Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha

by Jack Kerouac

  “To slaughter the gentle lamblike beast that fills your pail with milk, for to eat of its suffering flesh, is evil and sin, foolish the hand that holds the knife in the general emptiness, bound to haunt the butcher to his sop’s successive graves; but O my bhikshus, brothers, how much more evil, more sin still, to take the kindly ox and other beasts, hapless are their eyes, and swill them in drunken hacking bloodbath sacrifice for the sake of gaining one’s own rebirth yet again in heavens of self and pain.

  “Whatever a man sacrifice in this world as an offering or as an obligation for a whole year in order to gain merit, the whole of it is not worth a quarter of a centavo.

  “All creatures tremble at punishment, all creatures love life; remember that thou art like unto them, and do not kill, nor cause slaughter.

  “He, seeking his own happiness, that punishes or kills creatures who also long for happiness, will not find happiness after death.

  “A man is not religious because he injures living creatures; because he has pity on all living creatures, therefore is a man called religious.

  “In seeking to escape from suffering ourselves, why should we inflict it upon others?

  “Unless you can so control your minds that even the thought of brutal unkindness and killing is abhorrent, you will never be able to escape from the bondage of suffering.

  “Pure and earnest monks and Wise Beings, when walking a narrow path, will never so much as tread on the growing grass beside the path.

  “It is only such true and sincere bhikshus who have repaid their Karmic debts of previous lives, who will attain true emancipation, and who will no more be bound to wander to this triple world of sense, contact, and suffering.

  “How can a religious man, who hopes to become a deliverer of others, himself be living or gaining afterlife on the flesh of other sentient beings?

  “So all dedicated men must be careful to live in all sincerity, refraining from even the appearance of unkindness to other life.”

  Hearing of these words, learning that the Buddha regarded sacrifice as so much rueful butchery, the King returned, came into the presence of the Holy One, and after exchanging greetings with him and compliments of friendship and courtesy, sat down at one side. So seated he said to the Holy One:

  “Does Master Gotama also make no claim to be perfectly and supremely enlightened?”

  “If there be anyone, sire, to whom such enlightenment might rightly be attributed, it is I. I verily, sire, am perfectly and supremely enlightened.”

  “But Master Gotama, there are recluses and Brahmins who also, like yourself, have each their order of disciples, their attendant followers, who are teachers of disciples, well-known and reputed theorizers, highly esteemed by the people. Now they, when I’ve asked this same question of them, have not laid claim to perfect and supreme enlightenment. How can this be? For Master Gotama is young in years, and is a novice in the life of religion.”

  “There are four young creatures who are not to be disregarded or despised because they are youthful,” replied the Buddha. “What are the four?

  “A noble prince.

  “A snake.

  “A fire.

  “A monk.

  “Yea, sire, these four young creatures are not to be disregarded or despised because they are youthful.”

  When these things had been said, King Prasenajit spoke thus to the Exalted One: “Most excellent, Lord, most excellent! Just as if a man were to set up that which has been thrown down, or were to reveal that which is hidden away, or were to point out the right road to him who has gotten lost, or were to bring a lamp into the darkness, so that those who have eyes could see external forms—even so, Lord, has the truth been made known to me in many a figure by the Exalted One. I, even I, Lord, betake myself to the Exalted One as my refuge to the Established Law and to the Order. May the Exalted One accept me as a follower, as one who from this day and forth as long as life endures has taken his refuge therein.”

  And this King kept his word, and aged with the Buddha himself throughout the rest of their natural lives.

  The manner in which the Enlightened One ordinarily spent each day was very simple. Rising at dawn he would wash and dress himself without assistance. He would then meditate in solitude till it was time to go on his round for the daily meal without which he could not go on living and practicing the Dharma. When the time arrived, dressing himself suitably, with his bowl in his hand, alone or attended by some disciples, he would visit the neighboring town or village. After finishing his meal in some house, he would discourse on the Dharma to the host and his family with due regard to their capacity for spiritual enlightenment, return to his seating-mat or depending on the rainy season his lodgings and wait till all his followers had finished their meal. He would discourse to the monks and suggest subjects for thought or give them exercises in meditation suited to their attainments or else finally remind them that the stopping of all thoughts and all conceptions, the curing the mind of thoughts and of the very thought of thoughts, is the practice that leads to Nirvana. They would then leave him, going off each to his own favorite spot to meditate. During the heat of the Indian day he would lie down and take a short rest, lying down on his right side in the lion posture with knee on knee and head on hand, in the traditional posture he recommended for sleep and for which reason he was sometimes called The Lion of the Sakyas; but in this midday repose he would not sleep, nor practice a systematic meditation, rather he would simply rest and ponder rest.

  In the afternoon he would meet the folks from the neighboring villages or towns assembled in the lecture-hall, or in the shady grove of trees, take pity on them and advise and discourse to them according to their individual needs and thought-capacities. In this connection, for instance, when the woman Visakha sat on one side crying during one of these gatherings, because she could not bear the loss of her granddaughter who’d just died, the Blessed One asked her how many men were living in Sravasti.

  “Lord, men say there are seven times ten millions.”

  “If all these were like thy granddaughter, wouldst thou not love them?”

  “Verily, Lord.”

  “And how many die daily in Sravasti?”

  “Many, Lord.”

  “Then there is never a moment when thou wouldst not be grieving for someone!”

  “True, Master.”

  “Wouldst thou then spend thy life weeping day and night?”

  “I understand, Lord; it is well said!”

  “Grieve then no more.”

  At the close of the day, after refreshing himself with a bath when necessary, the Buddha would explain difficulties to expound the doctrine to some of his disciples, showing them the psychological techniques suitable for making all kinds of people with all their differently hindered, wounded mentalities understand the single vehicle of the Law as made multifariously manifest. “Buddhas while manifesting skillfulness display various vehicles through, at the same time indicating the single Buddha-vehicle, the supreme place of blessed rest.

  “Acquainted as they are with the conduct of all mortals, with their peculiar dispositions and previous actions, the Buddhas, using different means to rouse each according to his own character, impart their lights to them.

  “Such is the might of their knowledge.”

  Thus spending the first watch of the night in teaching and sometimes in discourse with other monks on the occasions when he would walk into their midst from the outer night demanding “What are you talking about now, O monks, what has risen to trouble you now, O monks?” he would spend the rest of the evening pacing up and down in front of his spot or his open verandah, meditating, shadowed by Ananda who paced ever behind him.

  “If a man hold himself dear, let him watch himself carefully; during one at least out of the three watches a wise man should be watchful.”

  Then he would sleep.

  “Sitting alone, lying down alone, walking alone without ceasing, and alone subduing himself, let a man be happy near the e
dge of a forest,” is the saying in the Dhammapada, the Footsteps of the Law.

  “Well-makers lead the water wherever they like; fletchers bend the arrow; carpenters bend a log of wood, good people fashion themselves.”

  —DHAMMAPADA

  One day Ananda asked the Blessed One for advice about how to comport oneself in the presence of women.

  “Avoid them altogether, Ananda.”

  “But supposing they approach us, Blessed Lord?”

  “Speak not to them, Ananda.”

  “But supposing they ask us a question, Blessed Lord?”

  “Then keep wide awake, Ananda.”

  And the Holy One said: “When, however, you must speak to women, consider them, if they are aged, as mothers, and if they are young, treat them as sisters.”

  It came to pass that a certain Lady Amra, a beautiful courtesan who had received great sums of money from wealthy merchants of Vaisali, conceived in her mind the idea of offering her stately mansion and mango grove to the Master and the Brotherhood. She was graceful, pleasant, gifted with the complexion of a young rose, well-versed in dancing, singing and lute-playing; now, despite her possession of these highest feminine prizes, she wished to offer her life to the religious law. She sent a message to the Blessed One offering the mansion and the gardens for the convenience of his followers, and he accepted graciously.

  Seated in the mango grove one day, he received another message from the Lady Amra requesting an audience, to which he acceded.

  “This woman,” he told the assembled followers as she was seen coming down the garden with her servants, “is indeed exceedingly beautiful, able to fascinate the minds of the religious; now then, keep your recollection straight! Let wisdom keep your mind in subjection!

  “Better to fall into the fierce tiger’s mouth, or under the sharp knife of the executioner, than to dwell with a woman and excite in yourselves lustful thoughts, and thus become entangled in her net of plans, which is birth, the trap for death.

  “A woman is anxious to exhibit her form and shape, whether walking, standing, sitting, or sleeping.

  “Men being men are not free from their offices of lust, action bestowed by the Karma of previous cupidities and concupiscent thoughts; women being women are the innocent vessels of human rebirth incarnadined and personified, man’s own flesh-handful of lust; mutually attracted, mutually victimized by their Karmas, mutually made and then removed by their Karmas, with no ‘I’ to say Nay in the matter, men and women roll the wheel of death along for the sake of frottings, pride, and happiness.

  “But what kind of happiness is this, straining in the emptiness to gratify the ungratifyable senses! There is no gratifying, no appeasing the wild heart! Your loins be rent and there is no gratifying it.

  “The cup of life is a bottomless horror, like drinking and drinking in a dream to slake a thirst beyond reason and unreal.

  “Look at the empty sky!—how may he grab greedy fistfuls of it, cupiditous man? How may he hack and kill the unkillable, that benumbed and haunted dreamer?

  “All is empty everywhere forever, wake up! The mind is fool and limited, to take these senses, petty thwartings in a dream, as reality; as if the deeps of the ocean were moved by the wind that ripples the waves. And that wind is ignorance.

  “A woman wants to give rebirth, it is in her Karma to be afraid of being barren and alone, yet the world has no more reality than if you were to say, ‘It is a barren woman’s child.’

  “Even when represented as a picture, a woman desires most of all to set off the blandishments of her beauty, and thus to rob men of their steadfast heart.

  “How then ought you to guard yourselves? By regarding her tears and her smiles as enemies, her stooping form, her hanging arms, and all her disentangled hair as toils designed to entrap man’s heart.

  “Then how much more should you suspect her studied, amorous beauty; when she displays her dainty outline, her richly ornamented form, and chatters gayly with the foolish man!

  “Ah, then, what perturbation and what evil thoughts, not seeing underneath the horrid, tainted shape, the sorrows of impermanence, the impurity, the unreality!

  “Considering these as the reality, all lustful thoughts die out.

  “Rightly considering these, within their several limits, not even a heavenly nymph would give you joy.

  “But yet the power of lust is great with men, and is to be feared withal, take then the bow of earnest perseverance, and the sharp arrow points of wisdom, cover your head with the helmet of right-thought, and fight with fixed resolve against the five desires.

  “Better far with red-hot iron pins bore out both your eyes, than encourage in yourselves lustful thoughts, or look upon a woman’s form with such desires.

  “Lust beclouding a man’s heart, confused with woman’s beauty because of the maleness in his Karma, his mind is dazed; and at the end of his life, having demeaned himself with women for a few sexual feelings, evilly involved in the snare of mutual agreement which is her chief delight, that man must fall into an evil way.

  “His life spent in house and home, a hole-and-corner life at best, he comes to senility jabbering multitudes of runes, religious in regret.

  “Fear then the sorrow of that evil way! Fear then, and harbor not the deceits of the women!

  “Let no holy man be cause of further rebirth; for as twelve equals a dozen so birth equals death.

  “Refrain from looking at her form; straighten out your thoughts.

  “Suppose that there is a maiden of the warrior or of the brahmin or of the householder class, in all the charm of her fifteen or sixteen summers; not too tall, not too short, not too slim, not too stout, not too dark, not too fair—is she not at this period at her very loveliest in form and feature? Whatsoever pleasure and satisfaction arises at the sight of this beauty and loveliness—that is of the delights of form.

  “Suppose that, after a time, one sees this same innocent sister when she is eighty or ninety or a hundred years old, broken-down, crooked as a rooftree rafter, bowed, tottering along leaning on a stave, wasted, withered, all wrinkled and blotched, with broken teeth, grey hair, trembling head. What think you, monks? That former loveliness of form and feature—has it not disappeared and given place to wretchedness?

  “Again, should one see this sister, sick, suffering, sore afflicted, lying fouled in her own filth, lifted up by others, tended by others—what think you, monks? Is not that which aforetime was beauty and loveliness wholly departed and in its place, wretchedness?

  “Again, should one see this sister after the body has been lying at the burial place one, two, or three days, bloated, discolored, putrefying, picked at by crows and hawks, and vultures, gnawed by dogs and jackals, and all manner of crawling things. Or should one see the body, when it is a mere blood-bespattered skeleton, hung with rags of flesh, or when the bones are all scattered this way and that; or when, white as a sea shell, they are flung together in a heap, or when, after the lapse of a year, they are all weathered away to dust.

  “What think you, monks?

  “All that grace and beauty which was aforetime—is it not wholly fled, and in its place, wretchedness?

  “But this is the wretchedness of form.”

  The Lady Amra, clothed to fit the occasion so that her charm was not set off to excite, but simply covered, her thoughts at rest, suffered there to be made offerings of food and refreshment to the Blessed One and his retinue of tranquil men.

  The Buddha addressed her. “Your heart, O lady! seems composed and quiet, your form without external ornaments; young in years and rich, you seem well-talented as you are beautiful.

  “That one, so gifted, should by faith be able to receive the law of righteousness is, indeed, a rare thing in the world.

  “The wisdom of a master derived from former births, enables him to accept the law with joy; this is not rare. But that a woman, weak of will, scant in wisdom, deeply immersed in love, should yet be able to delight in piety, this, indeed, is v
ery rare.

  “A man born in the world, by proper thought comes to delight in the solitude of goodness, he recognizes the impermanence of wealth and beauty, and looks upon religion as his best ornament.

  “He feels that this alone can remedy the ills of life and change the fate of young and old; the evil destiny that cramps another’s life cannot affect him, living righteously.

  “Relying on external help, he has sorrow; self-reliant, there is strength and joy.

  “But in the case of woman, from another comes the labor, and the nurture of another’s child. Thus then should everyone consider well, and loathe and put away the form of woman.”

  Lady Amra replied:- “Oh! may the lord, in deep compassion, receive from me, though ignorant, this offering, and so fulfill my earnest vow.” And she joined the Sisterhood of Bhikshunis.

  From Vaisali the Blessed One went to Sravasti.

  It was there in the Jetavana Meditation Hall that the Buddha delivered a discourse to twelve hundred Great Disciples which became known as the Surangama Sutra. It was a high teaching that solved many mental puzzles and succeeded in ridding the greatly intelligent monks of the troublesome doubts which they occasionally experienced in their meditations. Upon hearing this Great Sutra which the Blessed One interpreted with great care, many novice disciples became fully accomplished saints and entered immediately into the Ocean Of Omniscience, for it was the perfect teaching of the practices and attainments of the Tathagata’s Secret Path.