In my dictionary I find the information that Buddha was an Indian religious founder, so you might get the impression that Buddha taught a faith and founded a religion. In fact, men like Buddha, Confucius and Laozi were seekers of truth and people with big hearts. None of them taught a god or even demanded faith. As Jean-Michel Varenne says in his book 'Zen', “Buddhism is a religion without a god. Gautama's quest is thoroughly human. It is not based on any divine mission or prophecy. Its message of liberation is not based on a transcendental authority, but addresses people in the here and now. The Buddhist quest is rooted in ordinary life, without reference to some supernatural paradisiacal state.”
I did not find the word faith in any of his sayings, but I did find words like seeking and knowing again and again. Buddha was consumed by a desire for truth, for an explanation of the mysteries of life and for liberation from the wheel of earthly existence to which he felt himself and his fellow human beings were chained.
Many centuries before Christ, the Aryan immigrants to India developed a caste system, possibly to distinguish themselves from the dark-skinned indigenous population. At that time there were four castes: warriors, priests (Brahmins), farmers and non-Aryans. They passed on their knowledge in an elevated, poetic language called Sanskrit. The Aryans called this sacred knowledge the 'Vedas'. The religion of the Vedas slowly evolved into Brahmanism or Hinduism.
The diversity of life in his country teaches the Hindu that not all beings are equal from birth. An endless ladder of existence rises from the lowest to the highest, from warriors to kings to saints to priests, and ends, after climbing a thousand steps, in the tower of the gods. The more people strive for the highest purity in thought, word and deed in their lives, the closer they are to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Law of the Universe, by which every being must abide, is the highest standard of natural and morally refined living, appropriate to a creature's level of existence. This law is called Dharma.
For this reason, every class of people has its own specific customs, do's and don'ts, governed by religious precepts. Nothing is left to chance, everything is laid down in rules, but the basis of all customs is purely and simply religion. That is why Hindus consider all their customs inviolable; because they are deeply religious.
Towards the end of the period of conquest and migration, the third class, that of the rural common freemen, the Vaishyas, the farmers and artisans, had emerged alongside the clearly superior classes of the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas, the noble warriors. The people are divided into castes, each of which has its own specific role to play in the Dharma. The mass of the downtrodden live in the three main castes, with a fourth, despised and 'impure' stratum, the Shudras, later also called pariahs.
Since the Brahmanical view is that Dharma is a natural law established by the gods, there is no breaking out of this order. Over the centuries, through local subdivisions, inter-caste mixing, division of labour and further splits, the four fields of the castes gradually grew into a tangled undergrowth of numerous sub-castes; but the social division - especially the gulf between the foreign-blooded Dravidians - remained. There is no bridge between the immigrants and the indigenous population. Marriage is forbidden; even eating together is not allowed. If the shadow of a pariah falls on an Aryan farmer's food simmering in the pot, the farmer removes the pot and gives the food to the animals.
The members of higher castes come closer to believing in a single God, while the common people believe in innumerable gods and demons. For members of the higher castes, all beings - animals, humans, demons, angels and lesser gods - are subject to a single, purely spiritual being. Some call this being Vishnu, others Shiva. Neither Vishnu nor Shiva followers are intolerant; they tolerate each other and recognise that Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma and the other gods exist, only for each group a different god is the all-encompassing world spirit.
The individual soul, the Atma, appears in all religions as part of the great, super-personal Brahma - the world soul. Liberation from the many bonds of existence, fate and appearance takes place in a thousand-fold existence, on the endless ladder of reincarnation. The mystical teachings of the Upanishads, in which the transformed religious world of faith is expounded, develop as the final collection within the Vedas.
The solemn verses of these secret priestly teachings explain how beings living on the myriad planes of existence have a body that is divided into two: the earthly, material body and the ethereal body that accompanies the soul on its journey through the world age to its salvation, while the material body dies and is reborn each time.
The spiritual life of India is becoming increasingly diverse and complex. The peasants and artisans live in fear of the spirits and gods, they cling to their rules, caste laws and ancient rites, they sacrifice in the sacred caves, on the hills with the wood-carved temples or at the lotus ponds, they worship animals, trees and mountains and feel lost in the whirling circle of the supernatural, they dwell on the precipice of sorcery, incantation and magic. But many thinkers, seekers and fighters - Brahmins, poets, princes, knights or merchants - break away from everything that has fulfilled their lives and go into the solitude of the mountains or forests. They become ascetics, saints with a beggar's bowl; for it is not the sacrificial service of the priests, not the ambitious activity in the midst of the human world that leads out of the deadly cycle of births, but only meditation, renunciation, reflection, spiritualisation.
They all seek salvation. Existence with its contradictions pains these refined, battle-weary people. The only thing their hearts desire is to merge smilingly with the resting soul of the world, self-redemption.
Holy penitents walk the lands, teaching the thousand paths to the divine - but each of these paths must be walked by man himself.
By the middle of the sixth century BC, there were sixteen Aryan states in northern India, between Peshavar - the capital of the Gandhara country - and Ujjain, he most important of which were the kingdoms of Magadha and Kosala.
In the north-east, beneath the Himalayan mountains, lies the land of the Sakya, the fair-skinned, tall people. The rich families of the Sakya nobles and merchants spend the warm season in beautiful groves, in airy pavilions and on the banks of flower-filled ponds.
It was in one of these parks - the estate of Lumbini - that the child Siddhartha Gautama was born to the Sakya prince Shuddhodana and his wife Maya around 560 BC. The boy, whose mother died young, was brought up by one of his father's concubines. His childhood was spent alternately in the royal capital of Kapilavastu and in the vast, fertile parklands of the interior. The Sakyan court of Kapilavastu, like all the courts of the city-states, was a centre of intellectual culture. The officials were poets or philosophers, and the people gathered around singers who recited verses from the Vedas or heroic songs from the time of the conquest, around mysterious saints, and around readers of religious textbooks.
The first impressions of lasting power in the life of the prince Siddhartha are the profound fairy tales. Sitting cross-legged on cushions in the richly painted, carpeted room of his father's house, Siddhartha listened to the words of the storyteller:
“And the minister, who was a wise man, persuaded the king, who had lost himself in the pleasures of life, to go on a pilgrimage, so the king took leave and went on a pilgrimage. When he had paid homage to the god of the sea and sat down, he saw a tree with a golden trunk, with branches of jewels and full of twigs and shoots, rising from the sea. Sitting on the tree in the cushions of a palanquin was a beautiful maiden with a lute in her hand, who sang three verses:
'The seed sown in the land of action, good or bad, is reaped according to the eternal law. The whole world, including gods, spirits and men, depends on fate. And the deeds one has done in a previous birth, good or bad, are the cause of rebirth or destruction for all people...'
When the mermaid had sung this, she disappeared into the depths of the sea as she had risen. But the king returned to his city...”
The narrator's voice sounds solemn and austere, but the boy Siddhartha listens to the mermaid's verses.
What is the meaning of all the pleasures of life if in the end there is still the inevitable death? What does it mean to be a prince, to have a rich house and to play with jewels, if the sum of all one's deeds, thoughts and experiences is nothing but a new rebirth?
But the boy is young, a child who rejoices in the return of spring, who feels the lushness and splendour of summer and the redeeming coolness of winter. Outside the gates of the city of Kapilavastu lie rice fields, watered by the abundant waters of the Himalayas, between canals, sluices, forests and groves, bearing fruit. When the rainy season is over, the Sakya people move into this landscape. The long-horned zebu oxen walk under the neck yoke, the wooden ploughs tear up the steaming earth.
Siddhartha lies under the elephant tree, the sun conjures pearls of light in the foliage, bees and beetles hum in the branches. Grasses sway gently in the spring breeze and life flows powerfully from the mother earth.
Young Siddhartha is filled with a sense of oneness with all existence. He wants to reach out and embrace the earth, grass and trees, clouds, wind and mountains, animals and people, and dissolve into the great silence of the universe. As he stares silently into the foliage of the trees or the blue of the abysmal sky, the questions that priests and saints try to answer with difficult parables during the long evenings of the rainy season arise: What is the meaning of this life, where does the path lead, what is the goal behind all existence?
In this land, everything is religion; the mystery of eternity dominates every form of life. But there is no truly compelling and universal doctrine. The peasants who plough the land worship countless demons, Shiva, the three-eyed one who sits on the Himalayas and brings destruction or fertility to mankind, Kali, his thousand-armed wife, or the wise god with the elephant's head. The Brahmins in the small wooden temple on the hill believe in Brahma, the soul of the world, and the cycle of deities surrounding him. They speak ancient Sanskrit and know all the verses of the Vedas.
Siddhartha, too, has been introduced by his teachers to the three levels of the Vedic doctrine of the gods: mantra, or worship; brahmana, or theology; and sutra, or instruction.
He closes his eyes to immerse himself in the world of this belief: perhaps Brahma, the world soul, is the goal, and merging with him is the path to salvation. The divine powers of Brahma rise and fall over a thousand times a thousand levels of the universe, according to merit, perfection and purification, or sin, bondage and guilt.
The boy Siddhartha is still crouching under the elephant tree. He sees the pulsating life around him in a new light, the proliferation of plants, the radiance and breathing of earth and sky, the buzzing of bees and the heavy tread of the zebu before the plough. All this is a mysterious chord of many voices. One must strive towards Brahma, the All-One and the Spiritual, one must gradually detach oneself from the material and the mortal in order to gain peace and security of heart.
The boy's lips gently formed words from the Vedic books:
“The body is not permanent, riches do not last forever, death is always near, so why do I collect merit? Invincible, lovable, mild, generous, rich, glorious, one becomes only through the security of life. But there is no unclouded joy in the world, and there never will be.
No - security of existence is nowhere to be found in the world; death, suffering, sorrow and impermanence are always around. The boy sees a vision of human destiny - a huge wheel to which all existence is chained, a wheel that swings mercilessly up and down, endlessly and - it seems to him - senselessly. There is no escape; Brahma dwells in unattainable distance.
In the evening, Siddhartha tells a parable to the listening courtiers.
“Just as a flame exists only if it is constantly supplied with fuel, so a being exists only as long as it nourishes its will to live by clinging to the world and its pleasures. Existence is a flame that burns in the second and third night watch. It is different in fuel from the flame of the first night watch, and yet it is the inexorable continuation of it. But how else can the fire be extinguished but by extinguishing it? How else can the liberating darkness come about but by stopping to feed the flame and letting it die?”
The pain that first seized the boy Siddhartha in the midst of spring and the reawakening of life returns, becoming more conscious, more agonising. His boyish shyness before the gods of the ancient Vedas is gone. He no longer believed in the existence of the five world guardians, the Brahmas: Indra, Varuna, Yama, Soma and Vishnu, nor in the four winds, the sun, the moon and the stars.
Siddhartha seeks the depths, the ultimate reality that must lie beyond the image of the gods. Although he has risen above the beliefs of the farmers and herdsmen, he does not despise their beliefs - India is a tolerant place.
It is spring again, and the Sakyas are tilling the fields and moving into the groves of Kapilavastu. The Pariahs work in the rice fields, teams of oxen plough the furrows to the sound of whips and bells. Siddhartha, the prince, sits under a rose apple tree, away from the singing and chattering youths. His eyes are fixed and dull. He has begun to discipline his mind in the manner of yoga - the ascetic practice of self-redemption. He regulates his breathing and sinks into solitude.
Pious penitents have told him of the twenty-four Jain ascetics - the conquerors of the world - and of Vardhamana, the great hero who found the way out of all discord. This Vardhamana is a little older than Siddhartha. He was born in Videna, in the north-eastern Himalayas, into a warlike noble family. At the age of twenty-eight he renounced wealth, princely power and all happiness. He spent twelve years training to become a pure ascetic and founded an order of monks. Followed by his disciples, the omniscient ascetic roamed the land at the foot of the mountains.
Siddhartha learnt the art of yoga - the tension and control of the body and its urges - from one of his emissaries.
The white-robed monks of Vardhamana teach the transmigration of souls. Liberation, the end of reincarnation, can only come when a soul has consumed all that is fated and earthbound: then it rises - freed from all heaviness - to the summit of the world.
Siddhartha is surrounded by silence, the sun no longer shines for him, the earth lies far below him, his soul dwells in the tremendous solitude of the summit. But then he returns to reality and finds himself trapped in a body subject to all the suffering of the world. The rapture was only a dream and an illusion; the restlessness of the heart remains.
The son of a prince, he is married young and his young wife gives him a son, Rahula. Years pass in fruitless brooding over the unsolvable questions. Siddhartha is now twenty-nine years old. Many envy him for his wealth, the splendour of his palace, his groves and rich fields, his many Dravidian slaves, his beautiful wife and his well-behaved son.
But to him, all his possessions, even the love of his family, seem like chains that keep him tied to the wheel of existence.
Are children really happiness? Siddhartha wonders. Can our desire for them protect them from sickness, death and disappointment? What is possession? A chain thrown over the soul to keep it bound to the earthly. You can never really own anything, the shadow of impermanence looms menacingly behind everything.
After a long inner struggle, the twenty-nine-year-old prince decides to leave everything behind - his wife and child, wealth, power and rule - and to search for the ultimate truth and meaning of life.
He decides to go first to the holy city of Benares, home to many sages, scholars, pandits, ascetics, artists and musicians.
There is an extraordinary spiritual climate there. There were many masters and teachers passing on their knowledge. Siddhartha met a famous pandit, a legal scholar, who taught him the dogmas and principles of religion without hesitation.
An extremely gifted student, Siddhartha quickly mastered the main principles of the doctrine and soon proved himself capable of pulling out all the stops of scholarly discussion. He began to make speeches himself and to debate with other pandits in the shade of the parasols spread out on the banks of the Ganges.
But his path is different, his needs cannot be satisfied by learning. Endless arguments about doctrinal ambiguities only wear him out.
Siddhartha realises that this scholastic method leads to nothing but temporary intellectual satisfaction, but certainly not to the truth of being. Studying the sacred texts did not provide him with answers to his painful questions about the meaning of human existence.
Siddhartha then abandons discursive, logical thinking, which may be useful for personal glory, but never for knowledge.
After breaking away from his first master, he goes into the forest and joins the yogic ascetics, hermits and recluses. For a while Siddhartha wandered with an old man who wanted to teach him painlessness by making pain a habit. They sit on beds of nails, cut themselves and deny their bodies food, drink and rest in order to raise their minds above material things.
But the great universe remains silent, the Deity remains hidden. All this self-torture does not lead out of the darkness.
Then the son of the Sakya prince finds another teacher, an ascetic with enormous willpower, who wants to conquer the body through magic and the influence of will, who removes the soul from the earth. Siddhartha remains in the convulsive state designed to free the mind from the wheel of being.
Eternity is silent; the ascetic's method only numbs, not liberates. Finally, Siddhartha continues his journey unaccompanied, a gaunt monk with a shaved head, carrying a begging bowl in front of him and living off the charity of pious people. After a long pilgrimage, he reached the Naranjara River in the kingdom of Magadha and settled near the castle of Uruvela.
“There I saw a beautiful piece of land, the woods were beautiful, and there was a river, clear and friendly, with beautiful places to bathe, and all around were villages to go to. Then I said to myself: This spot of land is truly beautiful, the woods are beautiful, there is a river flowing there, clear and friendly, with beautiful places to bathe, and all around there are villages to go to. So it is good for the aspirations of a noble youth who wants to strive. So I sat there and thought: It is good for my aspirations.”
In the shade of a mighty fig tree, he meditates on life and death.
“Birth and rebirth are laws of nature - so I must overcome them. Even aging seems to be a law of nature - so I must also overcome aging. And even sickness is natural - so I shall overcome sickness. And even dying is natural - so I must gain immortality. Even pain is a law of nature - so I shall overcome pain. Even impurity is part of nature - so I must overcome impurity.”
Once again he tries to subjugate his body by force, he fights against the physical in order to silence desire and passion.
“I will clench my teeth, press my tongue against the roof of my mouth, and use my mind to hold down, suppress, torment my thoughts!”
He denies himself movement, reducing breathing, eating and any movement of the body to a tiny level. The torture continued for days and weeks.
The news of the holy penitent sitting under the fig tree in Uruvela had spread. Worshipful villagers stand at the edge of the grove; five ascetics have settled down near Siddhartha to share his penance, his torment and his effort. It is all in vain; the physical self cannot be tamed by external force, the gate remains closed. The path of asceticism is false. He will reach his goal only with an unweakened body. So Siddhartha turns back, he takes food. An image of his youth arises in his mind - how, as a boy, he had sat under the rose apple tree just outside the gates of Kapilavastu and practised the delicate, spiritual contemplation of yoga, how the feeling of the All-One had flowed to him from the mountains, the earth and the grove, and how he had experienced his first inner vision.
The five ascetics leave him, considering him an apostate. There seems to be nothing miraculous or ascetic about this impenitent man. A monk who breathes and eats, a man who smiles at heaven, is no longer a saint. The edge of the grove became lonely; the farmers returned to their villages. Siddhartha cowered forlornly under the huge canopy of the fig tree. In quiet, peaceful days and nights, his purified mind explores the secrets of the four contemplations.
With blissful clarity he sees the connections of existence: the awakening of desires and wishes from the day of birth and the beginning of suffering when desires and wishes are not fulfilled.
“So, by realising and seeing, my soul was freed from the corruption of desire, and my soul was freed from the corruption of becoming, and my soul was freed from the corruption of not knowing...
Realisation arises:
I am liberated. Birth and rebirth are destroyed, the sacred change is complete, the duty is fulfilled, there is no return to this world...”.
But this isolation is only the first stage of contemplation in which he breaks free from entanglement and suffering. Now, for the first time, he experiences the pure feeling of inner peace. Joy and contentment flow through his body. Then, in the second contemplation, he cuts the five bonds of the heart: the heart must renounce all desires in wishing, feeling, seeing and eating, and even in striving for inner contemplation. To want nothing more, to desire nothing, to long for nothing - this is freedom.
His purified, transfigured mind descends to the third contemplation; for even the heavenly joy of purification is still a fetter to be cast off.
Now the holy pain and joy, the contentment and delight, are gone. In the painless and joyless inner sea-calm, the feeling of well-being and suffering have disappeared. Equanimity and awareness fill the enlightened one, nothing binds his pure, refined mind.
Now, in the bright inner light of the soul, he sees the long series of his previous forms of existence and the chain of suffering that has lengthened with each new birth. His mind sees the whole universe filled with this suffering, which arises like a catastrophe from man's burning thirst for life. But he has conquered the thirst for existence and thus death. He enters the gentle, loving realms of Nirvana - the state of no longer wanting to be. The seed of further rebirths is destroyed, the chain of life is ended.
This is the bliss of the fourth contemplation; Siddhartha, the son of Sakyas, has become Buddha - the enlightened one. Like the shining sun, his nature is purified, the wheel of existence passes him by.
“Blessed is the solitude of the joyful one who recognises and sees the truth! Blessed is the one who always keeps himself completely in check and no longer harms anyone! Blessed is the one who completely overcomes passion and all desire! Blessed is the one who conquers the pride of the defiant ego!”
The face of the transformed one shines, strength and certainty emanate from him...
Is there anything left to do?
The dark canopy of the fig tree hangs over the head of the enlightened one, like a window into the great Nirvana, the blue of the sky shows through the gaps in the foliage; far away, like water rushing by, restless life rushes by, beetles buzz, grass blows, forests wave, people live...
Yes, there is another thought that touches Buddha like the edge of a shadow: people still live, brothers and sisters, under the yoke of fate. Should the secret of salvation he found for himself be proclaimed to others? Will those shrouded in darkness and blinded by desire understand him? Won't the renewed contact with the world, the appearance before the people, tarnish the inner radiance of his soul? Wouldn't it be weariness and anguish?
The Buddha meditates for a long time at the foot of the tree in Uruvela, and then the great kindness that flows from his freedom prevails. He decided to share his knowledge and preach the good news of salvation to those who were not yet saved.
The thirty-six-year-old thinks of the five monks who once kept him company in Uruvela and who thought he had gone astray. Where could they be?
And with his heavenly eye, the purified eye that transcends human limitations, he sees the five monks united in Benares, at the seer's stone in the deer park...
Gautama Buddha makes his way to Benares, the great city on the holy Ganges. He searches for people...
Benares has been the holiest of pilgrimage sites for the Indian people since ancient times. Situated almost in the heart of India, on the banks of the Ganges, the city of palaces, temples and tombs descends in terraces with wide steps down to the majestic river, which flows by in a calm, shimmering yellow-grey. On the heights, the wooden palaces of the princes, painted and decorated with carvings, gleam; under gilded roofs, massive temples of the ancient gods Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma rest; crowds move over the stone steps that lead down to the cleansing flood.
Upako, a naked penitent, speaks to Ananda, a noble youth seeking salvation, at the edge of the human turmoil: 'My soul is wounded by the cruelty of existence. Look, Ananda, how it seethes with delusion, suffering and sorrow; see the beaten thief next to the pride of the prince, the accumulated wealth of the merchants next to the glaring poverty of the Sansis. Hunger, greed, fear and hopelessness dominate the hustle and bustle.
Ananda is one of many who have left family, inheritance and homeland, even the marks of their caste, to find the door to eternity. But he has not found salvation with the priests of the cults, nor with the penitents and ascetics.
There, in the midst of the crowd, walks a strange monk with shorn hair and beard, wearing a yellow robe, and a radiance radiates from him, so that a lane opens before him and the noise of the streets fades away. Gautama Buddha is walking through the streets of Benares.
Upako and Ananda follow the saint, driven by an inner compulsion. At the Dasamedh Steps they catch up with him and Upako speaks to the radiant one:
“Joyful, O brother, is your face, bright is the colour of your skin, and pure! For whose sake, O brother, have you gone out? Who is your master, we ask? Whose teaching do you profess to follow?”
The Buddha replied with a smile:
“The light of holy knowledge shines within me. Salvation has come to me unshakably, and there will be no more rebirth for me, my friends. Since I have gained true knowledge and insight, knowledge of the world of the gods, of Brahma, the supreme wisdom among beings, I am happy.”
The two seekers, Upako and Ananda, bow down before the teaching of the Enlightened One, listen to the Buddha's sermon on self-redemption, and henceforth follow the saint in all his ways. They had found their Master - the Master his first disciples. Others joined them, a select group of men and young men. Twelve of them became his constant companions, and Ananda became his favourite disciple.
Years of teaching and wandering through the beautiful country passed. Princes and statesmen, scholars and kings seek out the Enlightened One. He opens the door to Nirvana for all, to liberation from the agony of becoming and change. He speaks to the outcasts and the powerful of the earth, for all beings are equally precious to him - they are all chained to the wheel of reincarnation. No one approaches the exalted One unless he receives indulgence and kindness; they call him 'the shepherd' - 'the one who goes out to catch the lost sheep'.
Unhappy and outcast souls throw themselves at the Buddha's feet and are redeemed; criminals reflect on themselves in the face of his infinite kindness and suppress their passions. Only the inner circle of disciples and monks devote themselves entirely to holy self-contemplation. Only a few take the four vows of the order:
- A perfect monk cannot be impure.
- A perfect monk must not take anything that is not given to him with the intention of stealing, not even a blade of grass.
-A perfect monk must not knowingly take the life of any creature, not even a worm or an ant.
- A perfect monk must not boast of any superhuman perfection.
The path that the Buddha shows to his monks requires two actions: going out - leaving home and family, cutting all ties to life. It demands poverty, wandering and detachment from all external attachments.
The other part is the act of reaching out, the process of self-redemption that the Buddha experienced under the tree at Uruvela. But this last part is grace and a silent, lonely summit that everyone must reach for themselves.
There is no compulsion, no fixed organisation among Buddha's monks. The new path is not a religion in the traditional sense, but an opportunity that can be taken or left. This is why the Enlightened One also rejects the zeal of some disciples who want to establish fanatical formulas and rules. Salvation is a calm progression along the middle path - no self-torture through scruples and exaggerated asceticism.
Sometimes the Blessed is a guest at the homes of rich merchants or small princely courts, but mostly he seeks out quiet, beautiful places that remind him of the groves of his homeland. He likes to teach in the 'Stone Hermitage' or in the 'Victory Forest of Anathapindika'.
He exemplifies his teaching to the monks. With a transfigured smile, he walks through the villages with their mud huts and thatched roofs. He dodges every bug in the dust of the streets, rescues the bee that has fallen into the pond and treads carefully so as not to crush any flowers.
For forty years the Buddha walked among the people as a teacher. His teachings spread all over northern India.
Then, as the monsoon rains fall from the sky, the Buddha falls seriously ill. Once again, his willpower stems the decline and suppresses the weakness of his body, but he knows that the hour is near when he will enter the realm of death forever. Fear grips his disciples and Ananda turns to the Master in lament.
“If you are going to leave us, will you not speak to your congregation first?”
“I have spoken all my life, Ananda. What needed to be said has been said. Now I have nothing more to say.”
He closes his tired eyes and sinks into thought for a while. Then he raises his voice, his face radiant with transfiguration.
“Just as a mother protects her child, her only child, with her life, one should generate immeasurable love for all beings. One should generate immeasurable love for the whole world, above, below, to the side, without restriction, without enmity or antagonism. But you should not get attached to the individual in love.
You should learn this love: the salvation of the heart...
By non-anger you overcome anger; by good you overcome evil; by gifts you overcome the miser; by truth you overcome the liar! Those who cause me pain and those who give me joy, I am equal to all; I feel neither pity nor disgust, joy and pain, honour and dishonour are balanced in me; I am equal to all: this is the perfection of my equanimity...
And one should neither kill nor cause to be killed any living being, nor condone others killing them; but one should refrain from harming beings, both those who are strong and those who tremble in the world...”.
Again the Enlightened One remained silent for a long time, then, turning to Ananda, he continued:
“I am an old man, Ananda, my journey is behind me, I have become eighty years old, a frail cart held together only by makeshift ropes. Remember, monks, you are your own light; you do not need a new leader - each of you should be your own master. No one should want to play first.”