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Rohatsu: The Buddha’s Awakening - Jomon Martin, Zen Teacher · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:00
  Jomon: Hello and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week. I'm so excited. As you may have heard, I love, love, love Rahatsu.
• 0:37
  I love the story. Rahatsu is the celebration of the Buddha's awakening, and it means or is roughly translated into the eighth day of the twelfth month in Japanese. And that is when the Buddha's enlightenment is celebrated. And in fact, now there are many Japanese Zen monasteries in which people are in a week long silent meditation retreat this week and possibly next week. So next week our community will be involved in that endeavor.
• 1:19
  So we're connected to a lot of different practitioners right now, all celebrating this profound experience that a person had that has since resonated throughout humanity for thousands of years. So it really is quite a remarkable thing. So last week, just a little review, we talked about the Buddha's early life. Before he became a Buddha, he was called Siddhartha Gautama. Siddhartha being the first no.
• 2:01
  Shakyam no. Yeah, Siddhartha Gautama. So yeah, Gautama was the name he went by and then when he realized awakening he became a Buddha. So his early life included a life of luxury. He was born into royalty and his father took him to an astronomer or seer of some sort that said he'd either be a world ruler or a spiritual leader, and his father was like, We're going for world ruler.
• 2:40
  None of this spiritual stuff. Let's shield him from suffering at all costs. But he saw, nevertheless he sneaked out of the palace with all the accoutrements and he saw a sick person, an old person, a corpse, and a spiritual renunciant, and he became disillusioned with the life he was living, a life of complete comfort and entertainment and luxury. Became utterly disillusioned and knew he needed to unlock this question about suffering, about life and death, and he left his wife and newborn son to do it and went off to practice. So today is in some ways the rest of the story, but it's not the rest of the story.
• 3:32
  It's really just about the time of his practice up until his enlightenment experience. And it is the story itself has a lot of different aspects, some mythical aspects that I think is what I really love about the story. But I also think that these mythical aspects allow us to kind of participate in the story in some ways, and maybe that will become clear as we talk about it. So how Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha or also sometimes called the Tathagata, the Thus Come One. So he goes off and sheds all of his royal clothing and takes his sword and cuts all his hair off and gives the sword to his attendant, and his horse, his beloved horse, is grieving and bereft, like crying, and they go back and the whole family grieves, but the Buddha is off.
• 4:43
  He's going on to practice, and he practices with different spiritual teachers, two of them, that he attained their level of understanding and they said, Well now you're my equal and let's just keep going in these paths. He said, No, I've got to keep going, there's something more. This really the final answer, the full understanding that I'm seeking. What is the true cause of suffering? Is there a cure?
• 5:23
  So, while there was this tradition of becoming what's called a Sanyaten, I think is the word for it, which is spiritual seeker, a renunciant, who leaves the householder life to pursue spiritual path. Even though he did have profound meditative experiences, this didn't seem to be the solution to our human predicament. So he changed his approach and he instead started engaging in extreme aesthetic practices and there were a few he practiced with some other people who were kind of into this, like how little food can we live on? And did a few different methods of this. In particular, he tried an extremely forceful control of the mind, forceful control of the breath, or he even tried to stop breathing, and extreme fasting.
• 6:38
  So from some of the sutras it says, says, I thought, suppose that I clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth were to beat down, constrain, and crush my mind with my awareness. So clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I beat down, constrain, and crushed my mind with my awareness. Just as a strong man seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the shoulders would beat him down, constrain, and crush him in the same way I beat down, constrain, and crushed my mind with my awareness. As I did so, sweat poured from my armpits and although tireless persistence was aroused in me and unmuddled mindfulness established, my body was aroused and un calm because of the painful exertion. But the painful feeling that arose in this way did not invade my mind or remain.
• 7:38
  So you'll notice in this sutra that there's a repetitive quality, that there's kind of this, you know, he says the same phrase in a slightly different way over and over. That's because it was an oral tradition for hundreds of years before it was ever written down, and this is how human minds recall information. So when we read the sutras like this, they are extremely repetitive because they were carried just from mind to ear to mouth for generations before they were even written down. So we did the same thing with stopping the breath. I mean this sounds really awful, doesn't it?
• 8:20
  It just sounds awful and maybe there's a little bit of that in our practice sometimes, isn't there? This force and just like trying to crush our thinking mind or force our breath to do or not do something. He noticed that the stopping of breath resulted in some extreme pain, which is not really that surprising. But I won't read that part. It is similar, but I'll read this thing about also how he was in extreme asceticism around food.
• 8:53
  I thought, suppose I were to take only a little food at a time, only a handful at a time of bean soup, lentil soup, veg soup or pea soup. So I took only a little food at a time, only a handful at a time of bean soup, lentil soup, vetch soup or pea soup. My body became extremely emaciated simply from my eating so little my limbs became like the jointed segments of vine stems or bamboo stems. My backside became like a camel's hoof. My spine stood out like a string of beads.
• 9:27
  My ribs jutted out like the jutting rafters of an old rundown barn. The gleam of my eyes appeared to be sunk deep in my eye sockets like the gleam of water deep in a well. My scalp shriveled and withered like a green bitter gourd, shriveled and withered in the heat and wind. The skin of my belly became so stuck to my spine that when I thought of touching my belly, I grabbed hold of my spine as well. And when I thought of touching my spine, I grabbed hold of the skin of my belly as well.
• 9:59
  If I urinated or defecated, I fell over on my face right there. Simply from eating so little, if I tried to ease my body by rubbing my limbs with my hands, the hair rotted at its roots fell from my body as I rubbed simply from eating so little. Whenever Brahmins or contemplatives in the present are feeling painful, racking, piercing feelings due to their striving, this is the utmost. None is greater than this. But with this racking practice of austerities, I haven't attained any superior human state, any distinction in knowledge or vision worthy of the noble ones.
• 10:36
  Could there be another path to awakening? Could there be another path to awakening? He took it to the very end. He took it to the utmost extreme. And indeed, that's exactly what this sounds like.
• 10:53
  It's horrifying to think about. Could there be another path to awakening? And that thought, that question actually, maybe not even a thought, but that question either tripped or somehow this memory was arising in him bubbled up from his childhood. And he recalled a moment of his childhood sitting under a rose apple tree. It was apparently the first day of harvest and apparently it was hot outside.
• 11:44
  They were starting to plow the ground. And here he was a little child and he was sitting under this tree so it was kind of cool and comfortable. He was sort of away from where all the action was but he could see it. And he also had a sense of the he was kind of so dialed into this moment that he could have a sense of the way that the plow was disturbing and harming the worms and the bugs. He was just really quite present with it in a very pleasant way, being just deeply in that very moment.
• 12:25
  And so the sutra says, I thought, I recall once when my father, the Sakyan, was working and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose apple tree, then quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful mental qualities, I entered and remained in the first jhana. This is a stage of concentration. Rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. Could that be the path to awakening? Then following on that memory came the realization that is the path to awakening.
• 13:10
  I thought, so why am I afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities? Why am I afraid of that? Isn't that interesting? That here's this perfectly wholesome, very pleasant experience that he knew as a child and that, oh, there's something familiar about this. What if this is if this is it?
• 13:42
  Why am I so afraid of that? He goes on to say, I thought I'm no longer afraid of that pleasure that has sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities, but it's not so easy to achieve that pleasure with a body so extremely emaciated. Suppose I were to take some solid food, some rice and porridge. So I took some solid food, some rice and porridge. Now there's a little more to that part of the story that I like to share about.
• 14:17
  This particular part of the sutra says, Now five monks had been attending on me thinking, if Gautama, our contemplative, achieves some higher state he will tell us, But when they saw me taking some solid food, some rice and porridge, they were disgusted and left me thinking, Gatama the contemplative is living luxuriously. He has abandoned his exertion and is backsliding into abundance. They were like, Ugh, Gatama has sold out. Had a bite of rice, that's it. Into abundance.
• 14:58
  There's another version, I guess, of this story or another piece of this story that I think is really lovely and important. The way that he finally did eat something to break that, aestheticism. And, it's about a woman named Sujatha who was in a nearby town. And in some tellings of this story, she was praying to have a child. And as part of her devotional practice, she wanted to give an offering to the tree spirits in the nearby forest.
• 15:45
  Other stories say that she just had a dream that she was supposed to make an offering to the tree spirits in the forest. In any case, she was following this sort of devotional impetus that she didn't actually, you know, we can't possibly fully understand these things, But making this beautiful donation, she had a herd of cows, her family had a large herd of cows and as the story goes, she milked a thousand cows and fed that milk to 500 cows and milked those cows. Then she fed that milk to two fifty cows and milked those cows and on and on down to the last eight cows. Then she took that condensed rich milk from those last eight cows and mixed it with rice. So here's this beautiful offering.
• 16:42
  She poured the milk rice into a golden bowl and walked out into the forest as the dream had told her to do. And it just so happened that emaciated Siddhartha was sitting under a tree and was so skinny and bony she encountered him and thought he was a tree spirit. So of course she smiled and offered him this bowl of milk rice saying, May this bring you as much happiness to eat as it has brought me to make. Siddhartha opened his eyes, she comes toward him joyfully and receiving the gift and her delight, he drank and ate. And he had been engaged in aesthetic practices for years before he received this gift.
• 17:38
  So I want to share a version of this written by John Tarrant through the poetic aspect here. Sujatha was a force greater than his striving. However, the aesthetics he had been practicing with arrived just in time to see him receiving the bowl from Sujatha. They had been his companions in austerity and now they repudiated him. And so he was alone to face the coming night.
• 18:06
  When he had finished eating, Siddhartha stood and stretched and walked to the riverbank. He was exhilarated. He waded in and the water had a happy feel. It restored him. He threw the bowl into the river saying, If it floats upstream, I will awaken this very night.
• 18:24
  The Golden Bull indeed floated against the current, disappearing upstream. So here's the artistic license part that John Tarrant offers and I love this. The bowl came to a place with ancient overhanging trees and a waterfall with a whirlpool below it. There the bowl swirled around and around and was drawn down into the palace of the black snake dragon king, an ancient being named Mahakala. The bowl sank down and down and banged lightly against seven other bowls, making a dull clink.
• 19:08
  This was not really something new for the dragon who had received bowls in just this way from the seven previous Buddhas. With a feeling for time that was slow and vast, the dragon thought that the most recent Buddha had died just the day before, and hearing the sound of the bowl thought, so soon, and was happy that a new Buddha was already about to appear. The bowl was received as a gift, and in this way, someone else became a friend to Siddhartha. So Siddhartha, having eaten, having bathed, sits down under the Bodhi tree with determination and he sat down vowing not to get up again until he awakened. It didn't matter if he rotted there underneath the tree, he was going to stay there.
• 20:04
  And so when you have an aspiration like this, when we have, and we're basically given an aspiration like this accomplish something, to bring something into the world, to understand something, then oftentimes the exact obstacles will arise also to meet it. Isn't that the way it goes? Always? And so sure enough, that's what happened here. Mara, sometimes called the tempter, sometimes called the evil one, the god of craving, Mara hears this aspiration and is like, Oh no, no, no, we can't have this.
• 21:01
  I've got to interfere with this awakening. This could have massive implications on my kingdom and all the suffering beings. This could change everything. So Mara is hell bent on knocking the Buddha off of this cushion, off of off of this seat. So he tried fear and he brought in huge armies and falling rocks and flames and arrows to try to frighten the Buddha off of his seat.
• 21:38
  But these things just turn to light or the arrows turn to flowers as the Buddha transformed them. That we too are capable of transforming our experience. Buddha or Mara tried craving. He trots out his beautiful daughters to try to tempt the Buddha away from his seat. And it just didn't work.
• 22:08
  So finally he tried self doubt, which probably we're all pretty familiar with too. Mara says to the Buddha, By what right do you claim the seat on which you sit? Like who says you're the one that's gonna awaken? What gives you the right to say that? I have my armies to bear witness for me.
• 22:27
  Who will speak for you? Who will speak for you? Who will witness for you? And the Buddha just took his hand and touched the earth. And you've probably seen the depictions of the Buddha touching the earth and the earth is his witness.
• 22:48
  He calls upon the earth as his witness, that has witnessed all of his many lifetimes endeavoring to understand. Now whether you, we can talk about all of that. That's one way to understand these things that happen. He touched the earth and there was an earthquake and then the earth opened up and the earth goddess, who's been known by many different names, Prithti is one of the names, she arises from the earth and with her the source of a sudden flood of water that came from her twisting her hair, twisting water out of her hair. And this water had apparently been collected over innumerable instances of generosity offered by the Buddha over the ages.
• 23:43
  And so it created a flood that washed away Mara and his army. The earth was the Buddha's witness. And the earth is our witness too. The earth is where we come from. The earth is what we are.
• 24:06
  And with the solidity of our own awareness right now, we too can touch the earth, bear witness at any time. This is available to us always. The sutra says, with the mind composed like this, purified, clarified, unblemished, rid of imperfections, become malleable, workable, steady, and attained to imperturbability. I directed my mind to the knowledge of the destruction of the influxes. This is a translation, the influxes just mean craving and aversion or greed, anger and ignorance, the things that get in our way.
• 24:54
  I directed my mind to the knowledge of the destruction of the influxes. I directly knew it. I directly knew as it really is, this is dukkha. I realized this is dukkha, this is suffering, this is discomfort, this is stress. I directly knew it as it really is, This is dukkha.
• 25:13
  I directly knew as it really is, this is the arising of dukkha. He could see that it exists. He could see how it arises. I directly knew as it really is, this is the cessation of dukkha. He could be aware, here it is, here's how it arises, here's how it stops, that it can stop.
• 25:38
  I directly knew as it really is, this is the path to the cessation of dukkha. I know how this can happen. I can see how this is now possible. I directly knew as it really is, these are the influxes. I directly knew as it really is, this is the arising of the influxes.
• 25:58
  I directly knew as it really is, this is the cessation of the influxes. I directly knew as it really is, this is the path to the cessation of the influxes. Those are the four noble truths. And there's no real dogma in Buddhism. It's really about your own experience of whether or not this is true.
• 26:24
  So you could call them truths, but it's not like they're revealed truths. They're more like observations, the Four Noble Observations we could just call them. That there is suffering is pretty easy, right? We can all probably get behind that. Yeah.
• 26:46
  Now the second one, that suffering is caused. Stress is caused, there is a cause. And that cause is craving and aversion. See if that's true for you. That's really the invitation here.
• 26:58
  Check it out for yourself. There can be a relief, a cessation, an alleviation of this, and that is the path, the eightfold path. Those are the four noble observations. He says, Knowing like this and seeing like this, my mind was liberated from the influx of craving and aversion. My mind was liberated from the influx of becoming.
• 27:28
  That's the self making. My mind was liberated from the influx of ignorance. He could see clearly how it works. In being liberated, there was the knowledge that it is liberated. It is liberated.
• 27:43
  There is liberation. And I directly knew that birth has ended. The holy life has been lived. What had to be done has been done. There is no more of this state beyond.
• 27:58
  So in some of the it can go it goes deeper into some of the things that clarified for him after this awakening, in this process really. He sat down and remembered his past lives and again, we can talk about that and what that can be about. Seeing the relationship between cause and effect is another thing that he could actually really see. He said, It became obvious that everything is dependent on every other thing and has no nature apart from its relation to other things. I think this is actually a John Tarrant piece, excuse me, let me start over.
• 28:43
  It became obvious that everything is dependent on every other thing and has no nature apart from its relation to other things. Siddhartha could find no enduring self that needed to be protected or enhanced. He noticed his meditation had stages of ever deepening concentration and he explored them. He saw the noble truths suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering and the path out of suffering. So he is in this clarifying process and opens his eyes in the morning and sees the eastern star, which is beautiful that that is something we can see now.
• 29:28
  We can see, I think it's Venus actually, maybe, but we can look up and see that star. And it is said that he, at this moment said, I together with all beings and the great earth simultaneously achieved the way. I together with all beings and the great earth simultaneously achieve the way. That's all of us. That's everybody.
• 30:02
  That there's no separation that there can't be. I together with all beings in the great earth simultaneously achieve the way. There's a way that well, in this view, we already are this. We already are awakened. And we have plenty of work to do.
• 30:44
  But there's nothing that it's our true nature. Our true nature is this awakened nature and it is just obscured. It gets obscured. We get confused. So there's a poem about this.
• 31:09
  He says, Through the round of many births, I roamed without reward, without rest, seeking the housebuilder. Painful is birth again and again. Housebuilder, you're seen. You will not build a house again. All your rafters broken, the ridgepole destroyed, gone to the unformed, the mind has come to the end of craving.
• 31:35
  This house being our self. It's just all separate elements that aren't inherently anything. To see through that once and for all, that's what this is about. So the Buddha sat with these realizations for seven days. He sat there under the tree just absorbing them, not wanting anything, in the bliss of not wanting anything, integrating all of this.
• 32:12
  And Mara, like, I don't know, floated away, kind of crawls up off the water and sees that if, oh gosh, if he shares these teachings, it's gonna be even it's gonna be bad. So Mara even returns once again. He argues that the Buddha should just rest in the great peace that he had found and just avoid the world. Just just, you know, stay in your bliss state. Just don't even don't even try anything else.
• 32:36
  This is again John Terrence's version of it, little bit of artistic license. He says the black snake dragon king came to give protection. This is actually another being named Mussolinda, but you know, it's fun to think about it this way. This dragon king came to give protection, winding great coils underneath the Buddha as he sat and raising seven hooded heads over him to shield him. And you'll see some, statues of the Buddha with this seven headed snake like dragon being king, dragon king protecting the Buddha, sometimes called a Naga Buddha.
• 33:21
  After he had sat for seven days, Siddhartha looked around and was filled with love for the world and its beings. He said, This world is burning. What we want causes us to be afraid. We call our pain ourself. We have things the wrong way around.
• 33:39
  And he was moved to leave his seat and go out to teach, beginning at the Deer Park with his five companions who had shared his austerities. After this he was known as the one who comes thus, the Tathagata. So that is the story of the Buddha's awakening. I find it so, so creative and so accessible. And anyone who's practiced meditation for any length of time can probably relate in some way.
• 34:25
  To me it feels like a real practical understanding story that we can apply to our own situation, own difficulty, and our own aspiration too. So I do come away from that story with a great deal of gratitude that we just happen to get to see for ourselves about this. You know, here's this discovery that was made by just a person. The Buddha is not a god or anything like that, Just a person. And that we have this same capacity.
• 35:04
  We actually do. Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast, and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendest.org. Your support supports us.