Life of the Buddha (video)

Mindah-Lee Kumar (EnthusiasticBuddhist.com); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Four Signs (smith.edu)

The Buddha (the "Enlightened or Awakened One") was born Prince Siddhartha Gautama, future king of the Shakyas. He is also known as Shakyamuni, the "Sage (muni) from the Shakya Clan."
 
He was born approximately 2,600 years ago into a royal family. Where is disputed, likely in what is now Afghanistan, on the northwest border of Gandhara, India. But earlier British archeological work determined it was Nepal, just north of India, and the controversy has been on ever since.  (See ranajitpal.com).

Prince Siddhartha lived a protected and carefree life of luxury, until one day he came face to face with the harsh realities of life he had always been protected from seeing: old age, sickness, and death. (The fourth sign was the sight of renunciation offering a possibility of escape from certain suffering). It is believed that the devas (fairies) contrived it all, ensuring that he would eventually see these four momentous signs.

 

The Buddha, wandering teacher (WQ)

The four sights or signs changed the course of Siddhartha's life. Rather than becoming king as he had been raised, he embarked on a spiritual QUEST on behalf of all beings to find liberation from the suffering of the world.

He would eventually discover the truth of suffering (disappointment) and how to bring about its end. He achieved enlightenment, a profound and irreversible awakening, under the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India.

And from that moment on he was known by the title "the Buddha." (See also the BBC documentary Life of the Buddha, which tells the story very well in less than 50 minutes. Here is a condensed collage version set to music that takes even less time).

Smoking weed in front of Buddhist monks

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Yogi Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Sanskrit, ganja (medicinal Cannabis sativa)

BODHGAYA, India - "Smoking weed in front of Tibetan monks"? It's not as bad as it sounds. The headline might more correctly read, "Intoxicated Hindu mendicant dancing, ganja in hand, in front of Tibetan lamas at Buddhism's enlightenment grove."

  

The precincts of the Bodhi tree are sacred ground visited by hundreds of thousands of Buddhist pilgrims every year. (It is the most Buddhist town in the world, with authentic temples from every Buddhist land, from stately Japanese zendos (dojos) to a mysterious and fascinating Bhutanese dzong).

  

Sadhus: India's Mystic Holy Men (DH)

But the grove is controlled by Hindu holy men and Indian government officials, not Buddhists. The Maha Bodhi Society has a presence, but the sannyasis and sadhus (Hindu spiritual wanderers) run rampant.

  

Devotional exiled Tibetans travel down from Himalayan Dharamsala, Himalchal Pradesh in the north of the country. Some do 108,000 (yes, one-hundred and eight thousand) prostrations around the Maha Bodhi temple next to the tree, a genetic ancestor of the original enlightenment tree Siddhartha sat under.

Why would a wanderer behave like a madman (pagal) in front of pilgrim monks? Why would a spiritual wanderer go about smoking marijuana or hash? It is the custom of some Hindu ascetic holymen. The lamas could not be too put off since Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism has a long and storied history of spiritual madmen epitomized in the saintly-sinner figure Milarepa.

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The Dharma in the West

Hookah pipe Buddha ashtray (Raezyx/flickr)

Sure these things happen in the chaotic East. But would anyone dream of firing up a peace pipe in front of Vajrayana lamas? We can't imagine. However, stranger things have happened. Many Tibetan monks (great rinpoches, lamas, even alleged tulkus) are falling. It's not self-immolation of the attention-grabbing sort that's bringing them down. They often explain that they want to "taste" the allure of the West. What was it about America in the 1960s that was so intriguing to the most powerful generation in the world? In "My Dinner With Andre" Andre explained the little Tibetan monk who went off kilter gorging himself on Western excesses. There is the real life story of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who may have been the source of Andre's account. There are American lamas like Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Surya Das around which swirl rumors and controversies of sexual impropriety.

• Controversial "Buddhist" teachers and groups

So what's a little ganja to those violating other precepts? Monastics are not using or abusing drugs. We are. And we think they would be okay with that. "Let's get Buddha'ed," we say as if that meant let's get high. Medical cannabis abuse is no mild vice -- and it is no way to any kind of enlightenment or transcendent wisdom. It's a circuitous route to here, so some call it an insidious trap. So which is it? It's not Buddhist. Smoke and you, too, can dance in front of Tibetan monks like an addict sadhu in the video above. But instead of owning up to it, one can use euphemisms and claim it's a spiritual endeavor, a Milarepa-like-madman "quest."
  

"Oh, Buddha, to be like you! (Moondoxy)

Were alcohol or intoxicants part of the path, the Buddha would have pointed to them as aids rather than obstacles. Or he would have remained silent on the matter. That he thought them such a serious obstacle that he listed alcohol as a path of doom in the Five Precepts is serious.

Could there be a difference between drugs? Do some serve only to blot out and obtund consciousness rather than to expand it? It is certainly our position at Wisdom Quarterly that some natural substances (DMT, alkaloids, iboga, Amazonian vines that make ayahuasca and natema, etc.) may have some benefits to the awakening of the pineal gland/third eye. But booze and high-THC (low-CBD) weed stocks and caustic synthetic chemicals? Wake up. Reality is better than this or we would advocate making the best of this illusion.

(LINK) The wyrd world far beyond dulled consciousness

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Psychic Powers in Nepal (documentary)

Text: Wisdom Quarterly editors; video: "Curiosity" (Discovery Channel)

(Wudu1982) European illusionist Dan White ("The Supernaturalist") travels to magical, mysterious Nepal in search of real magic in the Himalayas. Is what he finds real? Do the Discovery Networks and Curiosity stand by it? 

Saddhus in Durbar Square (AFP)

BHAKTAPUR, Nepal - Psychic powers (abhinnas or siddhis) are real in Buddhism. They are important only because they reveal what the real world. We are immersed in an illusion, in a small fraction of what is real. Powers open us up to the possibility of what is really going on. While we instinctively love the sense of wonder, it is sometimes accompanied by fear or awe. 

  

Illusionists create illusions that hint at a greater reality. Yet, there are magicians who are not creating illusions but working perplexing feats of what is humanly possible. They do not violate the laws of physics -- only our ridiculous view that most of us have any idea what the actual laws of physics are. 

   

(-William/flickr.com)

Nepal is the world's only Hindu nation, but that seems to stem from census manipulations. The nation is very Buddhist but utterly dependent on India for its survival. As an officially if only nominally "Hindu" country, it is the home of many saddhus (holy men), yogis, babas, shamans, and Western wanderers in search of the real. Bhaktapur may be the spiritual center of the country. 

Durbar Square with its famous Freak Street was its central hippie haven in the 1960s and '70s. The ancient outpost is a conglomeration of blended Buddhist/Hindu pagodas and temples grouped around a 55-window brownstone palace. Nepal is the home of the "living child goddess" whose feet are kept from touching the Earth.

  

Such occupied individuals are known as Kumari. But this is a temporary channeled position for pre-pubescent virgins, ten in all. The real goddesses are devis who are said to enter select children with blemish-free bodies (32 perfections in all). This being the custom in the former Himalayan kingdom (now a Maoist-liberated republic), could displays of real magic be anything surprising?

Buddha Boy beats locals?

"I took minor action against them after taking them under control when they came to disrupt my meditation. I let them go after they apologized," Republica quotes a second hand source as saying.

Did Buddha Boy really stand up to instigators? Nepal's most famous meditator, Ram Bahadur Bomjon (Palden Dorje), came to international prominence as a teenager in 2005 by fasting (completely abstaining from food and water) in the forest while meditating.

To this day, no reports of the fast being broken have come to the attention of Wisdom Quarterly. Buddha Boy got his name by behaving like Siddhartha, the historical Buddha, who is also thought to have been born in modern Nepal (although this is disputed) when it was a part of greater India. He then meditated for six years to reach enlightenment. Similarly, Buddha Boy has said he needs six years of intense, undisturbed meditation.

Following in Gautama Buddha's footsteps

Bomjon is now being investigated along with his attendants for scuffling with 17 local villagers. Various reports explain that the villagers came to disturb his meditation, provoking him by jumping on his platform and mimmicking him. Other reports point out that the villagers were criticized for engaging in Hindu animal sacrifices at Nepal's 2009 Goddess Gadhimai festival. Buddha Boy took a very unpopular stand in Nepal by condemning the ritual slaughter.

Buddha Boy on animal cruelty

Reports claim Bomjon admitted he and his attendants struck villagers with hands and sticks. His story is that they climbed onto his meditation platform and mimicked him. "I was therefore forced to [slap them two or three times]," a BBC reports him as saying.

Nepal's Republica quotes the president of his support group as claiming that Bomjon had said, "I took minor action against them after taking them under control when they came to disrupt my meditation. I let them go after they apologized."

The villagers -- perhaps hoping to parlay the situation into a monetary settlement or perhaps to discredit the Buddhist Bomjon in a Hindu country -- say they were beaten relentlessly even after they apologized. One man had a head injury that he said resulted from being hit with an axe handle. The villagers, who said they were innocently foraging for fruits and vegetables before they were assaulted, have filed formal complaints with local police.

The Hindustan Times reports that Buddha Boy has let it be known that he cannot be bothered to attend a court hearing. He is, after all, a saddhu (religious mendicant) in a society that still holds such recluses in the highest regard, awe, and even fear.

• Nepal's Buddha Boy investigated for attacking group (BBC)
• Buddha Boy Bahadur Bomjan: Batterer? (About.com)
• Buddha Boy thrashes locals (Republica)
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Kumbha Mela Festival (photos)

Wisdom Quarterly

Kumbha Mela festival reveals method behind the madness at India's massive spiritual festival

• 2010 PHOTO GALLERY

Coping with Death

(Experience Festival) "According to Hinduism, when a person dies, one either travels to heavenly worlds or to the ancestral worlds depending upon one's previous deeds.

"We are told that the departed souls can be elevated to higher planes of existence and pushed further [along] on the scale of evolution if their direct descendents on Earth, especially the male progeny, perform some annual rites and make sacrificial offerings to them. With such rites, not just one but the entire family of ancestors would be benefited and spiritually uplifted."

While the same cannot be applied to Buddhism, it looks like that's what was happening here. It was kind of intense. Mourners walked out of the temple as a Buddhist monk was ringing a gong lightly and chanting softly. The family walked to a furnace and placed three medium sized bags in before lighting them on fire. It was hauntingly cool.

Translated message to the world by "Buddha Boy," Palden Dorje, Halkhoriya Jungle, Nepal

Spiritual Journey in the Himalayas

Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V - Part VI

Enlightenment without self effort?

Ask a Brahmin: 3 Kinds of Faith

Hinduism Today's Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami reads his Publisher's Desk article (Oct-Nov-Dec 2009 issue) on the three stages of faith: blind faith, informed conviction, and personal realization.

Faith in Buddhism
In Buddhism, faith (Sanskrit, Śrāddha; Pali, Saddhā) is the initial acceptance of the Bud-dha’s teachings, prior to the acquisition of right under-standing and right thought. Buddhism does not rely on supernatural authority or the word of the Buddha but claims rather that its teachings can all be experientially verified. Starting on the Eightfold Path (the Buddhist system of spiritual progress) involves, however, a provisional acceptance, through faith, of the Buddha and his teachings that is later confirmed by direct experience and by the growth of right understanding.

Some Buddhist commentators have analyzed three kinds of faith or saddhā: affective (devotional), conative (involving effort), and cognitive (rational).

In the devotional sects of Mahāyāna Buddhism, faith is elevated to a dominant position [just as it is in devotional Hindu sects], equal to wisdom, as being for most people the appropriate way of reaching salvation in this present unenlightened age. Among the Pure Land sects, for example, sincere invocation of the name of the Buddha Amitābha is sufficient to ensure rebirth of the faithful in his Western Paradise (the Pure Land). Source

• Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg (author of Faith) describes the journey as having three interlocking stages: bright faith, verifying faith, and abiding faith.

Indigenous Activists at WSF

"We don't see the things as they are; we see them as we are"

-- Anäis Nin

Indigenous people march during the first day of the 2009 World Social Forum near the mouth of the Amazon River in the city of Belem, 1/27/09. The 2009 World Social Forum made up of anti-capitalist groups ran from 1/26 to 1/30 (daylife.org).

The original shamans (rooted in the Buddhist word shraman, "recluse" or homeless wanderer) were intent on spiritual insight, asceticism (fasting, meditation, sense-withdrawal), and emancipation. The spirit of these human yearnings to radically evolve live on throughout the New World.

Many Amazonian tribes (particularly in the rainforests of Brazil) as well as Scandinavian (Sami) and Siberian people, although marginalized and nearly annihilated, retain a deep connection with earth ecosystems and transcendental dimensions beyond this plane.

Zen Buddhist nun marching in solidarity with indigenous participants at the World Social Forum (tatianacardeal).

For example, some of the shamanism in Siberia is due in part to the Buddhism there (as the Tibetan influence expanded beyond the Mongolian Empire). Buddhism has existed in Russia since the 16th century.

A Proutist Indian Saddhu (www.proust.org) at the World Social Forum

The Silk Route opened up the treasures of Asia -- particularly Buddhist India and China -- to the ancient Western world. And that message has gone around the world and back, coming to a head this year at the 2009 World Social Forum, which ended Sunday.

Forum ends in Amazon; capitalism seen dying

Stuart Grudgings (1/1/09)

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -- The world's biggest gathering of leftist activists ended on Sunday, after six days of discussions and protests that participants said showed there was an alternative to a crumbling global capitalist system.

The World Social Forum brought about 100,000 activists to the Brazilian Amazon city of Belem ranging from communists railing against U.S. "imperialism" to environmentalists and more moderate socialists.

More than 200,000 people marching at the World Social Forum

Timed to coincide with the Davos meeting of business leaders in Switzerland, this year's Forum attracted a record number of government leaders keen to burnish their leftist credentials in the wake of the global financial crisis.

"People see capitalism as not being able to maintain itself and there's a hope that it can't too," said Shannon Bell, a politics professor at Toronto's York University who attended meetings on "eco-socialism" at the Forum. More>>

Book Review: "Enlightenment for Idiots"

Reviewed by Karen Macklin (5/9/08) YOGA JOURNAL BLOG: SAMADHI & THE CITY

I first went to India when I was 22. I knew nothing about yoga, but I had a transformative experience nonetheless, complete with my first contact with saddhus, a visit to the temple where Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, and a visit to the Ganges River to see the bodies [being cremated] on the ghats. My trip felt deeply spiritual...but, as a recent college grad in a tumultuous love affair with a guy I met while traveling, it also felt completely confusing, raw, and, at times, ridiculous.

So, when I heard about local writer and former Yoga Journal editor Anne Cushman's new book, Enlightenment for Idiots, I was excited to pick up a copy. The book, which she calls a cross between a spiritual journey and a dysfunctional romance, is about a San Franciscan writer and yogi who can't seem to practice in life what she practices on the mat. Her relationships are a mess, and she's financially broke and emotionally ungrounded.

Finally, she gets an assignment to go to India and write a book called Enlightenment for Idiots, for which she must hit all the big and small ashrams throughout the country. Like the trip I took at 22, hers is a wild journey during which she tries to find deeper meaning while simultaneously dealing with a completely unenlightened romantic situation and uncertain future.

While there is satire in Anne's story, there is also insight—and a lot of research. She actually visited all of these places in 1998 when researching a prior nonfiction book on spiritual sites and centers in India, From Here to Nirvana, and used these experiences as the basis for her main character's travels.

Anne's main interest lies not in some arbitrary idea of enlightenment but rather in how modern day life (specifically romantic life) and yogic ideals intersect. Or how they don't. She says that many yogic practices were designed for Eastern celibate men—not single, Western women.

She also says that our love lives are the most challenging places for us to act with mindfulness and employ yogic principles. As a Western yogini slowly navigating my way through a new relationship, I can relate!

• Enlightenmentforidiots.com
• Video interview with author