors.

I have no way to answer my question with any certainty, but I believe the correspondence I have noted is real and not merely my projecting or a figment of my imagination.

There is no doubt at all which of the great disciples the late Ven. Ñāṇavimala represents. Ven. K. Ñāṇananda (author of Concept and Reality, The Magic of the Mind, and other works) expressed the fact most succinctly one day when I met him in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

He said, “If you want to get a sermon from Mahā Kassapa, go see Ven. Ñāṇavimala.” The austere deportment, the ascetic bent of character, the firm self-assurance, the individualistic mode of practice: all these traits of Ven. Ñāṇavimala are reminiscent of Mahā Kassapa [Thera] (a kind of founding father of Buddhism).

 

Chinese painting of Mahākāśyapa in patched robes

And though we have, of course, no portraits of the great elder, I could not help noting the resemblance in physical stature and facial features between Ñāṇavimala and Mahā Kassapa as he is depicted in Chinese Buddhist statuary.

They even share the same penetrating eyes, the broad forehead, and the large ears. My relationship with Ven. Ñāṇavimala goes back almost 40 years, to my first year as an American Theravada Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka.

In June 1973 a few weeks after my higher ordination, my teacher, Ven. Balangoda Ānandamaitreya, brought me to the Kanduboda Meditation Centre for a course in insight (vipassanā) meditation.

At the time, another American monk, a novice (samanera) named Samita, was living at Kanduboda. When I arrived, he was in Colombo taking medical treatment, but he returned to the center a few days after I started my retreat.

One day after the midday meal, he came to see me, and we struck up a conversation. He told me that he had recently met Ven. Ñāṇavimala in the General Hospital in Colombo and had been deeply impressed, even awed, by the encounter.

I had earlier heard of Ven. Ñāṇavimala from another German monk but was led to believe that, because of his itinerant lifestyle (always wandering in the style of the ancient Buddhist ascetics), it was almost impossible to meet him in person.

Now that door was about to open. As a result of his encounter with Ven. Ñāṇavimala, Samita said he had lost faith in the type of vipassanā meditation that was taught at Kanduboda, the “dry insight” practice stemming from the Burmese meditation teacher Mahasi Sayadaw, under whom the Kanduboda meditation master, Ven. Sumatipāla, had trained in the 1950s.

The novice Samita told me that Ven. Ñāṇavimala had claimed that absorption (jhāna) is necessary as a basis for insight (vipassanā) and that there can be no genuine insight not rooted in the absorptions.

Since I was just beginning to read the Sutra Collection (Nikāyas) in Pāli, I had been struck by the role that the absorptions/i played in the “gradual training” sequence of the Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikāya).

I felt this report (on the firm conviction of Ven. Ñāṇavimala) conveyed an important point. More

The German Dharmaduta Society

Society Founder Asoka Weeraratna, Sri Lanka

Eight prominent Theravada Buddhist monks led by the German monk Ven. Ñânatiloka Mahâthera and including Ven. Balangoda Ânanda Maitreyya, Ven. Galle Anuruddha, Ven. Akuretiye Amaravamsa, Ven. Ñânaponika Thera (German), Ven. Kudawella Vangîsa, and Ven. Vappo (German) were attached to the Center. These monks offered their services to train German Buddhists and others in the study of Buddhist philosophy. Friedrich Möller, a teacher from Hamburg and the first German recruit of the Society, arrived in Sri Lanka in 1953. He completed his period of training and received ordination under the name of Ven. Ñânavimala. More

The Seven Factors of Enlightenment (sutra)

Ven. Piyadassi Thera (Wheel Number 001, Buddhist Publication Society) via accesstoinsight.org edited and updated by Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly, August 2020

There are Seven Factors of Enlightenment.

The Tipitaka, or the "Three Baskets" of the Buddhist canon, is replete with references to the limbs or factors of enlightenment (bojjhangas).

They were expounded by the Enlightened One on different occasions under different circumstances.

For instance, in the Book of the Kindred Sayings, V (Samyutta Nikaya, Maha Vagga) we find a special section under the title Bojjhanga Samyutta, where the Buddha discourses on the seven factors in diverse ways.

In this section we read a series of three sutras recited by Buddhists since the time of the Buddha as a protection (paritta or pirit) to avert pain, disease, and adversity.

The term bojjhanga is composed of bodhi + anga. Bodh denotes enlightenment — to be exact, insight concerned with the full realization of the Four Noble Truths, namely:

1. the ennobling truth of what is suffering;
2. the ennobling truth of the origin of suffering;
3. the ennobling truth of the end of suffering; and
4. the ennobling truth of the path leading to the end of all suffering.

Anga means factor or limb. Bodhi + anga (bojjhanga), therefore, means the "factors of enlightenment," or the "factors for insight," wisdom.

What are the Seven Factors?

"'Factors of enlightenment! Factors of enlightenment!' it is said, venerable sir. Pray, how far is this term applicable?" asked a Buddhist monk.

The Buddha's succinct reply was, "Bodhaya samvattantiti kho bhikkhu tasma bojjhanga ti vuccanti — They conduce to enlightenment, meditator, that is why they are called so" [Note 1].

The Buddha further says, "Just as, meditators, in a peaked house all rafters go together toward the peak, incline to the peak, join at the peak, and of them all the peak is reckoned chief: Even so, meditators, the meditator who cultivates and persists in cultivating the seven factors of wisdom, goes toward nirvana, inclines toward nirvana, moves toward nirvana" [2].

The seven factors are:

1. Mindfulness (sati)
2. Keen investigation of the dhamma (dhammavicaya) [3]
3. Energy (viriya)
4. Rapture or happiness (piti)
5. Calm (passaddhi)
6. Concentration (samadhi)
7. Equanimity (upekkha)

One of the discourses on the Seven Factors of Enlightenment may be mentioned here. It begins,

The Great Kassapa Bojjhanga Sutra

"Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was living at Rajagaha [present-day Rajgir, India], at the Bamboo Grove, in the squirrel's feeding ground.

"At that time [the great disciple] Venerable Maha Kassapa, who was living in Pipphali Cave, was sick, stricken with a severe illness. Then the Buddha, rising from his solitude [meditative withdrawal] at eventide, visited Ven. Maha Kassapa, took his seat, and spoke to him in this way:

"Well, Kassapa, how is it with you? Are you bearing up, are you enduring? Do your pains lessen or increase? Are there signs of pains lessening and not increasing?"

"No, venerable sir, I am not bearing up, I am not enduring. The pain is very great. There is a sign not of the pains lessening but of their increasing."

"Kassapa, these Seven Factors of Enlightenment are well expounded by me, cultivated, and much developed by me, and when cultivated and much developed, they conduce to full realization, to perfect wisdom, to nirvana [full liberation]. What are the seven?

"Mindfulness, O Kassapa, is well expounded by me, cultivated, and much developed by me, and when cultivated and much developed, it conduces to full realization, to perfect wisdom, to nirvana.

• "Keen investigation of the dhamma [phenomena and Buddha-Dharma]...
• "Energy...
• "Rapture...
• "Calm...
• "Concentration...
• "Equanimity, O Kassapa, is well expounded by me...

"These Seven Factors of Enlightenment, I say, Kassapa, are well expounded by me, cultivated, and much developed by me, and when cultivated and much developed, they conduce to full realization, to perfect wisdom, to nirvana."

"Truly, Blessed One, they are factors of enlightenment! Truly, O Welcome One, they are factors of enlightenment!" exclaimed Maha Kassapa. Thus spoke the Buddha, and Ven. Maha Kassapa, rejoicing, welcomed the utterances of the Worthy One.

"And Ven. Maha Kassapa [then spontaneously] rose from that [wracking] illness. There and then that ailment of Ven. Maha Kassapa vanished.

— SN 46.14

The power of the human mind

Another discourse, the Maha Cunda Bojjhanga Sutra, of the three mentioned above reveals that once, when the Buddha himself was ill, he asked Ven. Maha Cunda to recite the factors of enlightenment (bojjhanga), and the Buddha's grievous illness spontaneously vanished [4].

How?

The human mind tremendously and profoundly influences and affects the body. If allowed to function viciously and entertain unwholesome and harmful thoughts, the mind can cause a disaster, even kill a being.

But mind also can cure a sick body. When concentrated on right thoughts [motivated by wholesome intentions] with right understanding [right view], the effects the mind can produce are immense.

The mind (heart) not only makes us sick, it also cures us. An optimistic patient has a better chance of recovery than a patient who is worried and unhappy. The recorded instances of "faith healing" include cases in which even organic diseases are cured almost instantaneously.

• —from Ends and Means by Aldous Huxley (London, 1946), p. 259

Buddhism (Buddha-dhamma) is the teaching of enlightenment. One who is keen on attaining enlightenment should first clearly recognize the impediments that block the path to enlightenment. More

The Buddha's and His Disciples (book)

Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. S. Dhammika (Buddhanet.net)

The life of the Buddha is more than an account of one person’s quest for and realization of the ultimate truth. It is also about the people who encountered that person during his 45 year career and how their encounter transformed them.

If the Buddha’s quest and his encounters with others is set against the backdrop of the world in which these events were acted out, a world with its unique customs, its political intrigue, and its religious ferment, it becomes one of the most fascinating stories ever told.

One will meet with proud kings and humble outcasts, with saffron-robed ascetics (some saintly, others all too human), with generous patrons and jealous rivals. Some of the events in the Buddha’s life are described by scholars as being "legendary," but if we look at them objectively, few of them could be considered implausible.

One might be tempted to dismiss Angulimala’s practice of cutting a finger from each of his more than 1,000 victims and wearing them as a mala (necklace) as unbelievable. But the criminal history of humankind furnishes us with ample evidence of behavior far more bizarre and gruesome than that.

Samavati’s rapid rise from destitution to royalty is certainly unusual, but it is well within the realm of possibility. [The traitorous monk] Devadatta’s plots to kill the Buddha might be slightly exaggerated, and certainly as they have been recorded in the Disciplinary Code (Vinaya) they are in the wrong sequence, but they are just the sort of thing we could expect from a highly talented yet at the same time highly jealous and ambitious person.

And moving like a cool breeze through all this drama is the Buddha, patient, smiling, and unmistakably real.

 

The oldest and most authentic information we have about the Buddha’s life is to be found in the Pali language's Threefold Collection (Tipitaka, lit. "Three Baskets" of sutras, disciplinary code, and ultimate teachings), not in any chronological order, but scattered here and there, like specks of gold in the bed of a sandy river.

Less reliable but often indispensable is the information in the vast commentaries, particularly the Dhammapada Atthakta (the commentary to Buddhist aphorisms and origin stories called the Dharma-path or Dharma-imprint) and the Jataka Nidanakatha (commentary to the Rebirth Stories).

After that, we have the Mahayana sutras [apocryphal, Hindu syncretic, later fabrications or tales not originating with the historical Buddha] in which the historical Buddha begins to recede from view behind a veil of [Vedic, Brahminical, and Hindu] legends and romance, becoming less and less accessible as he does.

 

We are human, imperfectly human, and if we are to transcend this state we will need a guide and an ideal that is both human and perfect. The Buddha is such a guide and ideal and in the Pali collections he is portrayed as such.

 

Thus the story of the Buddha and his disciples as told in Pali sources is not just an authentic and fascinating one, it is also one that has a spiritual significance.

Many books on the Buddha’s life have been published, two of the best only recently. They are The Historical Buddha by H.W. Schumann and The Buddha by Michael Carrithers. Both of these books admirably avoid the extremes of including too much of what is obviously mythological on one hand and on the other taking the dry-as-dust academic approach which, being conceived without faith (saddha, conviction, confidence), is unable to inspire faith (confidence) in the reader. More

Buddhist multi-millionaire: poor then rich again

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Hellmuth Hecker, Anathapindika: The Great Benefactor, Part II, "As A Wealthy Patron" (Lives of the Great Disciples Series)

The noble disciples with the Buddha at their head (Thai-on/flickr.com)

 

PROLOGUE

"Thus have I heard. One time the Blessed One was staying in the city of Savatthi at Jeta's Grove, in Anathapindika's Monastery..."

Many of the Buddha's sutras begin with these words, so the name of that great lay devotee and multimillionaire, Anathapindika, is well known. His name was Sudatta, a stream enterer, whose honorific nickname means: "One who gives alms (pinda) to the unprotected (a-natha)."

 

Who was he? How did he meet the Buddha? What was his relationship to the Dharma? The answers to these questions may be found in the many references to him in the traditional discourses.

SUTRA

Buying land with gold to gift to the Buddha

Even the wealth of the Buddhist multimillionaire Anathapindika (the merchant, trader, banker, or "best," see setthi*) was not inexhaustible.

One day treasures worth 18 million gold pieces were swept away by a flash flood and washed into the sea. Moreover, Anathapindika had loaned nearly the same amount of money to business friends, who had failed to repay him. He was reluctant, however, to ask for the money.

Because his fortune amounted to about five times 18 million, and he had already spent three-fifths of it for the famous forest monastery he donated to the Buddha and Buddha's wandering ascetics, his money had now nearly run out. Anathapindika had become poor.

Nevertheless, he continued to provide food for the mendicants nuns and monks as well as the needy and defenseless, although it was only a modest serving of thin rice gruel.

At that time a spirit lived in his seven-storied mansion, above the gate-tower. Whenever the Buddha or a noble (enlightened) disciple entered the house, the spirit, following the laws of its realm, was obliged to step down from its place in order to honor the Great Ones. However, this was very inconvenient for the spirit. Annoyed, he tried to think of a way to keep noble ones out away from the house.

He appeared to a servant and suggested the residence stop offering alms. But the servant paid no attention to these urgings. Then the spirit tried to turn the son of the house against the monastics, but this also failed.

Finally, the spirit appeared in the supernatural aura to the householder himself and tried to persuade Anathapindika to stop the giving of alms given that he was now impoverished. However, Anathapindika, who was a stream enterer, explained that he recognized only three treasures: the Buddha, the Enlightened Teacher, the Dharma, the Teaching that leads to Enlightenment, and the Sangha, the Community of Noble Disciples [that runs the gamut from lay disciples who are stream enterers or those destined for stream entry to ordained arhats].
 

Sculpture of his donation (British Library)

Anathapindika was looking after these treasures and told the spirit to leave his house as there was no place in it for adversaries of the noble ones with the Buddha as their head.

Thereupon, the spirit, following the laws of his realm, had to abandon that place. He betook himself to the deity who was the divine protector of the city of Savatthi and requested an assignment to a new shelter. But it was instead referred to a higher court, that of the Four Great Sky Kings (corresponding to the Four Cardinal Directions).

However, these four also did not feel qualified to make judge where the noble ones were concerned and sent the homeless spirit [up one plane of existence] to Sakka, King of the Devas.

In the meantime, the spirit had become aware of its grave misconduct and asked Sakka to seek forgiveness on his behalf. The king of the devas required that as a penance the spirit help Anathapindika regain his fortune.
 
First of all, the spirit had to retrieve the sunken gold that had washed into the sea; moreover, he had to procure unclaimed buried treasure, and finally he had to persuade Anathapindika's ungrateful debtors to repay their debts.

With a great deal of effort, the spirit fulfilled these tasks. In doing so, he appeared to the debtors in dreams to demand repayment. Soon after Anathapindika regained 54 million and was again able to be as generous as before.
 

The Buddha -- noble, awakened, and free -- helped all who came in contact with him, whether human, deva, or spirit. Such was his loving-kindness and wisdom (Hanuman/flickr.com).

 
The spirit appeared before the Enlightened One and asked his pardon for his malevolent misbehavior, motivated by its annoyance. He was forgiven, and after the Buddha explained the Dharma to him, he became a disciple.

The Enlightened One taught him, moreover, that a person who strives for perfection in giving could not be kept from it by anything in the world, neither by bad nor good fairies, not devas, not yakkhas, nor threat of death (Jataka 140; Jataka 340).

After Anathapindika regain his wealthy and status, a Brahmin became jealous of his good fortune and decided to steal from him what, in his opinion, had made him so wealthy. He wanted to abduct the manifestation of Sirī (Sri), the Goddess of Fortune, because he thought that then fortune would leave Anathapindika and come to him.

He could then force her to do his bidding. This strange perception was based on the idea that so called favors of fate, while a [karmic] reward for earlier meritorious deeds, are nevertheless dispensed by devas/deities), who force them to dwell in the beneficiary's house.

So the Brahmin went to Anathapindika's house and looked around to see where the Spirit of Fortune -- the one Americans today refer to, often quite literally, as Lady Luck -- might be found. Like many ancient Indians of his day, he had clairvoyant powers (dibba cakkhu, the "divine eye"), and he saw "Fortune" living in a white cock which was kept in a golden cage in the palace.

He asked the master of the house to give him the cock to awaken his students in the morning. Without hesitation, generous Anathapindika granted the Brahmin his wish. However, just at that moment, "Fortune" wandered into a jewel.

Therefore, the Brahmin also requested the jewel as a present and received it. Then the spirit hid in a staff, a self-defense weapon. After the Brahmin had successfully begged this, the manifestation of Siri settled down on the head of the lady Puññalakkhana-devi, the first wife of Anathapindika, who was truly the good spirit of the house and therefore had the protection of the devas.
 

Anathapindika visits the Buddha (MBDD)

When the Brahmin saw this, he recoiled in fright: "His wife I cannot request from him!" He confessed his greedy unskillful intentions, returned the gifts and, deeply ashamed, he left the house.

Anathapindika went to the Enlightened One and recounted this strange encounter which he had not understood. The Buddha explained the connection to him -- how the world is changed through skillful works and how, for those with right insight through the purification of virtue, everything is attainable, even nirvana (Jataka 284). More

• *Ivo Fiser, "The Problem of the Setthi in Buddhist Jatakas," in Trade in Early India, edited by Ranabir Chakravarti (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001)
• America's two newest multi-millionaires: Will they make merit or regret it? (March 2014)

Buddha's Great Disciples (Book)

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