Buddhism Comes to China

It is said that when he was born, the world flooded with light.  That the lame walked, the blind saw, that criminals were freed from their chains.  It is said that at the birth of this great prodigy, the fires of hell were quenched and that everyone rejoiced except one; Mara the evil one. 

I was walking past a Bo tree when I saw him.  I would’ve just passed by, but he seemed so deep in meditation.  I had seen people meditate before, but never had I seen someone so immersed and concentrated that I wondered what he was thinking.  Then something extraordinary happened.  A woman appeared and I began to feel uneasy about spying.  She seemed so intent on disrupting his concentration, but he was so deep in concentration he didn’t even acknowledge her.  Then another woman appeared.  They were both extremely beautiful, god-like.  The one seemed to have karma about her.  She seemed so dark, evil.  The other one brought with her three voluptuous women.  They all danced trying to distract the man sitting by the tree.  She said her name was Kama to the other one.  The evil one, said her name was Mara.  Mara began forming hurricanes and I took shelter, but only seemed to affect the man.  He stayed as still as a rock.    Then the hurricanes ceased and turned to flower petals.  She roared one question.  “Who are you to become the Buddha?  What makes you so special to be the enlightened one?”  But her cries were in vain because he just stayed in meditation.  Then it was as though the whole world had altered.  Lotuses bloomed from every tree.  What is now called The Great Awakening had taken place.  The man sitting under the tree had become the Buddha.  Mara the sneered and said, “Why bother?  No one will understand.”  Then, for the first time, the man spoke.  He said simply, “There will be some that will understand.”  Then the woman vanished

It’s said that he wondered for 49 days in rapture.  Buddha found an order of monks and challenged the Brahmin society.  He trained monks, comforted and counseled people.  I ran into him once, when I went back to the Bo Tree.  I asked him, “What are you?”  He then replied, “I am awake.”  I walked away, confused and unsure of what that meant.  Then, something stopped me.  I wasn’t sure what it was.  I turned and asked who he was before he became the Buddha.  He then went on to tell me of his former life.  He was born 563 B.C, Nepal.  His name was Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakyas.  His father, the king of the Sakyas, took him to a fortune teller at his birth.  He had everything in life one could want.  He lived in luxury and high-quality from the day he was born.  The fortune tellers foretold two paths.  If he stayed with the world he would unify India and become a great conqueror.  If he forsook the world he would not become a world conqueror but a world redeemer; a savior.  His father wanted him to be a conquerer as opposed to a savior.  He was given 3 palaces and 40,000 dancing women.  When he went out runners went ahead of him and cleared the roads of ugliness.  But one day, the runners made a mistake.  They passed a man with grayed hair, crooked teeth and wrinkles.  Siddhartha then learned of old age.  Then he saw a body racked with disease and a corpse.  Siddhartha learned of disease and death.  His reality had been so different from those of the rest of the world that he resent his father for trying to hide the world from him.  The fourth thing Siddhartha saw was a monk with a shaven head, ochre robe, and bowl. On this occasion he learned the life of withdrawal from the world.  These sights became known as the four passing sights.  He began to question his way of life.  He asked himself, "Where is the realm of life in which there is neither age nor death?”  When he turned 29 he left his life of luxury in search of enlightenment.  He wondered the forest for 6 years.  He sought out the two foremost Hindu masters and learned a great deal about Raja Yoga.  He joined a group of Ascetics and ate 6 grains of rice a day.  The Buddha came across a revelation; the four noble truths.  The first truth is Dukka, or the conclusion that life is dislocated.  The second was Tanha, or desire.  The third noble truth is overcoming the first two.  The fourth and final noble truth is to follw the eight-fold path.  He died at the age of 80 in the house of Cunda the smith.  The cause of death was dysentery from eating dried boar.  He thanks Cunda because know he could now go to Nirvana.