Buddhist Meditation: A Brief History, Part 1
by Helene Ciaravino

 

A BRIEF HISTORY

The story of Buddhism begins with the life story of Siddhattha [Siddhartha] Gotama. He is responsible for developing its fundamental doctrines. Sidhattha’s own enlightenment and subsequent lifestyle serve as an inspiration to all who seek true peace and knowledge through Buddhism. In addition, his tenets have since been adapted to suit various cultures and individuals.

The Story of the Buddha

Scholars believe that Siddhattha Gotama, the Buddha, was born in 563 bce. By birth, he was a member of India’s warrior caste—a high, privileged class. Siddhattha’s father was a country squire. His mother died soon after giving birth to him, so the boy was raised by his mother’s sister, who became his father’s second wife.

Siddhattha received love and affection from his family, as well as material comforts. His early life was culturally routine. According to the tradition of his caste, Siddhattha was not taught to read and write; he married at age sixteen; he had a son at twenty-nine. Yet during the year of his son’s birth, Siddhattha experienced an unavoidable urge to find a way to end the suffering that is inherent to life—that is, the suffering that naturally comes with birth, age, sickness, sadness, and death. So he put on monk’s robes and began his quest as a wandering spiritualist.

Siddhattha started studying under one teacher, then another, and found no satisfaction. So he embarked on his own journey—one of severe asceticism. He carried out self-mortifications, extensive fasting, and strenuous breathing techniques. For six years, he followed this path, gathering five disciples who waited and watched for Siddhattha to reveal great truths. But Siddhattha finally realized that self-torture was not an effective path either, and so he gave up asceticism. And because he abandoned these ways, his five disciples abandoned him.

Alone and still searching, one day Siddhattha remembered a wonderful experience he had as a child. While simply relaxing and reflecting under the shade of a tree on his father’s property, young Siddhattha had entered so deeply into solitude that he experienced no wants, no emotions. It seemed to be the ultimate existence, as desire and suffering could not penetrate his contemplative state. Recalling this event, Siddhattha considered that such a state was the way to liberate the individual from suffering and, therefore, to attain enlightenment.

Taking a lead from his childhood memory, Siddhattha sat under a fig tree and began to meditate. In pensive examination, he moved through the whole process of existence. He recalled previous lives; he comprehended how the cycle of birth and rebirth—samsara (pronounced suhm-sah´-ruh)—occurred. He realized that every being is subject to this cycle as long as she remains ignorant and experiences attachments and cravings—that is, as long as she sees herself as a distinct and permanent self. At the moment that Siddhattha understood the whole process of suffering, as well as the way to liberation from it, he attained enlightenment or bodhi; he became a “Buddha.” Siddhattha was thirty-five years old.

Although the Buddha was drawn to a life of solitude, he decided to embark on a teaching ministry out of compassion for beings who still suffered the pain of unenlightenment. Thus, Buddhism was born. The Buddha’s first disciples were those five followers who had abandoned him when he stopped his severe asceticism. These monks were mesmerized by the Buddha’s explanation of the cycle of birth and rebirth, and his conviction that self-discipline and moderation could lead to liberation. He prescribed the Eightfold Way to the Termination of Suffering, discussed later. The Buddha’s teachings—dharma, or dhamma—were well received, and he continued to spread his newfound knowledge.

Within a few months, sixty followers had joined the Buddha’s order. He asked them to go out into the surrounding areas, and start teaching others how to seek enlightenment. And the Buddha, himself, continued his ministry for another forty-five years, wandering throughout Northern India and compassionately teaching the dharma. The Buddha died in 483 bce; he was eighty years old. His body was cremated, and his ashes were placed in several urns and given to noted families. The families enshrined the urns in burial mounds, which have since been located. The remains are venerated to this day.

The Buddha was known for his contemplative personality, his compassion for all people and beings, his courtesy and self-restraint, his certainty in his teachings, and his magnetic effect on those to whom he preached. Siddhattha did not consider himself divine, but once enlightened, he certainly did not place himself on the same level as any beings around him. In fact, Siddhattha once instructed a monk not to address him as “friend,” but as “Thus-Come, a fully Enlightened One.” Yet he was not self-aggrandizing. The Buddha was very clear that the dharma itself —not he nor any other teacher—was the authority of Buddhism.

Siddhattha is not the only Buddha to ever exist. A Buddha is anyone who understands the truth of reality without having it imparted or taught to him; he discerns it through his own nature and insight. And those who become enlightened under the schooling of Buddhas are called arahants, or saints. But Siddhattha is often referred to as the Buddha, because he not only found the path to enlightenment, but also crystallized and articulated it to others, becoming the father, so to speak, of Buddhism.

Buddhism Continues to Develop

Many schools of Buddhism have developed over time. The three main branches of Buddhism today are Theravada Buddhism, which traces back to the time immediately after the Buddha’s death and is largely followed in Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand; Mahayana Buddhism, which was established in the first century of the Common Era, and is mainly practiced in India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, mainland China, Nepal, Taiwan, and Tibet; and Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism, which formed between the third and seventh centuries of the Common Era, and took a strong root in Tibet. Buddhist schools generally stem from these three traditions. Most Asian regions have their own schools of Buddhism, such as Tibetan Buddhism, Burmese Buddhism, etc. One of the better known schools is Zen, a subschool of Mahayana Buddhism that developed in China and Japan, and is now widely practiced even in the West.

Quite significant differences arise among the branches of Buddhism. For example, Theravada Buddhism does not include a belief in a great Absolute that exists before and within every being—in other words, something akin to God and heaven in Western religion. After enlightenment, a being is not immersed in a greater union, but simply ceases to be. However, in the Mahayana school, there is a proposed Absolute—a fundamental state of perfection and unity into which every being is immersed. In fact, that Absolute is always in existence, infused into samsara and tying everything together in a perfect oneness. In the Mahayana school, the Buddha is viewed as a projection of this Absolute, whereas in Theravada Buddhism, he is viewed simply as a wonderful teacher.

Obviously, there are some crucial differences among the types of Buddhism practiced. However, there are also fundamental concepts shared by all Buddhist groups. First, all Buddhists believe that life is suffering, and that liberation is necessary to end that suffering. Second, all groups believe in rebirth and hold that there is karmic law—a law neither brought about nor maintained by a god—that affects these rebirths. Also, all Buddhists believe that this world has no real substance. Nothing in this world is permanent. As a result, there is no transcendent self or soul. Therefore, extinguishing notions of the self is necessary for enlightenment. Overcoming greed, hatred, ignorance, and attachment are the only paths to liberation from suffering. Finally, there is great respect for and confidence in the Buddhas, whether a given school believes them to be human, superhuman, or divine.

THE CONCEPTS OF THE DHARMA

While Siddhattha Gotama did not leave any written documents behind, his followers recorded and compiled his teachings, referred to as the dharma. The dharma is based on Four Noble Truths: life is suffering (dhukka); suffering is the result of ignorance about reality and of attachment, which includes craving, greed, hatred, and other selfish phenomena; suffering can be terminated by conquering ignorance and attachment; and the termination of suffering can be achieved through the Eightfold Way, discussed later. The fact that life is suffering is obvious when the individual encounters illness, pain, anxiety, and death. But Buddhists believe that even what “feels good” continues the cycle of suffering. For example, love leads to desire, attachment, and ultimately loss. And lust is essentially a state of want, which is suffering. True happiness can be found only in the permanent, and nothing to do with this life is permanent.

Buddhism teaches that there is no self, no transcendent soul, for that would suggest something permanent, and therefore something that would warrant attachment. If a being is not attached to anything, nothing can disturb her. She becomes calm and kind, not to earn a pleasant life the next time around, but simply as a result of liberation from the craving and anxiety caused by attachment. It is this kind of nonattachment—this moving away from the delusion that a self interacts with objects, beings, memories, and the like—toward which the Buddhist works.

If a person can overcome ignorance and attachment, which essentially allow the notion of selfhood to be maintained, “she” will no longer exist. There will be no “self” to perpetuate. At that moment, nirvana or nibbana—extinction—takes place. Loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and composure characterize the being who has attained nirvana. Some ancient texts describe nirvana with poetic terms such as bliss, peace, deathlessness, and truth. But the more philosophical descriptions of nirvana explain it in terms of negation. Nirvana is the termination of suffering—the destruction of all elements that keep the being bound by samsara.

As evident in the information above, nirvana is attained while the being is alive. Then the enlightened being simply waits to pass out of the body, never to be reborn again. Once the being has been freed from the body, the state of nirvana is called parinirvana or parinibbana. However, according to Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, some enlightened beings decide to remain in compassionate service to others during this lifetime and even past it, rather than be altogether extinguished. Such beings are called bodhisattvas.

Until nirvana is attained, the being remains in samsara. The type of rebirth that a being experiences is designated by the law of karma, or the law of kamma. This law states that if a being accomplishes largely good deeds in her lifetime, she will be reborn in better conditions, and vice versa. That doesn’t mean that the human is always reborn as a human. There are many realms of existence—gods, humans, spirits, animals, and hell. Some sources site an even lower realm of demons. Humans actually are in the best realm for enlightenment. Why? According to Buddhist teachings, the gods have it so good that they are not likely to see the need for enlightenment; while the spirits, animals, beings of hell, and demons lack the intellectual sophistication to search for and attain it. All of these beings must become human before they can hear the Buddha’s teachings and become liberated.

When rebirth occurs, there is no soul that travels from one body to another. Instead, the concept of rebirth is maintained by conditionism, which means that one birth conditions the next. In his book Buddhism: An Outline of Its Teachings and Schools, Hans Wolfgang Schumann offers a helpful metaphor. During a game of pool, one ball strikes another ball, which then sets another ball in motion, and so on. No material is passed along in this process, but the proceeding movements aren’t random, either. By its force and direction, each ball sets the next one on a specific path. So it is with rebirths. Each one stimulates the next to proceed in a specific manner, but does not transfer any material.

If a being has performed many good deeds, the subsequent rebirth occurs in a more favorable sphere or a more favorable situation. And if a person commits harmful deeds, rebirth occurs at a more disadvantageous level. There is no concept of sin or guilt. There is only a belief that deeds which lead toward liberation—compassionate deeds, for instance—are helpful to the being, while those that lead away from liberation are harmful. It is actually not the deed itself that affects the practitioner, but the intention behind the deed.

Note that any deed performed with intention will affect the cycle of samsara in some way, good or bad. The way to liberation is to act without any intentions, whether harmful to others or helpful to the self—to act compassionately, but without purpose for the self. Once a being masters this system, she is enlightened and attains nirvana. Enlightened beings still perform good deeds, but not to maintain enlightenment. The good deeds of enlightened beings are simply a result of a perfect state that can yield only goodness.

The path to nirvana is a good deal harder than it may seem. For most beings, many rebirths are necessary. Desire, which is inextricably linked to the “I” or the ego, and ignorance keep a being from detaching herself from this world. So how does she get rid of desire and ignorance? The answer lies in the Eightfold Way.

The Eightfold Way is the Buddha’s prescribed path to end suffering. It includes right view, right intention or resolve, right speech, right action or conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness or awareness, and right meditation or concentration. Obviously, for some of the elements of the Eightfold Way, there are varying translations. But the various terms provided imply the same general concepts.

Certain ancient Buddhist texts group these eight elements into three categories. The first two fall under wisdom or comprehension; the next three, under morality or virtue; and the final three, under meditation or concentration, in the large sense of mental discipline. It is this last group with which we now concern ourselves, as we continue with a discussion of meditation. But one point is necessary to make. It is not the Eightfold Way that triggers enlightenment. Enlightenment is gained by shedding ignorance and desire. The Eightfold Way is simply a means to achieve that end. Many people have attained enlightenment without following the Eightfold Way.