ESCAPING THE WHEEL OF SAMSARA: THE EARLY LIFE OF PRINCE SIDHARTHA

The Buddha (“the Awakened One”) achieved enlightenment over 2, 500 years ago in Bodh Gaya, India, while seated in the lotus position under the Bodhi (“wisdom”) tree. The Buddha attained enlightenment at the age of 35. On the night that the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he was striving to gain release from worldly bondage; he was trying to reach a level of insight beyond the level that he had attained while practicing the meditational techniques that had been taught to him by Alara and Uddaka, two hermit-sages with whom Prince Siddhartha studied after he left home and became a mendicant seeker, and when the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he attained a level of insight beyond the realm of knowledge attainable through the study of the Vedic literature and the Upanishads. The Buddha awoke to the realization that dependent origination was the universal principle underlying the entire operation of the phenomenal universe.

What the Buddha began to teach to his followers after he attained enlightenment represents a significant departure from the teachings of both the Vedic literature and the Upanishads, according to which the Universal Brahma was the “source of all existence” and the inner essence of man. Linked to this idea was the belief that the perfect Brahma was “also the inner ruler of man,” or “the inner ruler of the soul.”

It is interesting to note here that the Supreme Brahma is totally absent from the Buddha’s religious outlook. In sharp contrast to Hinduism, in Buddhism, there is no single absolute unity behind everything in the phenomenal universe. Thus, I argue that Buddhism replaces the Brahma-centered universe with a moral universe controlled by the universal law of cause and effect, which underlies the law of karma, a Sanskrit word that originally meant “deed.” Karma refers to the good, bad, and neutral things that happen to us, resulting from our moral actions. The theory behind the law of karma is that all intentional acts produce karmic results, which will eventually have an impact on the doer of the deed. Intentional deeds constitute causes, which can generate good, bad, or neutral karma. Good deeds will inevitably result in good karmic effects, and bad deeds will inevitably produce bad karmic effects.

Unlike other religions, Buddhism does not promise eternal salvation to those who obey God’s law, or eternal damnation to those who violate God’s law. For the Buddha, the goal of religious life was not salvation from sin. It was salvation from suffering. On this view, the way to salvation was to achieve liberation from the endless cycle of wandering associated with continued rebirth. Salvation meant freedom from suffering, and the way to achieve that freedom was to overcome ignorance, or to develop what the Buddha called the right understanding (or the correct view) of reality. The Buddha taught that understanding the true nature of reality would enable the individual to overcome craving and ignorance, which the Buddha saw as the explanation for continued existence in the realm of samsara (“endless wandering”) and, thusly, as the cause of suffering.

While the Upanishads also stressed the importance of attaining knowledge as the way to achieving liberation from the endless cycle of repeated rebirths, the road to salvation for the Buddha did not require a long period of study, training, meditation, and speculation, as the Upanishads emphasized. For the Buddha, the way to attain liberation from the cycle of endless wandering was to achieve enlightenment, which the individual accomplished simply by overcoming ignorance of the true nature of reality. One only had to acknowledge that all of life is suffering, that suffering is caused by craving and ignorance, that there is a path leading to the cessation of suffering, and that the path that leads to the cessation of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path. Therefore, I argue that Buddhism redefined the path leading to salvation from suffering through the attainment of enlightenment in the following way: For the Buddha, it is not knowledge of the fact that the universal Brahma is the source of everything in creation and thus the inner essence of man that leads to salvation. Rather, it is Right Understanding of the Four Noble Truths that leads to salvation.

The Truth of Suffering, the Truth of the Arising of Suffering, the Truth of the Cessation of Suffering, and the Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering are the Four Noble Truths. When the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he found a cure for suffering. The cure that the Buddha found was the Noble Eightfold Path. Buddhism teaches us to let go of meaningless attachments to the material world, by heightening our awareness of the five sense organs, which helps to explain why the self is an illusion. It shows us how to overcome craving and ignorance, by deepening our awareness of the inner workings of our sixth sense organ – the mind. The Noble Eightfold Path consists of eight steps that will help us to overcome ignorance and achieve greater mindfulness.

Thus, the purpose of this essay is to put forward a philosophical interpretation of the Four Noble Truths and their constitutive elements, beginning with an examination of the Buddha’s early life, from his birth until he delivered his first sermon at Deer Park. In the context of examining the Buddha’s early life, I look at the importance of the proper performance of rituals in Indian society. I also contrast the Vedic literature’s emphasis on the importance of rituals to the Upanishads’ emphasis on the intellectual approach to the quest for salvation. My reason, for so doing, is to underscore the role that Hinduism played in Prince Siddhartha’s India prior to the time that he achieved enlightenment.

The Buddha was born in North India, over twenty-five hundred years ago, in the Terai lowlands, near the foothills of the Himalayas, just inside the borders of modern-day Nepal. At the time of his birth, the Buddha was given the name Siddhartha Gautama. (Siddhartha is a Sanskrit name that means “one who has achieved his aim,” and Gautama was Siddhartha’s clan’s name). Because Gautama was his clan’s name, the Buddha is sometimes referred to as Gautama Buddha.

According to legend, when Prince Siddhartha was born, the earth shook, and the Indian gods laid the child upon the ground and bathed it in a miraculous shower of water. Legend also has it that when Queen Maya, the Buddha’s mother, gave birth she was standing upright, holding onto the trunk of a Sal tree. Legend would also have it that when Siddhartha was born, the infant stood up, took seven steps, and declared, “This is my last birth.” This suggests that the Buddha was fully consciousness when he was born.

Queen Maya gave birth to Prince Siddhartha in a pleasant grove at Lumbini. Seven days after Prince Siddhartha was born, Queen Maya died, leaving Siddhartha to be raised by the queen’s sister, Mahaprajapati, who married King Suddhodana, Prince Siddhartha’s father, shortly after the Passing of Queen Maya. King Suddhodana was the designated rajan (or ruler) of the Shakya republic.

When Prince Siddhartha was born, the dominant religion in India was Hinduism. At the time, Indian society was divided into four broad social groups, according to what was commonly known as the caste system: the Brahmans (or intellectuals), the Kshatriyas (or warriors), the Vaishyas (or merchants), and the Kshudras (or laborers). The two leading castes of India were the priestly Brahmans and the Kshatriyas. Gautama Buddha’s family belonged to the Brahmans, who were primarily responsible for the performance of rituals. The Kshatriyas were equal in social standing to the Brahmans. However, they were less involved in ceremonial affairs.

As a member of the Brahmans, Prince Siddhartha inherited the primary responsibility for learning the correct performance of rituals, which were looked upon as a kind of sacred science by the Indian people. At the age of 4 or 5, Siddhartha was placed under the care of a guru (or preceptor), who began to teach the sacred science to him, beginning with the Vedic literature (from the Sanskrit word Vedas, meaning Hindu sacred writings). It was in this context that Prince Siddhartha was first introduced to the idea of samsara, a Sanskrit term which means “wandering.” Samsara connotes the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth into which all sentient beings are reborn.

Traditional Indian Doctrine

While under the care of his preceptor, Prince Siddhartha was taught that individuals are repeatedly reborn as a result of the performance of good or bad deeds during their earthly life, and that a noble and virtuous life was rewarded with rebirth in the company of the gods, while a wicked and dishonorable life led to rebirth in a lower realm of existence in which the individual would be punished for the evil deeds that he performed during his life on earth. Siddhartha was also taught that no matter how many good deeds one performed in his lifetime, it would not lead to endless pleasure, or eternal bliss, and that endless pain, or eternal damnation would not result from excessive evil deeds. Whether or not one’s good or bad deeds led to enjoyment or misery, the rewards or punishments for those deeds came to an end as the cycle of rebirth continued.

The supremacy of rituals in Indian society gradually gave way to a kind of reactionary thinking, as some began to question the importance of the correct performance of rituals to ensure rebirth in higher realms of existence. Many Indian seers refused to accept the view that the proper observance of ceremonies was the only way to attain release from worldly bondage. They insisted that the correct performance of complicated rituals could not reasonably be expected of everyone. Therefore, they began to search for alternative ways of attaining liberation from the cycle of repeated rebirths.

Out of this questing came a more intellectual approach to the problem of samsara, which pushed rituals aside and replaced them with a body of literature called the Upanishads. The word Upanishads originally meant to sit at the feet of a master and listen to his teachings. However, because these teachings were thought to be of a very special nature, they were not accessible to everyone. They were taught only in private to those who were deemed worthy to receive them. As a result, the Upanishads came to be seen as a kind of secret doctrine, the knowledge of which was carefully guarded from those who were deemed unworthy. For this reason, the knowledge gained from the study of the Upanishads was understood as a form of esoteric knowledge.

The Upanishads stressed unity and wholeness in the universe. Out of this quest for unity and wholeness evolved the view that behind everything in the phenomenal world stood a single absolute unity called the supreme Brahma. This Supreme Being was said to be “the inner essence of the universe,” or the source of everything in existence. As the inner essence of everything in creation, the supreme Brahma was also thought to be identical with the inner essence (atman) of man. According to the Upanishads, this idea was the fundamental principle underlying the entire universe.

The individual was said to come to this knowledge after a long period of training, study, meditation, and speculation. When an individual had attained this level of awareness, he was said to have achieved enlightenment at which point, the Hindus believed, he was instantly released from the cycle of repeated rebirths. Thus, the view that attaining enlightenment was the way to achieve liberation from the cycle of samsara was not an idea that Prince Siddhartha introduced to Ancient India after he achieved enlightenment. That idea had become an integral part of Indian culture even before Prince Siddhartha was born.

Thus, salvation from suffering was the goal of religious life for many years prior to the Buddha’s awakening, as was the belief that the way to achieve salvation from suffering was through the attainment of enlightenment. The difference between what Hinduism taught, prior to the time that the Buddha attained enlightenment, and what the Buddha taught after he achieved enlightenment is that, according to the Upanishads, an individual achieved enlightenment after a long period of training, study, meditation, and speculation; whereas, in Buddhism, an individual attained enlightenment simply by overcoming ignorance.

The Buddha taught that an individual achieved salvation from suffering when he attained liberation from the cycle of samsara, and that before an individual could attain liberation from the cycle of repeated rebirths, he had to overcome ignorance of the true nature of reality by achieving enlightenment (or nirvana). Nirvana is a Sanskrit term, which literally means “blowing out” or “quenching.” What is extinguished when nirvana is attained are the “triple fires” of greed, anger, and ignorance. When an individual attains nirvana, he is automatically liberated from the delusions of greed, anger, and ignorance, which are also called the Three Poisons. The Buddha taught that when the flame of desire is extinguished attachment ceases, and that when attachment ceases the cycle of repeated rebirths comes to an end. Thus, for the Buddha, the way to attain liberation from the cycle of samsara was to put an end to craving and attachment by overcoming ignorance.

However, the point is that while the belief that suffering is caused by craving and attachment may be a uniquely Buddhist outlook, the interrelated beliefs that sentient beings are repeatedly reborn as a consequence of the deeds that they performed during their lives, and that the way to achieve liberation from the endless cycle of repeated rebirths is to attain enlightenment were very much a part of Indian society long before Prince Siddhartha achieved enlightenment. These interrelated ideas were probably taught to Siddhartha by his preceptor at a very early age.

In fact, the view that the attainment of knowledge led to liberation from the endless cycle of repeated rebirths was the central doctrine of the Upanishads. However, the Upanishads taught that most people would not be able to attain liberation in one brief life span. They could, however, achieve liberation in some future existence. According to the Upanishads, individuals who were unable to attain liberation through the acquisition of knowledge during their lives on earth were fated to be reborn until the cycle of repeated rebirths was broken through the performance of deeds. Whether or not the individual achieved liberation would depend entirely upon the nature of the deeds he performed. Thus, the performance of deeds played an important role in determining whether an individual attained liberation from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, and in determining whether a person was reborn into higher or lower realms of existence through the transmigration of the soul from one body to another at the point of death.

“The Four Sightings”

At the age of sixteen, Prince Siddhartha was married to a young princess named Yasodhara. After they were married, Siddhartha became a traditional householder and began to take moral responsibility for raising his own family. Siddhartha and Yasodhara lived happily together for many years, enjoying the luxury and comfort of palace life until Prince Siddhartha witnessed “four sights,” each depicting a different side of the human condition. After witnessing these four sights, Prince Siddhartha concluded that all of life is suffering, and he began to question the luxurious and comfortable life to which he had grown accustomed.

Sometime after Prince Siddhartha and Princess Yasodhara were married, Siddhartha left the confines of the palace on four separate excursions, accompanied by his charioteer. Each time Siddhartha ventured beyond the castle walls, he saw a different side of the human condition. These “four sights” caused Prince Siddhartha to awaken to the true nature of being in this world, characterized by birth, sickness, old age, death, and rebirth. The first sight was that of an old man, looking frail and bent. The second sight was that of a sick man, who was severely ill. The third sight was that of a dead man being carried on a stretcher to the cremation ground, and the fourth sight was that of a sadhu walking with his alms bowl clasped in his hands. The word sadhu is a term used to describe a holy man who has come to acknowledge that this world of suffering and change is one in which no hope of salvation can ever be achieved. A sadhu is someone who has renounced society and chosen the path of religious knowledge, hoping to attain release from worldly bondage.

The sight of holy men carrying alms bowls was common in Siddhartha’s India, wherein the life of the sadhu was depicted as an alternative to the path of the traditional householder. However, the sight of the sadhu had a tremendous impact on Prince Siddhartha’s social and religious outlook insofar as it caused him to consider whether to continue living under the security and comfort of his father’s kingdom or to renounce the traditional career path of the normal householder and to “go forth” in search of religious knowledge. In the end, Siddhartha decided to renounce secular life. At the age of 29, shortly after his son, Rahula, was born, Siddhartha gave up the traditional career path, thus abandoning his wife, Yasodhara, and their newborn son. It was at that point in his life that Prince Siddhartha began to pursue the religious path, in the hope of achieving release from the wheel of samsara.

Prince Siddhartha spent six years experimenting with various forms of meditation and self-mortification before he came to see the “Middle Way” between his earlier life of self-indulgence and his six-year experiment with self-denial. At the end of this period of his life, Prince Siddhartha realized that the goal of life should not be to indulge one’s senses to the fullest, or to deny them to the point of excess. However, the goal should be to participate within the realm of conventional truth without neglecting the realm of ultimate truth – hence the doctrine of the Two Truths.

Soon after Siddhartha came to see the Middle Path between self-indulgence and self-denial, he sat down in the lotus position under a pipal tree, today known as the Bodhi tree (or wisdom tree), which is where Prince Siddhartha attained enlightenment. When the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he found the way to end suffering.

Buddhist scholars have been known to use a medical metaphor to illustrate the Buddha’s relationship to suffering and its cure. In this scenario, the Buddha is depicted as a physician who has found a cure for suffering. The formula for the cure lies in the Four Noble Truths, which are believed to be the core of the Buddha’s religious teachings. In the First Noble Truth, the Buddha diagnoses the disease. In the Second Noble Truth, the Buddha identifies the causes of the disease. In the Third Noble Truth, the Buddha determines that a cure for the disease exists, and in the Fourth Noble Truth, the Buddha prescribes the medication necessary to cure the illness.

The First Noble Truth is the Truth of Suffering (dukkha). The Second Noble Truth is the Truth of the Arising of Suffering (samudaya). The Third Noble Truth is the Truth of the Cessation of Suffering (nirodha), and the Fourth Noble Truth is the Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of Suffering (magga). The Truth of Suffering and the Truth of the Arising of Suffering fall within the realm of conventional truth (or reality), while the Truth of the Cessation of Suffering and the Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of Suffering fall within the realm of ultimate truth (or nirvana).

The disease that the Buddha diagnosed in the First Noble Truth is suffering. The Second Noble Truth states that the origin of suffering is craving and ignorance. The Buddha taught that craving (or thirst) produces attachment, which, in turn, leads to continued existence in the endless cycle of samsara. The Buddha also taught that craving is the result of ignorance. Therefore, suffering is indirectly caused by ignorance. The Third Noble Truth states that there is a way to end suffering: The way to end suffering is to relinquish craving, and the way to relinquish craving is to eliminate ignorance.

The Buddha taught that the way to eliminate ignorance was to attain the wisdom that comes to everyone who achieves enlightenment. The Buddha said that attaining enlightenment would lead to nirvana, and that when an individual achieves nirvana, he is automatically liberated from the realm of samsara into which all sentient beings are reborn. The Fourth Noble Truth outlines the eight stages of the path that leads to nirvana. These eight steps, known as the Noble Eightfold Path, are sometimes referred to as the Middle Way between the search for happiness through the pleasures of the senses and the search for fulfillment through meditation and self-mortification.

“Going Forth”

Upon leaving the Shakya republic in search of religious knowledge, Prince Siddhartha went first to the home of Alara Kalama, the most renowned hermit-sage in India. Alara lived in the mountains north of Rajagriha (present-day Rajgir), the capital of the kingdom of Magadha. Alara taught Siddhartha a meditational technique, which induced a profound state of trance enabling him to free the spirit from the bonds of the flesh. Siddhartha quickly mastered the ability to enter and abide in a state of consciousness known as “the sphere of nothingness,” and when he had attained Alara’s level of enlightenment, Siddhartha was offered a joint leadership of the group. However, Siddhartha believed that he had not yet attained true enlightenment, and he turned Alara’s offer down.

Next, Siddhartha went to the home of Uddaka Ramaputtra, another ascetic, who lived in the mountains north of Rajagriha. Uddaka taught Siddhartha an even more sophisticated meditational technique than the one that Alara taught to him. This technique allowed Siddhartha to enter a sublime state of mind in which consciousness itself seemed to disappear. Uddaka was so impressed with Siddhartha that he, too, offered the prince a joint leadership of the group. However, Prince Siddhartha once again declined the offer, at which point Uddaka volunteered to become Siddhartha’s disciple.

Apparently, Prince Siddhartha was still not satisfied with the level of enlightenment he had achieved. The ability to attain mystical states of consciousness was far from his goal. Therefore, Prince Siddhartha left the mountains north of Rajagriha and journeyed forth to Bodh Gaya. There, he met five ascetics who were also seeking to achieve liberation from worldly bondage. The five ascetics took Siddhartha into their group and quickly came under the influence of Siddhartha’s religious leadership, even before Siddhartha achieved enlightenment. Together, the six of them began to experiment with different forms of meditation, ascetic discipline, and self-mortification. At one point, Siddhartha managed to reduce his intake of food to as little as a spoonful of bean soup a day. These experiments went on for six years until Siddhartha finally came to see the Middle Path between his earlier life of self-indulgence and his six-year experiment with self-mortification.

In the first sermon that he delivered to the five ascetics after he achieved enlightenment, the Buddha stated that he had realized a “Middle Path” “to higher knowledge.” “O bhikkhus, one who has gone forth from worldly life should not indulge these two extremes. What are the two? There is indulgence in desirable sense objects, which is low, vulgar, worldly, ignoble, unworthy, and unprofitable and there is devotion to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, unprofitable.”

“O bhikkhus, avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata has realized the Middle Path. It provides vision, it provides knowledge, it leads to calm, to higher knowledge, to enlightenment, to nibbana.

“And what is the Middle Path, O bhikkhus, that the Tathagata has realized? It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path, namely: Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Awareness, Right Concentration. This is the Noble Eightfold Path realized by the Tathagata. It produces vision, it produces knowledge, it leads to calm, to higher knowledge, to enlightenment, to nibbana.”

After Siddhartha came to see the Middle Path between devotion to desirable sense objects and devotion to self-mortification, he went looking for something to eat, hoping to replenish his depleted strength and to fortify his body, fearful that he might die of starvation. At that point, Siddhartha encountered a young woman named Sujata, who provided him with a meal of milk rice.

When the five ascetics learned that Prince Siddhartha had eaten, they abandoned him in distrust, believing that he had rejected the path of austerities. Siddhartha was now totally alone. Determined to conquer suffering, he sat down under a pipal tree and vowed to sit there until he achieved enlightenment. Legend has it that at that moment a battle ensued between Prince Siddhartha and the armies of Mara, a deity (or deva) associated with the desires that lead to the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth in which all sentient beings are trapped. Mara hurled deadly forces at Prince Siddhartha from on high, but they were transformed into flowers of offering in the face of Siddhartha’s “meditative calm,” as they showered down upon the prince’s head. Some accounts suggest that Mara even sent his daughters to tempt Siddhartha. However, they were unable to seduce him. Finally, Mara insisted that it was he, and not Siddhartha, who had earned the right to sit on the “throne of enlightenment” by virtue of his past deeds of merit. Still, Prince Siddhartha was unshaken by Mara’s pompous attitude. Siddhartha reached down and touched the ground, asking the goddess of the earth to bear witness to his countless previous meritorious deeds, and the earth shook, causing Mara’s armies to flee in fear. After Prince Siddhartha had triumphed over Mara’s deadly forces, a whole host of devas appeared “to witness his final illumination.”

“The Threefold Knowledge”

Prince Siddhartha achieved enlightenment at the age of 35 during three watches of the night at which time he received what has come to be known as the “threefold knowledge.” In the first watch of the night, Siddhartha acquired the power to look back through his previous lives with total recall. During the second watch of the night, Siddhartha attained clairvoyant power, which allowed him to see the death and rebirth of all types of beings in the universe in relation to their good and bad deeds. In the third watch of the night, Siddhartha attained the knowledge that his spiritual contamination had been eliminated, and that he had finally rooted out craving and ignorance, thus putting an end to the cycle of repeated rebirths.

It has been said that whosoever perceives the interdependent nature of reality sees the Dharma; and that whosoever sees the Dharma sees the Buddha. This is so because, when he achieved enlightenment, the Buddha discovered that all things and events in the universe come about due to the interaction of certain causes and conditions, and when those causes and conditions are removed all conditioned phenomena cease to exist. As the Buddha put it, “all phenomena arise from causes and conditions. All phenomena are obliterated by causes and conditions.”1 Here lies the basis for the principle of dependent origination. Another way to express this idea is to say that the whole and its parts are interdependent, or that the whole is the sum of its parts. The universal law of cause and effect underlies the principle of dependent origination, according to which every cause has an effect (or result) and every result (or effect) a cause.

ENDNOTES

1) Master Hsing Yun, Lotus In A Stream, transl. by Tom Graham. (New York & Tokyo: Weatherhill, 2000), p. 74.

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In 1986, Derek Reeves graduated from the University of Rochester with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. Derek is also a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. In 1991, he received his master’s degree in theological studies. Derek works as a security guard in Queens. He lives in the Bronx.