Thursday, September 16, 2010

About Buddha


One day Gautama Buddha, whose body was thin like a bone, took a small chapatti with a little honey in order to retain his body. Seeing this his disciples, who had respected him so much and had been with him for six years, lost faith in him. His disciples decided that he wouldn’t attain jnana and so left him. Subsequently Buddha attained realisation but for fifty days afterwards he was very anxious, wondering,

‘Should I tell others about that experience or not?’

He thought, ‘If I tell several people, won't at least one get benefit?’

The inner voice in his heart said, ‘At least for that, it is good to tell.’

However, ‘Who should be told?’ was another question.

His inner voice said, ‘It is good if you tell the ones who had faith, served you for six years and then left’.

So he went to Sarnath searching for those disciples and that was the reason that the Buddha went there. It was at Sarnath that he gave his first speech to his disciples.

Gautama Buddha never gave importance to miracles. He even used to go to his own house for bhiksha(begging). This is not a small thing. It is easy to speak things, but only if we ourselves do such a thing, will we know just how difficult it is.

One man came to Buddha and asked, ‘I want to attain nirvana.’ Buddha told him to bring a plate of water and asked that man to wash his own feet in it. After he washed his feet, that water had a lot of dirt in it.Buddha said, ‘Your mind is also full of dirt like this - lose that and come, then I will give you moksha.’

We say moksha. The Buddhists call it the state of nirvana. When we get sick, we take medicines, don’t we? Does the illness go away or not? We observe that. Just like that, we always have to observe ourselves: are we giving discipline to the mind or not? If there isn't discipline in the mind, regardless of the number of pujas or japa we do, all are useless.

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