The Buddha's Life

After his attainment of buddhahood, the Buddha Śākyamuni is present in many locations simultaneously. The Ten Bhūmis takes place two weeks after his enlightenment, while he is sitting silently in meditation in the central palace in the highest paradise of the desire realm. Countless bodhisattvas have assembled there. Through the power of the Buddha, the bodhisattva Vajra­garbha enters samādhi and is blessed by countless buddhas, also named Vajra­garbha, to give a Dharma teaching to the bodhisattvas. In response to the questions of the bodhisattva Vimukti­candra, Vajra­garbha describes successively the ten bhūmis of a bodhisattva. Countless bodhisattvas arrive and report that this same event is occurring simultaneously in the highest paradises of all other worlds. The Buddha is pleased by Vajra­garbha’s teaching.

In this sūtra, the narrative largely revolves around the figures of Vajrapāṇi, the yakṣa lord and constant companion of the Buddha, and the Buddha himself. In the first half of the sūtra, Vajrapāṇi gives a series of teachings on the mysteries or secrets of the body, speech, and mind of bodhisattvas and the realized ones. In the second half of the sūtra, Vajrapāṇi describes several events in the Buddha’s life: his practice of severe asceticism, his approach to the seat of awakening, his defeat of Māra, his awakening, and his turning of the wheel of Dharma. Following this, the Buddha gives a prediction of Vajrapāṇi’s future awakening as a buddha and travels to Vajrapāṇi’s abode for a meal. Interspersed throughout the sūtra are sermons, dialogues, and marvelous tales exploring a large number of topics and featuring an extensive cast of characters, including several narratives about past lives of Vajrapāṇi, Brahmā Sahāṃpati, and the Buddha himself. The sūtra concludes with the performance of two long dhāraṇīs, one by Vajrapāṇi and one by the Buddha, for the protection and preservation of the Dharma.

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Manipulated into a murderous rage by the jealous Queen Anupamā, King Udayana launches a barrage of arrows at Queen Śyāmāvatī. King Udayana is terrified when Queen Śyāmāvatī pays homage to the Buddha, cultivates loving kindness, and the arrows are repelled. Awestruck by such a spectacle and inspired by Queen Śyāmāvatī’s words of praise for the Buddha, King Udayana approaches the Buddha and requests a teaching on the inadequacies of women. The Buddha tells King Udayana that he must first understand his own faults and proceeds to deliver a discourse on the four faults of men, such as attachment to sense pleasures and failure to take care of elderly parents. The teaching is delivered with a plethora of analogies and striking imagery to turn the mind away from sensual desires. The work concludes with King Udayana giving up his weapons and going for refuge in the Three Jewels, filled with love for all beings.

In The Question of Maitreya, the bodhisattva Maitreya asks the Buddha what qualities a bodhisattva needs to attain enlightenment quickly. The Buddha outlines several sets of qualities, foremost among them the altruistic intention of perfect bodhicitta. The Buddha then recounts to Ānanda how, in a former life, Maitreya revered a previous Buddha and, wishing to become just like him, at once realized that all phenomena are unproduced. Ānanda asks why Maitreya did not become a buddha sooner, and in answer the Buddha compares Maitreya’s bodhisattva career with his own, listing further sets of qualities that differentiate them and recounting examples of the hardships he himself faced in previous lives. Maitreya, on the other hand, has followed the easy bodhisattva vehicle using its skillful means, such as the seven branch practice and the training in the six perfections; the aspirations he thus made are set out in the famous “Prayer of Maitreya” for which this sūtra is perhaps best known. The Buddha declares that Maitreya will become enlightened when sentient beings have fewer negative emotions, in contrast to the ignorant and turbulent beings he himself vowed to help.

While resting in a park outside the city of Vaiśālī, the Buddha is approached by the bodhisattva Prāmodyarāja, who requests meditation instruction. The Buddha proceeds to give a teaching on a meditative absorption called elucidating the way of all phenomena and subsequently delivers an elaborate discourse on the six perfections. Prāmodyarāja then learns that all the future buddhas of the Good Eon are now present in the Blessed One’s audience of bodhisattvas. Responding to Prāmodyarāja’s request to reveal the names under which these present bodhisattvas will be known as buddhas in the future, the Buddha first lists these names, and then goes on to describe the circumstances surrounding their birth, awakening, and teaching in the world. In the sūtra’s final section, we learn how each of these great bodhisattvas who are on the path to buddhahood first developed the mind of awakening.

The Buddha Śākyamuni recounts one of his most significant previous lives, when he was a court priest to a king and made a detailed prayer to become a buddha, also causing the king and his princes, his own sons and disciples, and others to make their own prayers to become buddhas too. This is revealed to be not only the major event that is the origin of buddhas and bodhisattvas such as Amitābha, Akṣobhya, Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī, and the thousand buddhas of our eon, but also the source and reason for Śākyamuni’s unsurpassed activity as a buddha.The “white lotus of compassion” in the title of this sūtra refers to Śākyamuni himself, emphasizing his superiority over all other buddhas, like a fragrant, healing white lotus among a bed of ordinary flowers. Śākyamuni chose to be reborn in an impure realm during a degenerate age, and therefore his compassion was greater than that of other buddhas.

The Four Boys’ Absorption narrates the Buddha Śākyamuni’s passing away (or parinirvāṇa) in the Yamakaśāla Grove near Kuśinagara. Ānanda has a portentous dream that is confirmed by the Buddha to be an indication that he will soon die. Widespread panic spreads through the various realms of this world system, and as gods and other beings converge on the forest grove near Kuśinagara, tragic scenes of mourning ensue. Then, when the Buddha lies down, the narrative suddenly shifts to recount how four bodhisattvas from distant buddha fields in the four directions are reborn as four infants in prominent households in the major cities of the Gangetic Plain, announce their intention to see the Buddha Śākyamuni, and with expansive entourages proceed to the forest grove in the country of the Mallas where the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa will take place. Their appearance is marked by various miracles, whereupon the Buddha explains their arrival and consoles his grieving followers with teachings on the limitless numbers of buddhas. He confers responsibility on his attendant Ānanda and his son Rāhula, and then manifests a variety of spectacular miracles. Toward the end of the sūtra, while still appearing to lie upon the lion couch, the Buddha visits the various hells and some god realms, where he sets countless beings on the path to awakening. The text culminates in his final passing.

The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī is one of the core texts of the Mahāsannipāta collection of Mahāyāna sūtras that dates back to the formative period of Mahāyāna Buddhism, from the first to the third century ce. Its rich and varied narratives, probably redacted from at least two independent works, recount significant events from the lives, past and present, of the Buddha Śākyamuni and some of his main followers and opponents, both human and nonhuman. At the center of these narratives is the climactic episode from the Buddha’s life when Māra, the personification of spiritual death, sets out to destroy the Buddha and his Dharma. The mythic confrontation between these paragons of light and darkness, and the Buddha’s eventual victory, are related in vivid detail. The main narratives are interwoven with Dharma instructions and interspersed with miraculous events. The text also exemplifies two distinctive sūtra genres, “prophecies” (vyākaraṇa) and “incantations” (dhāraṇī), as it includes, respectively, prophecies of the future attainment of buddhahood by some of the Buddha’s followers and the potent phrases that embody the Buddha’s teachings and are meant to ensure their survival and the thriving of its practitioners.

Discerning that the time is right to train King Bimbisāra, the Buddha Śākyamuni goes to Magadha, along with his entourage. The king is hostile at first but when his attack on the Buddha is thwarted and a verse on impermanence is heard, he becomes respectful. In the discourse that ensues, the Buddha tells the king that it is good to be disillusioned with the world because saṃsāra is impermanence and suffering. He then elaborates with a teaching on impermanence followed by a teaching on suffering. When the king asks where, if saṃsāra is so full of suffering, well-being is to be found, the Buddha responds with a short exposition on nirvāṇa as the cessation of all suffering and the cause for supreme happiness. Moved by his words, the king decides that he will renounce worldly concerns and seek nirvāṇa. The Buddha praises the king and concludes the teaching with the potent refrain, “When one is attached, that is saṃsāra. When one is not attached, that is nirvāṇa.”

Discussions of Thus-Gone Ones begins in the Jeta Grove as the Buddha Śākyamuni emerges from a three-month-long meditative absorption. It is revealed that while he was absorbed in this meditative state, he was actually having conversations with many other buddhas across many worlds, discussing the essential nature of all phenomena. The bulk of the text, then, consists of the Buddha Śākyamuni relaying these conversations and responding to the questions of various audience members. From these exchanges we learn that all things, ranging from ordinary flowers up to the awakening of the buddhas themselves, share a nonconceptual, ineffable basis.

In this sūtra, the Buddha Śākyamuni, accompanied by Ānanda, visits the house of Nanda during his stay in Banyan Grove near Kapilavastu. A discourse ensues in which the Buddha explains to Nanda the importance and benefits of going forth as a monk. Nanda expresses hesitation about going forth, so the Buddha explains by means of analogies how fortunate Nanda is to have obtained an auspicious human birth, to have met the Buddha, and to have the opportunity to become a monk. Nanda is deeply impressed by the Buddha’s teaching and decides to renounce worldly life and go forth.

The Sūtra of the Wheel of Dharma contains the Buddha’s teaching to his five former spiritual companions on the four truths that he had discovered as part of his awakening: (1) suffering, (2) the origin of suffering, (3) the cessation of suffering, and (4) the path leading to the cessation of suffering. According to all the Buddhist traditions, this is the first teaching the Buddha gave to explain his awakened insight to others.

The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden Light has held great importance in Buddhism for its instructions on the purification of karma. In particular, much of the sūtra is specifically addressed to monarchs and thus has been significant for rulers—not only in India but also in China, Japan, Mongolia, and elsewhere—who wished to ensure the well-being of their nations through such purification. Reciting and internalizing this sūtra is understood to be efficacious for personal purification and also for the welfare of a state and the world. In this sūtra, the bodhisattva Ruciraketu has a dream in which a prayer of confession emanates from a shining golden drum. He relates the prayer to the Buddha, and a number of deities then vow to protect it and its adherents. The ruler’s devotion to the sūtra is emphasized as important if the nation is to benefit. Toward the end of the sūtra are two well-known narratives of the Buddha’s previous lives: the account of the physician Jalavāhana, who saves and blesses numerous fish, and that of Prince Mahāsattva, who gives his body to a hungry tigress and her cubs. This is the longest version of The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden Light preserved in the Kangyur. It comprises thirty-one chapters and was translated into Tibetan primarily from Yijing’s Chinese translation in the early ninth century.