Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Reading Diary B: The Life of Buddha

Unit: The Life of Buddha

Siddhartha Leaves
  • Siddhartha leaves with the horse
  • The Gods made Chandaka disobey the king's orders and gave Siddhartha the horse
  • The Gods are really adamant about making Siddhartha leave 
  • He took his dad's horse? Is this like rebellious teenage stage? jk
  • Siddhartha vows to never return to the city of Kapila

Siddhartha the Hermit
  • Kanthaka the horse carried him and he spoke to him like a person 
  • I think that's good because we're all animals as well, why are other animals beneath us?
  • Siddhartha's reason for leaving was to destroy old age and death and to be rid of unhappiness due to his desire to learn more about old age/death/suffering
  • He had a son? And he left? I kind of question that..
  • He exchanged clothes with a hunter for something more plain. 

Gopa and Suddhodana Grieve

  • Gopa wakes in the middle of the night to find her husband gone and blames the maids for letting him go
  • Everyone that Siddhartha left behind mourned his departure
  • Mahaprajapati left the castle
  • Kanthaka died due to sadness or was he exhausted? I'm not too sure.


Arata Kalama

  • Siddhartha went into the hermitage of Arata Kalama
  • Taught the doctrine of renunciation
  • His knowledge became as great as Kalama's and soon he began teaching the disciples
  • He then realized that the doctrine was not right and left the hermitage to go to the city of Rajagriha

Siddhartha and King Vimbasara

  • His beauty was noted by the people of Rajagriha
  • He lived on a mountain and the king told him to come to his palace but he refused
  • He doesn't care about desire, he just wanted to seek the true law
  • He sought out Rudraka, one of the famous hermits in the city, but found out that Rudraka didn't know about the "true law" so left
  • Five of Rudraka's disciples left with him

Siddhartha Deserted by His First Disciples

  • He was meditating one day and then fell over, not breathing
  • Maya lived amongst the gods, and after she heard their worries, she descended to see him
  • It turns out he did not die and that it was almost time that he was to attain supreme knowledge
  • He remained at the same spot for 6 years, meditating
  • He found out that starving himself wasn't the right way of going about things and eventually ate
  • His disciples saw that and left him because they thought he was a fool and mad

The Tree of Knowledge

  • He took a shroud from a dead body
  • whut.
  • He went to the tree of knowledge and meditated since that very day was the day he was ready to become a Buddha

Mara's Defeat

  • Mara is the demon that tempts the Buddha

Siddhartha Becomes the Buddha

  • He learns that to suppress desire, we can suppress birth, which suppress death and old age
  • We must lead a life of holiness, where desire is stifled in order to stop being reborn and to end our own suffering
Art of the Buddha by Minh Nguyen, June 2015. Source: Pinterest.

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