Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. John Landaw explores the apparent paradox at the heart of Buddhist practice: how renouncing desire leads not to an inert, dead enlightenment but to genuine aliveness and joy. Drawing on his two decades studying with Tibetan lamas, he dismantles the misconception that transcendence means becoming a wooden statue, arguing instead that freedom from grasping desire opens true enjoyment and compassion. He reflects on the crucial role of a living teacher—not as a truth machine but as a breathing example whose very being demonstrates that enlightenment is possible and human. Landaw then introduces Tonglen, the practice of taking others’ suffering onto oneself to dissolve self-cherishing, explaining how this profound meditation works not masochistically but as a tool to distinguish genuine compassion from selfish fear. Throughout, he weaves in encounters with the Dalai Lama, teachings on faith versus blind devotion, and the subtle balance between urgent effort and spaciousness needed to sustain practice over lifetimes. The talk assumes no prior Buddhist knowledge.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1995 03 31 Public Talk Tibetan Buddhism part 2.mp3
UUID: 687d846b-c2d0-4eeb-b841-2ed361761248
Teacher: John Landaw
Collection: Public Talk – Tibetan Buddhism (John Landaw)
Date: 1995-03-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~7,831
Get beyond desire. And in my mind I was trying to understand what that meant. And especially I think I ran across it when I was still an adolescent. I’m still an adolescent. But then I was also chronologically an adolescent.
The idea of getting beyond desire is really something that none of my hormones were really going to understand very well. But anyway I really had this big doubt in my mind and especially when I thought of the state of enlightenment itself it was always represented by a statue or painting of the Buddha. It was always something very perfect and very balanced but somehow or other dead. You know, inert like stone or wood or painted image. Perfect, beautiful, no doubt but you know, not alive.
So I had this big doubt in my mind that said everything seemed to make sense about the teachings but I wasn’t sure where it was leading to. A desireless state, of ripping out one’s heart and becoming a wooden statue. That was not very appealing to me. But I couldn’t fault the teachings. So I carried that doubt in my mind for a very long time.
But when I met the teachers who really made a difference in my life, the thing that really blew me away that made such a deep impression on me was not so much their spiritual nature but their human nature. Their sense of humor, their warmth, their affection, the fact that they were with it, that they weren’t in some other zoned out space, but they were very, very much present with that real warm quality to it. And then listening to their teachings and their explanations, little by little I’m starting to come to understand that when they talk about being beyond desire it’s removing a poison which is preventing enjoyment rather than removing enjoyment itself. Removing a grasping attitude which turns desire in on itself so that one can’t enjoy the object or the desire. And that when one’s free of it, it’s not as if one is dead but like a number of people here have met Lama Yeshe in the past, my own personal guru and he was an amazing kind of person because he enjoyed everything he did.
He enjoyed everything you did. You know, and yet it wasn’t poisoned by attachment. If you understand what I mean. In other words there was a directness, it was like it seemed like if he was eating something, just as an example, he’d derive more real pleasure from that than one would normally derive from eating a huge banquet with desire. In other words, whatever it was that he got rid of, whatever name you put on that he got rid of didn’t close down the experience of enjoyment but opened it up and also opened it up beyond the sensual.
So it wasn’t just a matter that it was now the tongue felt nice and the fingertips felt nice and the eye and the ear and all these sense organs felt nice but it actually fed into a kind of compassionate wisdom. So it opened it up and spread it out. And that was extremely impressive to me as a living example of the teaching. So for me, when I hear you talk about the importance of a teacher as opposed to books, for me it’s that a real teacher, I don’t mean just a lecturer or someone who sits in front of people, but someone who is capable of helping one have this revolution in consciousness, the meaningful revolution in consciousness, that kind of person is important to us because he or she represents in his or her own being the truth of the teaching rather than just speaking words which are logical or coherent or pretty. And that has a level of inspiration which for most people a book is just a very pale imitation of. That real inspiration that it’s doable.
And not just that he or she did it and he’s so great and I’ll worship them but a true guru, a true lama, a true teacher is one who gives us the feeling that it’s something we can do ourselves. So on that level I think it’s important. Now many people here have read the works of Krishnamurti, one of the great exponents of spirituality in our time. But his message very often is not to have a teacher, to find our own truth for ourselves. Not just to rely on books or what teachers say but have the experience.
Now, I think his mind and his experience is too vast for me to encapsulate easily. But I think perhaps the main thing that he felt he had to teach was he saw people so willing to become Buddhists, Christians or Hindus, members of a particular ism or itti or whatever and giving away the responsibility for their own development. And so when he spoke against relying on a teacher, my own feeling, I may be wrong, my own feeling was that he was pointing towards that, that slavish quality of you tell me, you’re greater than me rather than relying on our own wisdom. But from my understanding of my own Tibetan teachers, their quality is they introduce one to one’s own wisdom. And that’s the value.
Not the value of, Oh, here’s the font of wisdom over here and turn to him or turn to her or worship this. But it turns around and it goes back into oneself. I had a very, very strong related experience to this last year when along with about thirty other Western Buddhist teachers we had these meetings with the Dalai Lama and we prepared for this meeting by generating questions among ourselves from our experience of things we wanted him to talk about. And we presented that in the first afternoon with him. We had several hours with him.
And at the end of it he says, I don’t really want to continue like this. I don’t want you people to use me as a truth machine. I want to discuss these issues with you. I don’t want you just turning to look to me for answers to these things. He says, I think you know the answers.
And so to me that was in and of itself an extraordinary teaching. It wasn’t that he was throwing away responsibility for helping. He certainly would make comments on things but that in a sense we were unconsciously turning him into an idol. We were becoming idol worshippers. Here was the truth machine.
Just put the question to him and get the answer from him. Almost as if there was no access to the answer within ourselves. Whereas in fact amongst us just from our experience, just the experience of trying to put the Buddha teachings into some reasonable practice in the West, we were developing some kind of wisdom on some level and that was worth sharing. And in that, then he, the Dalai Lama had many things to say about that. But he didn’t want to say anything if it meant that we were just gonna take down notes just to find out what he had to say.
So the use of a teacher is a very skillful, very delicate thing. And of course, you know there’s teachers and there’s teachers. There’s those of us who are parrots and those who speak from experience. Certainly more enlightened than me. There are two or three people that I’ve met who started out as fellow students of mine who I’m very, very impressed by.
All of them, they all did take ordination at one time or another. One of them is still ordained, the others aren’t. The ones who aren’t ordained are still very, very much involved as students and as teachers. And their particular quality, their particular enlightened quality is the way they are engaged in translation. Some of them actually are word translators.
They know Tibetan or Sanskrit and they’re actually translators. They’re all translators in the sense that they seem to be bringing a real experience that they gain from meditation and investigation into this arena, this western, want of a better word, this western arena in a way that is allowing real translation to take place. And I find that extremely inspiring for myself. None of those people that I’m thinking of would say that he or she was enlightened. In fact, if you even used any kind of word towards them they’d cut you off.
But to me, I would be very, very satisfied if I reached anything like that at the end of this life. I would feel very well grounded on the path. So yes, I have met some people. I’ve also met quite a lot of people who are much better off now than they were twenty years ago. They were psychotic and now they’re neurotic.
There’s a lot of us. So that’s also enlightenment, isn’t it? It’s lighter anyway. It sometimes occurs people will say to me, Gosh, so and so has been in the Dharma for twenty years and yet here she still does this and that. I think, You should have seen her before.
Smart. Yes. There’s an extremely profound practice which is based on working with all the elements that you just brought up, compassion, fear, feeling for other people’s suffering, worried about catching that suffering oneself. All of those elements that you brought up are part of this practice. It goes very often by the Tibetan name Tonglen or giving and taking.
Are you familiar with that? Tonglen, T O N G L E N, means giving and taking. It’s considered one of the most profound teachings and in fact was kept secret for generations. Secret in the sense that it was only passed from guru to disciple, like one guru to one disciple and was not taught widely. Often when people tried to get teachings on it, the teacher would act very dismissive and say, No, you’re not really interested in this.
This isn’t what you really want. So they had to kind of beg for it. Now we can find it very widely presented in books and teachings and commentaries to it and so forth. But the teachings are still secret because they’re secret from the selfish mind. You can read all the words and it will still be secret.
Now, the reason I bring this up is because in the body of teachings in which Tonglen or the giving and taking practice is part, as in all of Buddhist teachings, the mind, the heart, is not one monolithic thing. Even though we use a singular noun, my mind is, we don’t say my mind are, is as if it was one thing but in fact it’s not. It’s like a train station. There’s trains coming in and moving out all the time. And the mind is the space from which thoughts and emotions arise and dissolve with great rapidity.
At the present moment there are certain elements within the field of consciousness that are true compassion, that are in the nature of really wishing other people to overcome suffering. And within the space of consciousness, conscious awareness, there’s the exact opposite. What’s often known in Tibetan, in translation from the Tibetan as the demon of self-cherishing as Lama Zopa likes to put it. The self-cherishing attitude. The attitude which is always putting the concerns for the self forward as if it were more important than everyone else’s concern.
And it’s said to be the biggest obstacle for developing true compassion. One of the geniuses of the Tonglen teaching is that it actually deals with redressing this balance between compassion which leads to true peace of mind and enlightenment and self-cherishing which is at the very root of fear. And it does so by directing our attention initially to the suffering of others and cultivating the kind of compassion through various means. There’s quite a number of techniques involved. But to look at that suffering as something that we find we have to help that person get separated from that situation, to get relief and liberation from that suffering.
And it reaches such a point that one is willing to take that suffering upon oneself. An example is my brother who has no spiritual training or interest whatsoever but when his son was teething and having that unbearable teething pain where the child just doesn’t even know where the pain is coming from or what its dimensions are, it’s just completely submerged in it, he said, I wish I could take that suffering myself. I’d rather deal with it myself than have my kid have to experience that. That kind of compassion. So through these meditative techniques one cultivates the point of even willing to take it on oneself to remove it from others. But with that wish comes fear.
At the same time, it doesn’t mean it’s not compassion, it is compassion. You’re really concerned with the suffering of others. But when it reaches the point that you make the deep mental statement, I’ll take it on myself, something in us recoils. And then, that is the enemy. That self-cherishing, that recoiling.
So if anything deserves to have this unwanted suffering, it’s not that person out there. He or she doesn’t, that suffering is no use to him or her. It’s no use to me. The only place to put that suffering is on the head of the self-cherishing itself. The very thing that’s preventing us from experiencing happiness, selfishness itself.
So one takes the suffering, experiences it, and directs it, uses it to flush out from the jungle of the mind the very demon, this demon of self-cherishing which is responsible for suffering and then places the suffering on its head, right on the head of that self-cherishing attitude. So it’s not as if the practice is that I am going to take on your suffering because well I deserve to suffer. It’s some kind of masochistic thing. No. I’m using that experience to discover limitation.
And it’s like fighting fire with fire. So it’s a very, very profound meditative technique and it helps separate out through practice, not intellectually but through actual confrontation, the difference between a truly motivated altruistic compassionate attitude and this selfish fear because they can get very, very intertwined. But through this method it’s possible to separate them out, again not intellectually but really in terms of one’s experience and then use the experience of suffering not to suffer but to gain freedom from the cause of the suffering which is this tight self-cherishing. And then from that space to give the resultant happiness to others. It’s a very, very profound technique and it deals with that.
It deals with the issues that you’re bringing in. There’s a rather evocative description of this technique in quite a number of works that are available now. One of the newest ones is Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. He talks about it in quite an evocative way, that’s only one of many presentations of it and quite a number of other ones. Have we reached the end?
Please. For faith, yeah. Faith is important. It’s just that faith is an attitude that can arise from a lot of different reasons, a lot of different antecedents and the faith that arises superficially because we’re enamored by the charismatic teacher, it can be very, very strong and very motivating but it can also be very shallow. It’s very easy to wash away.
It could go deeper. It could grow deeper. There are cases of disciples who have had very strong faith in their guru and over time the faith just got stronger and stronger. But it often happens that we just kind of fall in love with our guru and then fall out of love with our guru. It’s just a fickle mind.
Something about the teacher impresses us. It could be anything. It could be the robes. Really it could be very superficial and we’re attracted superficially and we’re rejected superficially. But there’s another kind of faith.
Let’s say if you have a doctor and you go to the doctor with this ailment and the doctor takes care of it. And you go with another ailment and the doctor takes care of it. You go with another one and the doctor takes care of it. Then you get really sick. Well, you have faith in that doctor.
You take the problem to that doctor because you feel, Well, he or she has helped me with disease numbers one, two and three. There’s every reason based on experience to think he or she is going to help me with disease number four. It’s faith but it’s not blind faith. It’s not because the doctor has a lot of initials after the name or a big surgery on a prominent place in town. It’s because there’s fruit there.
It bears its fruit. So similarly, if you find for example that the more you study within the context of what we’re talking about here, the more you study the Buddha Dharma and the more you put the various techniques into practice and so forth that you’re becoming less uptight and more generous and qualities that you really admire and you’re seeing them grow. Then when a teaching comes and maybe it’s a very profound teaching, a very intellectually oriented teaching, it’s hard to put your mind around it, still you have faith. This person must really be talking about something important. It’s not just gibberish because everything I’ve learned from him or her so far has made sense and it’s borne some kind of fruit.
Now he or she is saying something that I can’t completely intellectually grasp but I have every reason for trusting that it’s coming from a valid source because it’s proven valid so far. So there’s faith. But that’s quite different from blind faith. Faith is important but what supports the faith can be either superficial or deep. In fact, I’ve heard it said by some teachers that there’s two paths to insight and one is the path of wisdom and the other is the path of faith.
Ideally they’re practiced together. But if you only have one, which would be more important? And in some cases it’s really the path of faith, surprisingly enough, because it moves the heart. I’ve noticed that sometimes I’ve been in situations where there’s a great teacher such as the Dalai Lama teaching and there’s very simple Tibetans who can hardly follow what he’s saying during parts of the teaching because they don’t even know the language he’s using but they have this incredible faith in him. Of course he will then give some teachings depending who he’s addressing, he can speak in very basic language as well. But very often if the teachings are being given to the high Geshes, the high Lamas, it’s a whole different language.
All during that, these simple Tibetans are just listening with incredible faith. I’ve often felt jealous because that conduit of faith is something that’s taken years and years and years to open for me. Whereas for them it’s open, it’s just open, they just have faith. What they do with it, how they put it to practice, of course that’s individually determined. But at least that strong kind of devotion which allows their mind to center on a valuable object, that’s there already.
Then if wisdom can be cultivated along with it, then of course that’s very powerful. But sometimes if we don’t have that faith or devotion, the wisdom can be quite dry. Might contaminate it. But even doubt is divided. Tibetans love to divide things up.
And even doubt is divided up into the doubt which is that kind of skeptical attitude that I talked about before which is kind of really searching for the truth and the other kind of doubt which is like a closed door. Nothing can get through. Did you say to become Buddhist? Buddhist. Yeah.
Okay. I remember hearing a teaching once in which the lama said, If you want to develop wisdom, he also used the example of compassion too, but I’ll just use wisdom for this example. He said, If you want to develop wisdom, there’s two ways of proceeding. One is to study and meditate on the profound teachings known as the perfection of wisdom, the Prajñāpāramitā Sutras. Those are the most profound teachings of Buddha concerning the nature of reality.
So one method is to study these profound teachings. The other method is to meditate or cultivate faith in the Buddha of wisdom, Mañjuśrī, in which one generates a mental image of Mañjuśrī and recites the mantra and receives waves of inspiring strength from that Buddha. So the ideal method is to follow both those. Really sharpen one’s intellect through meditative processes to gain the understanding but at the same time open oneself up to inspiration from those beings who have already achieved the wisdom or the enlightenment that we’re searching for. Tibetan Buddhism, for example, has many very powerful practices to bring to mind an image which represents the enlightened mind in the aspect of wisdom or compassion.
Then by visualization, related practices, reciting mantra and so forth, to receive that kind of cleansing, purifying and inspiring waves of strength or inspiration from that Buddha. Kind of in terms of your question, to receive that inspiration. They say that through following that kind of combined practice, then it’s possible to gain very strong insight much more quickly. It’s kind of a dual, kind of opening up both doors, the door of the intellect and the door of faith and devotion. I once asked one of my teachers, I said I can’t really, I find it very hard to relate to these deities or these Buddhas as external and develop faith and recite their mantra.
It’s much easier if I think of them as qualities in my own mind to be born, to be cultivated. His answer was, whether you view these Buddhas as external or internal, it comes to the same point. Whether you view them as deep psychological realities that you’re coming into contact with or whether you’re viewing them as already enlightened beings available for your inspiration, by directing your mind towards it, it comes to the same point. It’s opening up another channel for insight. Also, in terms of the path taking a long time, Again, to quote the Dalai Lama, he once said, In the Tantric teachings, they talk about gaining enlightenment in one short lifetime, six years or three years.
He says, I practice this and I teach this, but personally I find it much more comfortable to think of enlightenment as taking three countless eons. Traditionally, that’s how long it took Śākyamūni Buddha to become enlightened was three countless eons. If you want to know how long a countless eon is, that’s plenty of time for the solar system to come in and go out of existence a number of times. And it’s three of them. And he said the reason for that, the reason he finds it more comfortable to think of that is he said, If a negative mind arises and all I can think of is becoming enlightened within one short lifetime or within three years or a few years practice, then that negative mind that’s arising is a huge obstacle.
But if I feel that this is a path that I’m going to follow and try to stay on for almost an immeasurable amount of time, then a negative mind arises. There is space to do something about it so it is more comfortable. Sometimes I think following a path like Tibetan Buddhism is a little bit like not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Because you devote yourself to completing the path in the quickest amount of time possible motivated by compassion for others. Motivated by compassion for others.
Not your own being upset with saṃsāra. But at the same time, give yourself the space to follow the path even if it takes lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. Please. No, please. Right.
Right. Again, makes a thing out of it, right? I know Lama Yeshe very often, he says, That very uptight style of practicing itself can prevent it. It’s so squeezing, it’s another form of grasping. So it prevents the inspiration, the insight from coming. So it’s a real balancing act because my tendency would be, Oh yeah, okay, it’ll take a long time so I won’t do anything.
It just appeals to my laziness basically. So for myself, I know I need to really emphasize more do it now. But if I emphasize that too much, I can start getting anxious. It’s like a deadline. The book is due.
Finish it. And then I get writer’s block. I can’t write anything. Because I’m just too tense. So somehow there has to be some balance between getting it done and giving oneself space to get it done.
And I think that’s a little tricky. Maybe it’s more tricky for Westerners. That’s my guess. I’m not sure. But I think that balancing act is a little bit more difficult for Westerners.
I think people from the Eastern countries, maybe not now, but traditionally, I think they viewed things in a vaster expanse anyway. Whereas we’re kind of motivated to be a success now, to manifest the results now. Instant coffee. That kind of thing. And I think that can create a problem.
Because then it’s like if it’s not working out, then we give it up rather than just persevere slowly, cultivate one’s own garden, you know, take the steps and then have the faith that if you take enough steps now, even if death comes, there’ll be more steps to take later. Maybe. Gosh, I’d like to stay with you all evening. I think I have to go though. Well, in eleven more years, My next visit to Adelaide.
I hope we’re all together. Seriously, thank you so much for coming this evening and your patience and your interest and your hospitality. It’s very, very much appreciated. Hope we meet again. In fact, I hope very, very strongly I hope that sometime in the future we all have a chance to receive teachings from teachers who have realized the import of the various topics we’ve touched upon, not merely parroting them but expressing them from the depths of their own experience.
That we have the opportunity to meet with such inspiring individuals so that the light of wisdom and compassion in their own hearts will grow strong to light the way for others, thereby making our lives truly meaningful. Thank you. You’re listening to UniSA student radio. Welcome to Worldly Expressions. I’m Michael Vincent.
This week, we’re making the musical trek across India to the Himalayas and into Tibet. As always, your ears will ring with the traditional and the modern. Thanks to B Sharp Records, the import specialists for their support with the music tonight. As is custom on this show, our story tonight will be read by John Landaw, a Buddhist author, from his book Prince Siddhartha. Let’s begin our journey tonight with Sheela Chandra.
I’m Sheela Chandra, and I’m here with UniSA student radio. And on the fifth of May, I’m having a dance performance with my students, twenty of them at eighty four Archer Street, North Adelaide. And for anyone who is interested, since it’s such a good performance, please call this number, two seven eight eight zero four oh. That number again, two seven eight eight zero four oh. The bookings are coming in very quickly so we hope to see you there.
That was Refuge Prayer by Yungchen Lhamo, a Tibetan artist based in Australia who performed at WOMADelaide this year. Time now for tonight’s first story. Good evening. I’m John Landaw. I’ve been studying with the Tibetan lamas for twenty four years now, and this evening I’d like to read to you from a book I’ve written, The Life of Buddha, Written for Children.
It is called Prince Siddhartha, and I will read from the first few chapters. Many, many years ago, in a small kingdom in the north of India, something was happening that would change the whole world. Queen Maya, wife of the good king Shuddhodana, lay asleep and had a wondrous dream. She dreamt she saw a brilliant white light shining down to her from the sky, and in the rays of this light was a magnificent elephant. It was pure white and had six large tusks.
This elephant of light flew closer and closer to the queen and finally melted into her body. Queen Maya awoke, filled with greater happiness than she had ever felt before. Quickly she went to the king, and together they asked the wise men at the court what this strange and wonderful dream might mean. The wise men answered, Oh, your majesties, this dream is a most excellent one. It means that the queen will give birth to a son, and this prince will someday become a great man.
Not only you, but the entire world is fortunate that the queen will have such a special child. Hearing this good news, the king and queen were overjoyed. The king was especially happy because he longed for a son who would someday rule the kingdom in his place, and now it seemed his wish was being granted. It was the custom in those days for a woman to return to her parents’ home in order to give birth. And so when the time had almost come for the baby to be born, Queen Maya and many of her friends in attendance left the palace of the king and began the journey to her childhood home.
They had not traveled far when the queen asked that they stop and rest. She knew the baby would be born very soon. They had reached the beautiful gardens of Lumbini, and the queen went into this garden looking for a comfortable place in which she could give birth. The stories say that even the animals and plants, somehow understanding what a special child was about to be born, wanted to help. A large tree bent down one of its branches, and the queen took hold of it with her right hand.
Supporting herself in this way, she gave birth to a son. The attendants cradled the baby in their arms and were amazed at how beautiful he was and how peaceful he seemed. At that moment, throughout the land, there was a great feeling of peace and happiness. People forgot their troubles, ceased their quarrels, and felt great love and friendship for one another. Some people saw rainbows suddenly appear in the sky, and many other beautiful and unusual sights were seen.
Wise men from all over the kingdom noticed these signs of peace and joy and excitedly said to each other, Something very fortunate has just happened. Look at all these wonderful signs. It must certainly be a special day. Queen Maya, unaware that her joy at having a son was being shared at that very moment throughout the kingdom, took the newborn baby in her arms and returned to the palace of the king. It was the beginning of the fourth Indian month and the moon was growing full.
The prince grew into a bright, handsome, and kind hearted boy. His father, the king, arranged for him to be educated by the best teachers in the kingdom, and very quickly he showed his remarkable intelligence. After the first few days of classes, the teachers reported to the king, Your Majesty, they said, the prince does not need us anymore. After only a few lessons, he has learned everything we have to teach him. In fact, he has taught us a few things that we ourselves never knew before.
Hearing this, the king’s pride in his son grew even greater. With his intelligence, my son will certainly grow up to be a wise and powerful king, he thought, and this made the king very happy. But there was something else about this boy that was even more remarkable than his intelligence. He had a very kind, gentle, and loving nature. The rest of his young playmates enjoyed the rough and tumble games of small children, or pretended they were soldiers and fought with one another, but Prince Siddhartha quietly spent most of his time alone.
He loved the small animals that lived in the palace gardens and became friendly with them all. The animals knew that the prince would never hurt them, so they were not afraid of him. Even the wild animals, who would run away if anyone else came near, came to greet the prince when he entered the garden. They approached him fearlessly and ate from his hand the food he always brought with him for them. One day, as the prince was sitting in the garden, a flock of white swans flew overhead.
Suddenly an arrow shot up into the air, striking one of them. It fell out of the sky and landed at the prince’s feet, the arrow still stuck into its wing. Oh, you poor swan, Siddhartha whispered as he gently picked up the wounded bird. Do not be afraid, I shall take care of you. Here, let me remove this arrow.
Then with one hand he gently stroked the bird, calming its fear. With his other hand he slowly pulled out the painful arrow. The prince was carrying a special lotion with him and softly rubbed it into the bird’s wing, all the time speaking in a low, pleasant voice so that the swan would not become afraid. Finally he took off his own silk shirt and wrapped it around the bird to keep it warm. After a short time another young boy came running into the garden.
It was the prince’s cousin, Devadatta. He was carrying a bow and some arrows and was very excited. Siddhartha, Siddhartha, he shouted. Great news. I got a swan.
You should have seen me. I hit it with my first shot. It fell down somewhere near here. Help me look for it. Then Devadatta noticed one of his arrows with blood still on its tip lying on the ground near Siddhartha’s feet.
Looking closer, he saw that the prince was holding something in his arms, and he realized it was the swan he was searching for. Hey, you took my swan, he yelled. Give it back to me. I shot it, and it’s mine. Devadatta grabbed at the bird, but the prince held onto it, keeping his angry cousin from even touching the injured creature.
I found this bird lying here, bleeding, the prince said firmly, and I don’t plan to give it to anyone while it is still wounded. But it’s mine, shouted Devadatta again. I shot it fair and square, and you’ve stolen it from me. Give it back or I’ll take it back. The two boys stood arguing like this for some time.
Devadatta was getting angrier and angrier, but Prince Siddhartha refused to give him the swan. Finally the prince said, When two grownups have a quarrel like this, they settle it in court. In front of a group of wise people, each one explains the story of what happened. Then the wise people decide who is right. I think you and I should do the same.
Well, Devadatta didn’t like this idea very much, but because it was the only way he would ever get the swan back, he agreed. So the two of them went to the palace and appeared in front of the king and his ministers. The people at court smiled at each other when they heard what these two children wanted. To think, they said, that they want to take up our time over a mere bird. But the king said, Both Siddhartha and Devadatta are royal princes, and I am glad they brought their quarrel to us.
I think it is very important that as future rulers they become used to the ways of this court. Let the trial begin. So, in turn, each of the boys described what happened. Then the ministers tried to decide which boy was right and should therefore have the swan. Some thought, Devadatta shot the bird, therefore it should belong to him.
Others thought, Siddhartha found the swan, therefore it should belong to him. And for a long time the ministers talked and argued about the case. Finally, into the court came a very old man whom no one remembered ever seeing before. But because he looked so wise, they told him the story of the boys and their swan. After listening to what they had to say, he declared, Everyone values his or her life more than anything else in the world.
Therefore, I think that this swan belongs to the person who tried to save its life, not to the person who tried to take its life away. Give the swan to Siddhartha. Everyone agreed that what the wise man said was true, so they decided to let the prince keep the swan. Later, when the king tried to find the old man and reward him for his wisdom, he was nowhere to be found. This is very strange, the king thought.
I wonder where he came from and where he went. But no one knew. This was just one of the many unusual things that happened concerning the prince. So many people thought that he must be a very special child indeed. Peace in the World by Nawang Khechog.
Now we continue the story when Prince Siddhartha was thirty five years old, after having spent the first twenty nine years of his life in pleasure palaces built for him by his father, and then the next six years of his life in strict ascetic retreat, trying to overcome suffering through sheer willpower. The story continues. One day Prince Siddhartha thought to himself, Am I any closer to my goal of enlightenment than I was six years ago, or am I still as ignorant as before? When I was a prince and lived in luxury I had everything a person could desire. I wasted many years in those prisons of pleasure.
Then I left and began my search. I have lived in forests and caves and have had nothing but poor food and much pain, but I still have not learned how to put an end to suffering. I can see now that it is a mistake to punish my body like this, just as it was a mistake to have wasted so much time in those palaces. To find the truth I must follow a middle path between too much pleasure and too much pain. Siddhartha remembered that many years ago, after he had seen a vision of a dead man, he had meditated under a rose apple tree.
After that meditation, he thought, my mind was very calm and still. I was able to see things clearly for the first time. I shall try to meditate like that again. But when he looked at himself he realized, I have been sitting here for such a long time with no food that I am tired, dirty, and weak. I am so thin that I can see my bones through my skin.
How can I meditate when I am too hungry and dirty even to think clearly? And so he slowly pulled himself up and went to bathe himself in the river. He was so weak, however, that he fell and was almost drowned. With great effort he just managed to pull himself to the shore. Then he sat for a while, resting.
In a small village at the edge of the forest lived a herdsman and his wife Sujata. She had just given birth to her first child and was very happy. She took the finest milk from her husband’s cows and prepared a delicious meal from it. Now she was taking this food into the forest as an offering to the spirits she thought lived there. She had often prayed to these spirits and wanted to thank them for helping her have such a healthy baby.
As she entered the forest she saw Siddhartha sitting there. His body was thin and weak, but his face was radiant and handsome. Sujata gazed at him in surprise. I’ve never seen anyone like that before, she thought to herself. Perhaps it is the king of the tree spirits himself.
And so she took the specially prepared food and placed it before him. Siddhartha slowly opened his eyes and saw the bowl in front of him. Smiling silently to Sujata he lifted it up to his lips and began to drink. To her amazement his body grew more and more radiant as he drank. When he was finished he placed the bowl down and thanked her, saying, You thought I was a spirit, but I am only a man in search of the truth.
Your offering has made me strong again. Now I am sure that I shall find the truth. Much good will come from what you have done today. Thank you. Siddhartha, strengthened by his meal and prepared to meditate, was now ready to find what he had been looking for all these many years.
He stood up, waded across the river, and headed towards what would be known in later years as the Tree of Enlightenment. The moment that the world had been waiting for was now at hand. Siddhartha, who had given up a kingdom in search of the truth, was approaching the tree. On his way he passed a man carrying freshly cut grass and asked him for a small bundle. This he would use as his seat.
As he drew closer the air became very still. It was as if the whole world were holding its breath, anxiously awaiting what would happen next. The branches of the tree bent down as if welcoming him to come and sit down under its shade. Siddhartha carefully arranged the grass into a small cushion and sat down facing east. He crossed his legs in a firm meditation posture and rested his hands in his lap.
Then he made a bold and determined vow, I shall not arise from this position until I have reached my goal, even if I die sitting here. And all the spirits of the air looking on rejoiced, hearing Siddhartha’s great pledge. It was the full moon day of the fourth month, and the sun was about to set. But the ancient stories tell us that not everyone rejoiced at this moment. There was one force called Mara who was terrified and angry, for Mara is the name the Indian people gave to the evil forces that disturbed our minds.
Mara is our greed, hatred, ignorance, jealousy, doubt, and all the other poisons bringing people unhappiness and grief. Thus when Mara saw Siddhartha sitting under the tree of enlightenment, he was enraged. Calling his sons and daughters around him, he shouted, Look, all of you! Prince Siddhartha is seated in meditation. If he is successful and discovers the way to end all suffering, what will happen to us?
Don’t you understand that we shall lose all our power? We cannot harm people if he teaches them the truth. We must disturb his meditation, or else we are doomed. So Mara and his evil forces tried everything to disturb Siddhartha. They produced a fearful storm and hurled lightning bolts down around him.
They churned up a great wind until everything around seemed ready to crash down. But beneath the branches of the tree everything remained calm, protected by the force of Siddhartha’s meditation. Mara saw that the storm had no effect, so he turned to his troops and shouted, Attack! The whole horde of evil spirits, demons, and nightmare shapes turned against Siddhartha. They ran towards him wildly, yelling blood curdling screams.
They shot poisoned arrows of hate at him. But as these arrows flew towards the prince, they turned into lotus petals and fell harmlessly at his feet. Nothing could disturb the peace of his meditation. If these weapons and fearful shapes do not distract him, Mara thought, perhaps a vision of beauty will disturb his mind. All at once the frightful demons turned into the most beautiful and alluring of women.
These bewitching creatures danced in front of the meditator, but even they could not affect him. Memories of the pleasure palaces, visions of his wife and son, heavenly music, delicious food, nothing could break through the calm determination of this seeker of truth. Mara felt defeated, but he had one last plan. Dismissing his attendants he appeared alone in front of the prince. Addressing him in a mocking voice he said, Oh, so you are the great Prince Siddhartha.
You think you are a great meditator. So many holy people have failed to find the truth, but you think you will succeed. How foolish you are. Don’t you know that it takes a great deal of preparation to find the truth you are looking for? What have you ever done to be worthy of success?
First you wasted twenty nine years pampering yourself, then you wasted six more years starving yourself, now you sit here thinking that wisdom will just come to you. How foolish. Quit this meditation. Or at least show me a witness who will swear that you are worthy of succeeding where all others have failed. These scornful words failed to bother Siddhartha.
Silently he lifted his right hand from his lap, reached in front of him, and touched the earth. Yes, the earth itself was Siddhartha’s witness. For countless lifetimes he had appeared on this earth in various forms. He had practiced generosity and patience, he had acted lovingly and had avoided harming others, and he had meditated on the truth. He had done all these things, sometimes as a man, sometimes as a woman, sometimes rich, sometimes poor, over and over again.
He had done all this just for the sake of discovering the end to all suffering, and the earth was his witness. Mara realized that now he was truly defeated and faded away like a bad dream. Siddhartha was left completely alone, the storm clouds parted, and the moon shone brightly in the sky. The air smelled sweet and a light dew glistened on the tips of the grass. Everything was ready.