Reading Diary A: The Life of Buddha

This week, I will be reading The Life of Buddha.

Maya's Dream:

• Queen Maya has a conception dream of her son as a white elephant with six tusks and thousands of gods appeared before her
• What kind of gods were they?
• What an amazing premonition of birth of the Buddha
• The power Maya gained while bearing Buddha was great as well 
• I can see why they had to check if the palace has been visited by good or evil because evil spirits can be tricky
• You get to choose what family you want to be born into? 

Birth of Siddhartha:

• How was Maya able to know that her son was to be born on a particular day?
• She had birth in a flower garden?! How unsanitary
• That was the easiest sounding birth I have ever heard of. Smiling while giving birth?
• His birth brought joy to the world and they named him Siddhartha
• "He will be the one to see the truth" I feel like that will be an important quote

Asita's Prediction:

• Asita was one of Sakya's great hermits
• The king became Buddha's father because his lineage is pure and he is kind of heart, which makes sense
• You wouldn't want the Buddha growing up in a bad environment, right?
• Asita cried because he wouldn't live long enough to hear the words of Buddha when he grows up

Siddhartha at the Temple:

• If Siddhartha was to renounce royalty, who would rule kingdom? 
• The birth of Siddhartha brought great things to the kingdom such as prosperity and fertility in all things
• MAYA DIED on the 7th day. NOOOOO.
• Mahaprajapati, Maya's sister, was given the task of raising Siddhartha after his mother's death. 
• Why was she only almost Maya's equal?
• The "light" that Siddhartha diffused was so great that precious stones looked dull
• That is one heck of an aura! 
• The Goddess of the garden is hilarious. Woman remove those necklaces and give them to slaves and his thoughts will be his adornments!
• Why does he call Mahaprajapati his Mother?
• All of the gods fell at Siddhartha's feet and paid homage to him

Siddhartha's First Meditation:

• Siddhartha got a teacher to learn the art of writing, his name was Vasvamitra.
• It turns out that Siddhartha already knew all of the 64 scriptures, so Vasvamitra told him there was nothing left to teach
• He left Vasvamitra and came to meditate under the shade of a tree
• A group of hermits saw him and predicted he will become the Buddha
• It turns out that the tree that Siddhartha sat under did not move its shadow so that he could meditate in peace
• How is that done? 
• The king really worships and loves his son

Siddhartha meditating under a tree.

Art from David Grubin's film, "The Buddha." Source: Los Angeles Times.

The First Encounter:

• Siddhartha wanted to leave the palace to see the world
• The king wanted to shield Siddhartha from the evils and sadness of the world, so he had his people remove the beggars and suffering from the sides of the road
• The king didn't really want his son to leave, didn't he? Because of reasons mentioned before, of course.
• The Gods interfered with the king's plan to shield Siddhartha by sending an old man his direction because they were jealous of the happiness that was around Siddhartha
• The old man was suffering from old age and looked bad
• Siddhartha learns that old age will steal strength, mind, and beauty from everyone
• Because of this incident, his heart had no more joy

Two More Encounters:

• The second man the Gods sent was a man riddled by sickness
• Siddhartha learns that everyone gets sick
• This made Siddhartha even sadder
• The king notices and tries to cheer him up with happy things like kicking out the sick and old people from the city and changing out his charioteer
• The third encounter the Gods made was a corpse that was carried by four weeping men
• Siddhartha saw that scene and found out about death and how it comes inevitably

The Fair Maidens and Gopa's Dream:

• Oh no, here comes the girls!
• Siddhartha was lead to a group of girls who would try to marry him
• He shunned their advances because his mind was still on death 
• His wife dreamt that she was stripped of her title and wealth 
• Siddhartha replies with happiness that this is because he will grant the light of wisdom to the world that is ignorant and blind

The Great Truths:

• Siddhartha was very unhappy with all of his encounters with old age, sickness, death, and suffering. 
• He muses that it is a shame that others look down on these types of people
• After meeting a God disguised as a monk, he decides to become a monk himself
• I've always thought being a monk was interesting. You can shed yourself of all your worries.
• He asks his father to leave the palace, but his father wants him to stay and reign in his stead and reminds him the importance of family to prevent him from going
• I can see where the king is going with this... but he knew his son would eventually leave and go on the path of enlightenment
• In the end.. he left anyways