Angelsea, Wales

How to tune a harp, or

how the Buddha came to teach The Four Noble Truths

 and the Eightfold Path, and ultimately the Lotus Sutra

  Young Prince Siddhartha “abandoned all things hard to abandon, his treasures, wife and child, his country and his palace, to give all, his head, eyes, and brain to people as alms.” This didn’t happen overnight. In the beginning, his overall purpose to end human suffering, he totally abandoned a normal life, wandering in forests seeking the way to enlightenment with five ascetics, Ajñata Kaundinya, Ashvajit, Vashpa, Mahanaman, and Bhadrika. (No need to remember their names, I never have—let’s just call them, Siddhartha’s five buddies seeking enlightenment through various means of self-torture.)

  How did Siddhartha escape? Significantly, because one day he overheard a man instructing his pupil on how to tune his harp, significantly because Siddhartha’s mind was open to embracing its lesson.

  If the strings are stretched too tight, it will not play, and if  the  strings are stretched too loose, it will not play.

  Hearing this, Siddhartha accepted a bowl of rice from a village girl, forsaking his ascetic vows, and his buddies were shocked. He called out to them, “The path to enlightenment is in the middle way, beyond extremes.”

  Siddhartha becomes in that moment, “Bodhisattva Siddhartha” in search of Perfect Enlightenment. (Here I’m accepting the time-sequence presented in Bertolucci’s film, “Little Buddha.”)

  As the story is told in the Lotus Sutra: reaching the “training place of Perfect Enlightenment” not far from the city of Gaya, beneath the Bodhi tree he attained Perfect Enlightenment, and seeing “creatures in the six states of existence, poor and without happiness and wisdom, in the dangerous path of mortality, in continuous unending misery, firmly fettered by the five desires like the yak caring for its tail, smothered by greed and infatuation, blinded and seeing nothing; seeking not the Law to end sufferings, but deeply falling into heresies, and seeking by suffering to be rid of suffering—for the sake of all these creatures, my heart is stirred with great pity.

  “When I first sat on the wisdom throne, looking at that tree and walking about it during thrice seven days, I pondered such matters as these—the wisdom which I have obtained is wonderful and supreme, but all creatures are dull in their capacities, pleasure-attached and blind with ignorance. Such classes of beings as these I saw, how can they be saved?”

  “Having finished pondering this matter, I instantly went to Varañasi [Benares].” Here in Deer Park, the Buddha finds his old buddies, the five ascetics, and by his “tactful ability” teaches the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.

The Four Noble Truths

1 – All existence entails suffering.

2 – Suffering is caused by ignorance which gives rise to craving and illusion.

3 – There is an end to suffering, and this state of no suffering is called nirvana.

4 – Nirvana is attained through the practice of the Eightfold Path.

  None of these “four truths” should be considered separately – they are fluid in their practice, and are fulfilled with practice of the Eightfold Path. Unless Eightfold Path is followed, suffering’s end cannot be achieved.

  NOTE: a “right” path does not mean there is a “wrong” path. [These are not commandments.] A “wrong” path is simply not following the other basic teaching, “The Middle Way.” The “right” path is to follow the middle path between extremes.

The Eightfold Path – right view, right thinking, right speech, right action, right living, right endeavor, right memory, right meditation.

  It was forty years before the Buddha would reveal the “One Buddha Vehicle,” the path to Perfect Enlightenment, the teachings in the Lotus Sutra (The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law), as he relates in Chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra:

When I saw the Buddha-sons-and-daughters
bent on seeking the buddha-way,
in countless thousands and countless myriads,
all with reverent hearts,
draw near to the Buddha;
they had already heard from the enlightened ones
the Law which they tactfully explained.
Then I conceived this thought:
The reason why the Tathagata appears
is for preaching the Buddha-wisdom;
now is the very time.

  Indeed, in today’s world, now is the very time.