Buddhism 101

by Arnie Kozak

  INDIA

  Bodh Gaya is, perhaps, the most important of the pilgrimage sites, the place where Siddhartha attained awakening under the pipal tree. This Bodhi Tree (tree of awakening) is believed to be the ancestor of the tree that currently grows in Bodh Gaya next to the great stupa at the Mahabodhi Temple. Cuttings from the original tree have been planted around the Buddhist world and temples erected next to them.

  Ashoka set up the first building in Bodh Gaya in the third century B.C.E. The current Mahabodhi Temple was built in the sixth century on the orders of the Sri Lankan monk, Mahanama. Today, the temple has been restored and is a great icon of Buddhist devotion. For example, in 1985, His Holiness the Dalai Lama came to Bodh Gaya to give the Kalachakra Tantra ceremony. Two hundred and fifty thousand Tibetans descended upon this tiny village to participate in this ritual, many of them in exile and others receiving special permission from the Chinese government to attend.

  Among them were 10,000 Tibetan Buddhist monks and approximately 1,000 Westerners. This was the Kalachakra Tantra’s largest audience to date. The Dalai Lama chose this spot as the most auspicious to offer these teachings, including teachings from Santideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Everyone in attendance took the bodhisattva vows from His Holiness. The place of Siddhartha’s enlightenment is known as the vajrasana (“diamond throne”).

  You can also see a cave where Siddhartha practiced asceticism and the village of Uruvela, where the young Siddhartha broke his fast after attaining enlightenment.

  Sarnath, several miles from Varanasi, is another major pilgrimage site where the Buddha gave his First Sermon in the deer park and started the Dharma Wheel turning. Sites of interest in Sarnath include Ashoka’s Pillar (which used to have the Lion Capital on top of it, but now it resides in the Sarnath Museum), the ruins of the Mulagandhakuti, and the enormous Dharmek Stupa—a tower that dates back to the fifth or sixth century.

  To the east is the modern Mulagandhakuti Vihara, which is said to house the original relics of the Buddha in a silver casket. The casket was recovered from the ruins of the first-century temple. The temple has beautifully painted walls that depict the Buddha’s life story. The Sarnath Museum contains some of the greatest treasures of Indian Buddhist art. There is also an archaeological museum and the remains of a monastery from the third century B.C.E.

  Also of interest in India is Rajgir, the home of Vulture Peak, site of many of the Buddha’s teachings.

  Kushinagara is the site of the Buddha’s death. It is here in the sala grove that he reached paranirvana and passed into death. Places of interest in Kushinagara include the Nirvana Stupa, built over the spot where the Buddha died; the Makutabandhana Stupa, which marks the place of the Buddha’s cremation; and a large stone reclining Buddha, housed in the Nirvana Temple.

  GROWING UP BUDDHIST

  Practicing Buddhism in the Family

  Babies are not born Buddhist. Parents train their children in the dharma, teaching them the skills of meditation and mindfulness, the ethical precepts, moral codes, and rituals. The children will take refuge in the Three Jewels if and when they decide to do so. There is no passing of the religion through the parents to the children, as in some of the other great religions of the world.

  There is no baptism or naming ceremony, no monastic intervention in the birth of the baby whatsoever. Family is very important in Buddhist life but there is no central Buddhist office, church, or higher authority, and Buddhism does not have much to do with family ritual. Families are largely a secular matter and not a matter of monastic relevance. Everything falls to the individual, and each person’s enlightenment is his or her own responsibility. But Buddhism nonetheless infiltrates the daily life and spirit of the Buddhist family as the family practices together.

  How Old Should a Child Be When Starting a Meditation Practice?

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  Young children have trouble sitting still. Forcing them to sit still for long periods of time is probably an exercise in futility or an unnecessary punishment. However, innovative practitioners are finding ways to engage children of all ages in mindfulness practice through music, games, and altering the instructions of an activity, such as focusing on the soles of their feet when they walk. Teens and young adults can do seated practice and many retreats are available for these kids. The Insight Meditation Society and other retreat centers offer family retreats.

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  As Buddhism moved to the West the problem of how to simultaneously maintain a meditation practice and raise a family became a pressing issue. Where could parents find the time to dedicate to their practice if they had young children to care for? As James William Coleman tells us in The New Buddhism, Western Buddhist centers have not done a satisfactory job of providing for children so that their parents can practice. Some have offered limited childcare to encourage parents to practice, but even those are few and far between.

  Parents have come up with creative solutions, such as sharing childcare time with other families who practice. But as Buddhism moves away from monastic focus and laypeople get more involved with Buddhist monasteries and centers, a solution will have to emerge that frees up parents to practice while their children are well cared for.

  RITES OF PASSAGE

  All spiritual traditions have their rites of passages. Buddhism is no exception in this respect, but traditions vary from school to school and country to country.

  In Thailand and Myanmar young men become monks in a rite of passage and live a monastic life for at least three months, while Tibetan children are given a herd of yaks to take care of. In the West, programs are being developed for children as Buddhism comes of age in this part of the world and children become an active part of the Buddhist community.

  WOMEN IN BUDDHISM

  A Slow Acceptance

  Like most of recorded history, the early years of Buddhism report few stories of women. The Buddha’s mother is mentioned, but she died soon after Siddhartha was born. He was then raised by his aunt, his mother’s sister, Prajapati. In fact, it was Prajapati who, after the Buddha’s enlightenment, went to him and asked if women could also join the sangha. She was refused but she persisted, asking a second time, and then a third. But the Buddha was unmovable and denied his good aunt’s request.

  Prajapati cut off her hair and donned the yellow robes of the mendicant monks. She followed the Buddha and pleaded with him to allow women to become members of the sangha.

  The Story of Two Monks

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  There is the traditional story of two monks who are walking down the road. They come to a small stream and there is a frail woman waiting at the water’s edge. One monk offers to carry the woman across the water, and he does so and puts her down on the other side of the stream. The monks walk on for miles and the other monk says, “I can’t believe you touched that woman; it is forbidden.” The monk laughed and said, “I put her down miles ago. Why are you still carrying her?”

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  It wasn’t until Ananda interfered on Prajapati’s behalf that the Buddha finally relented. The Buddha believed women were equal to men with regards to the ability to attain enlightenment, but practical matters, such as not offending the sangha’s wealthy patrons, kept him from agreeing that it was a good idea to allow women into the community. However, he did finally say yes, and women were subsequently permitted to give up their worldly lives and enter as members of the sangha. Five hundred women joined Prajapati, including Yasodhara, the Buddha’s abandoned wife. However, the women were given eight rules they had to follow that separated them from the monks and made them subordinate to their male counterparts. Buddhist monks and nuns are segregated in Asia and are discouraged from having physical contact.

  The Mahayana texts support the Buddha’s statement that men and women were equally equipped for enlightenment, and most traditions in Buddhism have included nuns (bhikkunis). But Buddhist literature portrays the difficulties the men had with accepting the women as part of monastic lif
e. Women were portrayed as seductresses and unclean creatures—most likely due to men’s unfulfilled sexual drives and their inability to stave off lust and desire.

  Indeed, women struggled in Buddhism as they have struggled in most other religions. For many years, and in many traditions in Buddhist history, women were proclaimed to be equal in theory but were in fact subordinate in practice. For example, in 1979, Irish-American Maura “Soshin” O’Halloran wrote home to America to tell her family that she was the first woman ever admitted to Toshoji Temple in Japan.

  In the West today a great percentage of the teachers of Buddhism are women. Teachers such as Pema Chödrön, Tara Brach, Charlotte Joko Beck, Sharon Salzberg, Silvia Boorstein, Joanna Macy, Narayan Liebenson, Grace Schireson, and many others have strengthened the dharma with their wise teaching.

  In Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens and Macho Masters, Grace Schireson tells the untold story of women in Zen. The unfortunate truth is that the history of Buddhism is not one of gender equality. While the Buddha did finally relent after persistent pressure from his aunt Prajapati to admit women into the sangha against the norms of the time, admittance has not translated to equivalence of opportunity. She tells the story of a male Zen master who responded to a female student’s question, “How many women teachers were at the conference (a North American Zen conference)?” The Zen master replied, “We were all women.” His answer speaks to the unity of all things and the apparent lack of need to worry about gender discrepancies. We are all women; we are all men.

  But this begs the question of why we have only the male version of Oneness. Empowered by writing about the forgotten histories of women in Zen, Grace now had a reply to this Zen master, “How many of you women used the ladies room at the Zen conference?”

  In Zen Women, Grace has “moved beyond the question of why and how female Zen ancestors had been erased from Zen history. I have sought to identify these erased women and put them back in the Zen practice I loved.”

  Here is one precious example from Zen Women. “One morning an old lady experienced kensho (Zen awakening) while cleaning up after breakfast. She rushed over and announced to Hakuin (the famous eighteenth-century Zen master), ‘Amida has engulfed my body! The universe radiates! How truly marvelous!’ ‘Nonsense!’ Hakuin retorted. ‘Does it shine up your asshole?’ The tiny lady gave Hakuin a shove and shouted, ‘What do you know about enlightenment?’ They both roared with laughter.”

  BUDDHIST ART

  From Temples to Statues

  Religions have inspired much of the world’s great art, such as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and the Taj Mahal. Buddhism has also inspired beautiful and ambitious artwork, from the ephemeral to the enduring. These art forms include painting and sculpture-chocked caves, architecture, thangkas, mandalas, statuary, calligraphy, and contemporary art. Buddhist art is some of the most distinctive and recognizable art in the world.

  ARCHITECTURE

  The beginning of Buddhist architecture can be traced back to King Ashoka in the third century B.C.E. Ashoka built great stupas and pillars in tribute to the Buddha. Two of the most famous pillars are the ones at Sarnath that used to house the Lion Capital (the Buddha was known as “Lion of the Shakyas”) and the one in the Lumbini Garden. There are more incredible works of Buddhist architecture than can be listed here, but some of the more outstanding ones deserve special mention.

  Stupas

  The Buddha died somewhere between 483 and 400 B.C.E. and his remains were quickly taken for custodial protection by King Ajatasattu of Magadha, India. According to legend, the king divided the cremated remains into eight portions and gave each portion to one of eight different kings to protect and cherish. Each king was directed to build a stupa to house the remains, and these stupas were erected all over India and present-day Nepal.

  Relics

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  When the Buddha was cremated, rulers from various kingdoms came quickly to reclaim the relics of his body. Arguments ensued but a Brahmin named Dona was quick to quell the disagreement. His clever speech convinced the kings to divide the relics between them and build stupas to honor the holy Buddha.

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  King Ashoka was thought to have opened up seven of the eight stupas and relocated the relics of the Buddha to structures that he had subsequently built. The Hill of Sanchi, one of the most well-known Buddhist stupas, is one of Ashoka’s most famous creations.

  The Hill of Sanchi is a group of Buddhist monuments. The foundation was laid by Ashoka but was later damaged, rebuilt, and added to over the centuries. When two of the stupas on the Hill of Sanchi were excavated in the nineteenth century several of the relic caskets were recovered. Today, relics of the Buddha are scattered and appear in China, Burma, Sri Lanka, India, and elsewhere—fingerbones, teeth, hair, and bone have all been preserved. Three stupas at Sanchi have been recovered.

  Another of the greatest works of architecture in Buddhist history is the Borobudur Temple, a stone work of wonder standing in Java, Indonesia. The size of the temple is awe-inspiring, and is made from nearly 200,000 square feet of lava rock. The temple is composed of six rectangular terraces. The top of the structure contains three more circular terraces and a spire stupa forms the top. The temple is thought to have been the Buddhist cultural center in the seventh and eighth centuries.

  The Borobudur Temple is a massive structure overlooking the misty mountains and green valleys of Java. The whole structure is in the form of a lotus, a symbol of Buddhism. It also represents the Buddhist cosmos, with realms of desire, form, and formlessness depicted from bottom to top. The lowest level of the structure features 160 carved panels illustrating the joys and horrors of life in the Realm of Desire. There are more than 1,400 scenes in all from top to bottom, with ninety-two Buddha statues for each direction. The structure is a marvel of devotion and endurance. Borobudur has been used for devotional practice for centuries—you can walk around the terraces while meditating, walking clockwise until you reach the top.

  The Cave Temples of Ajanta

  In western India you can find the cave temples of Ajanta. These “caves” are actually manmade structures carved out of living rock. Hsüan-tsang, the famous Chinese Buddhist pilgrim who traveled in India for sixteen years, first wrote about the Ajanta caves in the eighth century C.E. The caves were originally used as dwellings and meeting houses for Buddhists. Frescoes decorate the cave walls. There are approximately thirty such temple caves, some created as early as 200 B.C.E., and some as late as the seventh century. It is not known who painted the brilliantly depicted scenes from both the Buddha’s life and from the Jataka tales, but they are colorful and larger than life. The caves were rediscovered by the British in 1817.

  The Magao Caves of Dunhuang

  One of the greatest repositories of Buddhist art is found in China amidst the Magao Caves. There are 800 caves, built between the fourth and fourteenth centuries C.E., of which 492 are decorated with murals and statuary. The start of the cave creation is attributed to a Buddhist monk named Yuezun who, in 366 C.E., responded to a vision of a thousand Buddhas by carving a small meditation cell in the rock. Others followed and the practice became more and more ambitious. Emperors would outdo their predecessors with magnificent projects.

  It is estimated that the murals cover a half-million feet of wall space. And as for sculptures, there are more than 2,000 of them (reduced from tens of thousands due to plundering).

  The Oldest Book

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  The oldest printed book was found in cave seventeen at Magao. It is a copy of the Diamond Sutra and was printed with woodblock on a sixteen-foot scroll in 868 C.E., nearly 600 years before the Guttenberg Bible. You can visit the scroll at the British Library in London.

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  These magnificent caves on the Silk Road reflect the great influence that Buddhism had on China, more so than any of the religions that have appeared in China. A recent National Geographic article on the caves describes them in this way. “W
ithin the caves, the monochrome and lifelessness of the desert gave way to an exuberance of color and movement. Thousands of Buddhas in every hue radiated across the grotto wall, their robes glinting with imported gold.”

  The caves employ a staff of 500 and receive a half-million visitors each year. The caves have survived centuries of sandstorms, plundering archeologists, and the Cultural Revolution. It’s biggest threat today is the moist breath of its multitude of tourists.

  BUDDHIST STATUARY AND IMAGES

  The image of the Buddha is familiar worldwide. The first images of the Buddha appeared during the reign of King Kanishka in the first century and were greatly influenced by the Hellenic art coming out of Central Asia. The Buddha image conveys serenity and calm. The proportions of the Buddha are always ideal. Though there is some variation in measurement and scale from school to school and country to country, most Buddha images have the following characteristics: