Miss Buddha (2 page)

As these words faded, it was as if even the
crickets had heard, and the frogs, and the many birds, for the
world came to a standstill, and silence filled the air. No bird
called, and no wind whispered.

Tomorrow morning, echoed the surrounding
world, the Buddha will set out on his last journey.

:

The following morning the Buddha set out for
Nelanda by the Ganges River, where he rested for a few days before,
with a growing number of monks, he went on to Vesali.

At Vesali—which had recently seen an
epidemic—his weakening body was invaded by a lingering strain of
the deadly disease, but although it gained good hold, he managed to
first suppress and then dispel it by sheer power of will. The time
had not yet come, he would keep Death at bay a little longer.

Ananda—his first cousin and most trusted
servant—noticed his master’s struggle and worried greatly about the
Buddha’s health. Also, he worried—much like the Buddha himself—that
perhaps there were things still unsaid or untaught that should be
said and should be taught while there still was time.

The Sangha had grown greatly over the years,
and Ananda feared it might need further direction and more detailed
rules from the Buddha himself in order to sustain it into the
future, and he said as much to his master.

But when it came to the Sangha and its
rules, the Buddha did not agree. “I have given them all the rules
they need,” he said. “I have seen and mapped the path of virtue for
both bhikkhu and bhikkhuni. I have offered many, perhaps too many,
rules and regulations to aid their practice. I have given them The
Vinaya. What more does the Sangha expect from me, Ananda?”

Then, although he did fear that perhaps the
Dhamma was not yet complete, or not yet clear or accessible enough,
he added (perhaps to put Ananda’s mind at ease): “I have taught
Dhamma doctrine without separating the esoteric from exoteric, for
there is only one Dhamma, the Dhamma. It’s all there, Ananda. It is
all there, to the best of my ability. There is nothing that the
Buddha holds back with the closed fist of a teacher. The Dhamma is
the same whether bhikkhu, bhikkhuni, layman or laywoman.”

“You have given them all that is needed,”
said Ananda. “I see that.”

The Buddha nodded, then said, “I am almost
eighty years old, Ananda. I have come to the end of my life, and I
can maintain this body only with difficulty, just as one maintains
a dilapidated old cart. My body is at ease only when I enter and
dwell in the signless deliverance of the mind. I am not long now
for this world, Ananda. You must know that. And you must be
prepared to ensure the preservation and the survival of the
Dhamma.”

Ananda, although he had known for some time
that the end was near, hearing it so unequivocally from his master
still welled his eyes, though he bravely fought back the tears lest
he upset Gotama Buddha.

But the Buddha noticed, and said, “Ananda,
grieve not for my parting. Each of you are, and should be, an
island unto yourself, dwell with yourself as a refuge and with no
other as your refuge. Each of you should make the Dhamma your
island. Dwell with the Dhamma as your refuge and with no other as
your refuge.”

Ananda understood this and took much comfort
in the Buddha’s words; although his tears had not receded far.

The Buddha remained in Vesali, and spent his
last rainy season there. While there, he gave as many talks to his
beloved Sangha as his strength would allow, still worrying that he
had not taught all, or had not taught it well enough, or clearly
enough.

For the Buddha knew that once he left—no
matter what Ananda and the other leaders of the Sangha did to
preserve it—his teachings, the Dhamma, would soon begin to
dissipate. Slowly at first, but as time grew between his living
words and those reciting them, obscuring them with ever-widening
elaborations, embellishments, and history, the Dhamma would
diverge, first a word or two, then a phrase, into opinion and
deficient understanding, to eventually even lose its true meaning.
This was inevitable, nothing could withstand the onslaught of time.
He knew this, and this was his greatest fear.

Late one night he told Ananda, “Before long,
my Parinibbana will come to pass. In three months’ time, I will
pass utterly away.”

Ananda, again holding back tears called to
the surface at hearing the truth spoken so directly by his master,
and with such finality, asked him—with as steady a voice as he
could muster—if he could not remain. For the sake of the Dhamma, he
said, for the sake of Ananda, he did not say.

“Forty-five years ago,” replied the Buddha,
“I decided—and silently promised the world—not to attain to final
Nibbana until the Dhamma was well established, and well
taught.”

Ananda bowed his head that he
understood.

“I have now accomplished that,” said the
Buddha. “The Dhamma is as complete as I can make it.”

Then he said, “It may not be the perfect
guide out of this maze, across this river, but it is a workable
guide—remember and proclaim the Dhamma as such, Ananda. It is a
workable guide. If diligently studied and applied, the Dhamma will
take you across the river.”

“Yes, Gotama.”

“
It could be clearer in
places, it could be more succinct in others, and I worry sometimes
about this, but I have reviewed, and turned it over in my mind this
way and that, holding it to the light just so, and it is as I say,
Ananda, it is workable. Followed, yes, it will lead
you—unfailingly—across the river.”

“I know.”

“Remember that.”

“I will.”

Ananda then lost his battle with tears. When
the Buddha saw this, he said, “Have I not taught from the very
beginning, Ananda, that with all that is dear and beloved there
must be change, separation, and severance? Have I not said that all
that rises, comes into being, is conditioned, and subject to decay,
must—sometimes sooner, sometimes later—cease and dissolve?”

“You have,” answered Ananda.

“Also,” said the Buddha, “The Buddha does
not go back on his word, cannot go back on his word. In three
months’ time I shall attain final Nibbana.”

Then he asked Ananda to assemble the Sangha
that he might address them again. Ananda did so.

Once assembled, the Buddha again rose before
them, and thus standing—although this was an effort for his ailing
body—he exhorted them to learn and practice the Dhamma, the path to
enlightenment. “This holy life must endure, it must endure long,
for the welfare and happiness of many, out of compassion for the
world, for the good, welfare, and happiness of devas and
humans.”

Then he said, “Three months from now the
Buddha’s Parinibbana will come to pass.”

Then he offered a brief poem for their
contemplation:

My years are now full ripe, the life span
left is short

Departing, I shall leave you, relying on
myself alone.

Be earnest then, monks, mindful and pure in
virtue!

With firm resolve guard your own mind.

One who in this Dhamma and Discipline

Dwells in constant heedfulness

Shall abandon the wandering on in birth

And make an end to suffering.

The normally many-tongued Sangha was all
quiet that evening. Few if any words were exchanged, each monk
anchored to his own vision of a world without the Buddha.

The following morning the Buddha and the
Sangha left Vesali for the province of the Mallas, in the Himalayan
foothills.

At the next resting place, the Buddha again
assembled his monks and addressed them on the subject of his
deepest concern. And again he stood up, the better to be heard:

“Please remember this: When I am gone you
will meet those who purport to quote my words. What should you then
do? You should commit those words to memory and then seek
confirmation in the Vinaya or in the Suttas. If you cannot hear
them there, you must assume that they were wrongly learned—or
otherwise colored—by that person, and you should reject such words.
The Dhamma must remain pure, and only as I have taught it.”

He then raised his arm and pointed, first
skyward, then seemingly to each and every monk and nun present.

“Accept no teaching attributed to me that
you cannot verify as existing in the Vinaya or the Suttas. I cannot
tell you anything more important than this, for accepting such
false teaching as my teaching will surely destroy the Dhamma.”

:

One night nearly three months later, the
Buddha asked Ananda to follow him.

“Where to, Master?”

“There is a grove of sala-trees in Kusinara.
I want to go there.”

Seeing the Buddha rising with effort—though
fending off Ananda’s offered hand—Ananda knew that it was now only
a matter of days, if not hours.

Once they arrived, Ananda, finding a
suitable spot between two large sala trees and arranging there
several thick blankets just so, made for the Buddha a couch, its
head to the north. And here, as the Buddha lay down to rest, the
sala trees, even though out of season, blossomed and snowed their
flowers down upon him as a soft and fragrant blanket.

Ananda sat down beside him.

Now, other blossoms, from the heavenly coral
tree and from the very clouds themselves, drifted down from the sky
upon celestial music. The Buddha noticed, looked up and smiled.
Then he looked at his friend.

“Ananda,” he said. “Is it not thus, that
Gotama Buddha is venerated and honored in the highest degree by
greetings and gifts?”

“Yes,” said Ananda. “That is so, and has
always been so.”

To this the Buddha answered, “Still,
whatever bhikkhu or bhikkhuni, layman or laywoman abides by the
Dhamma, lives uprightly in the Dhamma, walks in the way of the
Dhamma, he or she venerates and honors the Buddha in a higher
degree still. Truly, I ask for no higher reverence than this.”

Ananda nodded that he agreed, while, again,
silently engaging his fear and grief.

“Do not sorrow, Ananda,” said the Buddha, as
always noticing. “Have I not told you many times that everything
changes and vanishes? How could something that has come into being
not be destroyed? For a long time, Ananda, you have attended on the
Buddha, gladly, sensitively, sincerely, and without reserve, with
deeds, speech, and thoughts of loving-kindness. You have made great
merit, Ananda. Keep on striving and soon you will be free from all
cankers.”

While Ananda bowed his head in
acknowledgement, the Buddha went on to say, “All the Buddhas of the
past had such excellent attendants, and all future Buddhas will,
too.”

Shortly after this the Buddha fell asleep,
while Ananda stayed awake by his side, watching the sala tree
blossoms drift to earth to kiss the Blessed One.

Gotama Buddha slept a deep and peaceful
sleep that night.

The following day, the day of his Death, the
Buddha gave some final instructions to the gathered monks. “Do not
think, bhikkhu, that after I am gone you no longer have a teacher,
for the Dhamma and Vinaya will be your teachers.”

Then the Buddha said nothing for many hours
while the monks waited in silence.

Toward evening the Buddha arose once more.
He looked at Ananda and smiled, then at the gathering of silent
monks. Then he said:

“Now, monks, I declare this to you: It is
the nature of all conditioned things to vanish. Do your utmost.
Meditate diligently and do your utmost to reach your goal.”

And those were the last words Gotama Buddha
spoke.

At that, the Buddha laid back down, closed
his eyes and entered through the four Jhanas into the formless
spheres of meditative absorption, until he attained the stage of
cessation of perception and feeling.

Then he entered these nine stages of
concentration in reverse order, back to the first Jhana.

Again he rose through the four Jhanas, and
during his absorption in the fourth Jhana he passed away.

:

The sala-tree grove glimmered below. Gotama
Buddha took one last look at Ananda, mute with grief now that he
knew his master had left, and told him in a small breeze of love
that he would soon follow, that Ananda himself would reach Nibbana
soon, and shortly thereafter his own Parinibbana.

Ananda nodded that he had heard and that he
had understood.

Soon the sala-tree grove was nothing but a
bright speck upon the Earth below, and then the Earth turned blue
and white with ocean and cloud and soon it, too, was gone in the
starry dust of galaxies.

The gates to the Tusita heaven swung open,
and Gotama Buddha entered once more.

:

This should have been a time of rest for the
Gotama Buddha. It should have been many a Tusita day of
well-deserved contemplation of a job well done. But he could not
rest, for in his heart he still feared that the Dhamma was not
secure, that he had not taught it well enough, that he had not
sufficiently clarified it. He feared that the Dhamma was not well
enough understood, not even by his closest friends, and that it
would not withstand the ravages of time.

He well knew the frailties and follies of
men. He well knew the compulsive importance they attached to the
self. He knew how they valued—and sometimes even preferred—opinion
above truth, guessing above looking. He knew that such men—and they
were in the vast majority—would shape the Dhamma to fit their own
notions of what it should be rather than seeing what it was. These
men would adopt opinions—their own and others’—rather than seeing
for themselves. That was the biggest threat to the Dhamma.

Thus he worried, and could not cease to
worry.

And so it was not long before the Gotama
Buddha again left for the Earth—for he simply had to see for
himself how the Dhamma had fared in the troubled world below since
his death as the Buddha.