What the Buddha Taught: Walpola Rahula & the Buddha’s example
It is the strangest fact of Buddhist religion that none of the many millions of Buddhists worldwide, whatever their education, or monastic rank, are the least interested in embarking on the specific quest so clearly illustrated in the story of the Buddha himself. The story of the life of the Buddha is the most unambiguous narrative portrayal in any tradition anywhere of the most radical quest in religious history, showing how and why all doctrines, no matter how profound or seductive, need to be completely abandoned if one is to succeed in any quest for ultimate metaphysical knowledge. Yet it seems as if this radicalism is altogether too demanding for most people, and nobody wants to have to give it a second thought, despite the fact it ought to be the essence of the Buddhist approach. Stranger still is the fact that, even though the Buddha’s example is everywhere denigrated and refuted by Buddhist practice itself, you can still find very clear accounts of the Buddha’s radical rejection of religion and doctrine in a number of books on Buddhism, whatever the author’s other purpose. The Buddha’s systematic rejection of all religious doctrines, practices and methods is often set out in the clearest terms, yet these books will then go on to propound and extol a series of doctrines, beliefs and faith-based ideas of exactly the same sort that they have just said that the Buddha rejected.
‘What the Buddha Taught’, by Walpola Rahula, a famous introduction to Buddhism which is everywhere to be found, and which is considered a definitive text of its kind, starts with an account of the story of the life of the Buddha. As a bare statement, in narrative form, of the radical outlook required for Buddhist quest, it can hardly be improved upon. It shows very clearly that the biography of the Buddha is an appeal for a radical abandonment of the baggage of second-hand ideas if one is to see clearly into the reality of the metaphysics of the human condition.
Rahula writes:
‘The Buddha, whose personal name was Siddhattha, and family name Gotama, lived in North India in the 6th century B.C. His father Suddhodana, was the ruler of the kingdom of the Sakyas (in modern Nepal). His mother was queen Maya. According to the custom of the time, he was married quite young, at the age of sixteen, to a beautiful and devoted young princess named Yasodahara. The young prince lived in his palace with every luxury at his command. But all of a sudden, confronted with the reality of life and the suffering of mankind, he decided to find the solution – the way out of this universal suffering. At the age of 29, soon after the birth of his only child, Rahula, he left his kingdom and became an ascetic in search of his solution. For six years the ascetic Gotama wandered about the valley of Ganges, meeting famous religious teachers, studying and following their systems and methods, and submitting himself to rigorous ascetic practices. They did not satisfy him. So he abandoned all traditional religions and their methods and went his own way.
It was thus that one evening, seated under a tree (since then known as the Bodhi- or Bo-tree, the “Tree of Wisdom”), on the bank of the river Neranjara at Buddha-aya (near Gaya in modern Bihar), at the age of 35, Gotama attained enlightenment, after which he was known as the Buddha, ‘The Enlightened One’. After his Enlightenment, Gotama the Buddha delivered his first sermon to a group of five ascetics, his old colleagues, in the Deer Park at Isipatana (modern Sarnath) near Benares. From that day, for 45 years, he taught all classes of men and women -kings and peasants, Brahmins and outcasts, bankers and beggars, holy men and robbers – without making the slightest distinction between them. He recognized no differences of caste or social groupings, and the Way he preached was open to all men and women who were ready to understand and follow it. At the age of 80, the Buddha passed away at Kusinara (in modern Uttar Pradesh in India).’
Perhaps if you blink, or are skimming in the hope of finding some meditational technique you can practice, you will miss it, but the story makes it clear that the Buddha ‘abandoned all traditional religions and their methods.’ Later, he somehow discovered what he had been looking for all along, and this discovery was called his ‘enlightenment’. There is nothing here about meditational practices, mindfulness, rituals, pilgrimage, austerities, just sitting, the Dalai Lama, Richard Gere, or organising your thinking according to some doctrine or the other. The Buddha had abandoned any and all such options in order to find the truth for himself. This is what we all will have to do if we want to find the truth for ourselves. There really is no other way, unless you want to find someone else’s idea of the truth, which is clearly what many ordinary Buddhist believers would prefer to do.
And if you read on in Rahula’s book, you will see that he introduces, in the very next chapter, a series of Buddhist religious doctrines – almost identical to the ones the Buddha was supposed to have abandoned – for people to believe in, and become members of just another faith-based religion. The Buddha’s example is just not exciting enough for ordinary Buddhists: they want religion.
‘What the Buddha Taught’, by Walpola Rahula, a famous introduction to Buddhism which is everywhere to be found, and which is considered a definitive text of its kind, starts with an account of the story of the life of the Buddha. As a bare statement, in narrative form, of the radical outlook required for Buddhist quest, it can hardly be improved upon. It shows very clearly that the biography of the Buddha is an appeal for a radical abandonment of the baggage of second-hand ideas if one is to see clearly into the reality of the metaphysics of the human condition.
Rahula writes:
‘The Buddha, whose personal name was Siddhattha, and family name Gotama, lived in North India in the 6th century B.C. His father Suddhodana, was the ruler of the kingdom of the Sakyas (in modern Nepal). His mother was queen Maya. According to the custom of the time, he was married quite young, at the age of sixteen, to a beautiful and devoted young princess named Yasodahara. The young prince lived in his palace with every luxury at his command. But all of a sudden, confronted with the reality of life and the suffering of mankind, he decided to find the solution – the way out of this universal suffering. At the age of 29, soon after the birth of his only child, Rahula, he left his kingdom and became an ascetic in search of his solution. For six years the ascetic Gotama wandered about the valley of Ganges, meeting famous religious teachers, studying and following their systems and methods, and submitting himself to rigorous ascetic practices. They did not satisfy him. So he abandoned all traditional religions and their methods and went his own way.
It was thus that one evening, seated under a tree (since then known as the Bodhi- or Bo-tree, the “Tree of Wisdom”), on the bank of the river Neranjara at Buddha-aya (near Gaya in modern Bihar), at the age of 35, Gotama attained enlightenment, after which he was known as the Buddha, ‘The Enlightened One’. After his Enlightenment, Gotama the Buddha delivered his first sermon to a group of five ascetics, his old colleagues, in the Deer Park at Isipatana (modern Sarnath) near Benares. From that day, for 45 years, he taught all classes of men and women -kings and peasants, Brahmins and outcasts, bankers and beggars, holy men and robbers – without making the slightest distinction between them. He recognized no differences of caste or social groupings, and the Way he preached was open to all men and women who were ready to understand and follow it. At the age of 80, the Buddha passed away at Kusinara (in modern Uttar Pradesh in India).’
Perhaps if you blink, or are skimming in the hope of finding some meditational technique you can practice, you will miss it, but the story makes it clear that the Buddha ‘abandoned all traditional religions and their methods.’ Later, he somehow discovered what he had been looking for all along, and this discovery was called his ‘enlightenment’. There is nothing here about meditational practices, mindfulness, rituals, pilgrimage, austerities, just sitting, the Dalai Lama, Richard Gere, or organising your thinking according to some doctrine or the other. The Buddha had abandoned any and all such options in order to find the truth for himself. This is what we all will have to do if we want to find the truth for ourselves. There really is no other way, unless you want to find someone else’s idea of the truth, which is clearly what many ordinary Buddhist believers would prefer to do.
And if you read on in Rahula’s book, you will see that he introduces, in the very next chapter, a series of Buddhist religious doctrines – almost identical to the ones the Buddha was supposed to have abandoned – for people to believe in, and become members of just another faith-based religion. The Buddha’s example is just not exciting enough for ordinary Buddhists: they want religion.