"Incredible, Amazing!" The Strange Sutta on the Buddha's First Steps
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- The sutta on the "Incredible and Amazing" features of the Buddha is the key source for the story of his marvelous birth. It is a strange and problematic sutta for many reasons that we will get into in this video.
🧡 If you find this material useful, check out my Patreon page and get fun benefits like exclusive videos, audio-only versions, and extensive show notes: / dougsseculardharma
🧡 You can also make donations through: paypal.me/dougsdharma
📙 Check out my book, A Handbook of Early Buddhist Wisdom, with a Foreword by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi: books2read.com/buddhisthandbook
☸️ Free mini-course at the Online Dharma Institute: onlinedharma.org.
🎙Check out my podcast with Jon Aaron, Diggin' the Dharma: digginthedharma.com/
✅ Sutta mentioned:
suttacentral.net/mn123/en/sujato
✅ Secondary materials:
Scholar Piya Tan's essay: www.themindingcentre.org/dhar...
Bhikkhu Anālayo, A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya, Vol. 2: www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hambu...
Webpage: www.dougsdharma.com/
Facebook: / onlinedharmainstitute
Mastodon: mindly.social/@dougsdharma
Instagram: / dougsdharma
Threads: www.threads.net/@dougsdharma
Baby Buddha picture courtesy DuongNgoc-HoangPhapPagoda on Pixabay.
❤️ Thanks to Patreon Patrons:
Anonymous (3)
John Oborne
DunJing
Jimmy Maa
Debbie Mattison
Steve H.
Ron Peat
Michael S. Kearns
Matthew Smith
Shantha Wengappuli
Karma_CAC
Jorge Seguel
Christopher Apostolof
GailJM
David Bell
T Pham
VCR
Upayadhi
Andi and Erik
ATGuerrero686
Michael Scherrer
khobe schofield
Alex Perdomo
Benji Forsyth
Blaze Way
Sonny Flink
Steve Marlor
Joy L Lee
Andrew Tom
Anthony Tucker
Karlee R
Ethan M
Billy in Singapore
Olivia Otter
Carl Lennartson
xiao mao
Jeff Harvey
Andrew Ingrouille
Kenneth Grandchamp
Doug Fonner
Rene Gariepy
Russell Needham
Smoggyrob
Mac Roja
Bernardo
Clémence Ortega Douville
Kwan Alex
Scott Johnston
Richard J Beninger
Nathanael O. Arnquist
SaturnianMandala
Trin P
Letesa Isler
Dorien Izel
Robert Paterson
Jake Tobiason
Louvenia Ortega
Steve S.
Richard Rappuhn
Sarah Kress
John Aaron
Paul Niklewski
Kong Ing Kai
Dave Gorman
rhys reed
Osanda Wijeratne
Scarlett Farrow
BJ - RetreaTours™
00:00 Intro
00:25 Outline of the Acchariya Abbhuta Sutta
02:55 Difficulties with the sutta: Piya Tan and Chinese parallel
03:50 Introduction of a Bodhisattva vow
05:06 The story of the Buddha’s birth
06:45 Difficulties with other aspects of early dharma
10:02 One potential reconstruction of the textual history
Note: as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Amazon links are affiliate links where I will earn a very small commission on purchases you make, at no additional cost to you. This goes a tiny way towards defraying the costs of making these videos. Thank you!
🧡 If you find benefit in my videos, consider supporting the channel by joining us on Patreon and get fun extras like exclusive videos, ad-free audio-only versions, and extensive show notes: www.patreon.com/dougsseculardharma 🙂
📙 You can find my book here: books2read.com/buddhisthandbook
Just redid my subscription. Thank you, Doug! Your content brings much joy and education to me.
Thank you@@chriskaplan6109 ! 🙏
Very logical presentation Doug thanks! I prefer to believe the Buddha was not born with special god like qualities, but was still able to reach full enlightenment. It sort of gives some hope for the rest of us! 🙂👍
Well said!
Sure, and I think we should keep in mind that suttas are not documentary, but a tale a tutor tells his students. This sutta is nothing but a preacher upaya.
I once had to give a talk on Buddha and Buddhism and really struggled to present Buddha's early life, as it's true that not much is known of his early life, except for a few quite flowery (sorry, no pun intended at all) anecotes, and the outline of how he came to recognise suffering. I think that Buddha asked Ananda to list his qualities, just so that he could then give a teaching on what great personal qualities are. Ananda was Buddha's great champion and not surprisingly as his best buddy, presented him as an outstanding bloke! Outlandish claims are not all that unusual in any faith system and I tend to treat early Buddhism as no different in that.
For sure. There are some suttas where the Buddha discusses his early life in more prosaic terms, and those to me are most interesting.
certainly theravada has a very infantile comprehension of a Buddha, even relative to other early buddhist systems such as the much more superior sautrantikas.
I like that after all of the descriptions of amazing qualities and events surrounding his birth, the sutta ends with the description of the comparatively ''down to earth'' (though still incredible) knowledge of ''feelings as they arise, as they remain, and as they go away. He knows perceptions as they arise, as they remain, and as they go away. He knows thoughts as they arise, as they remain, and as they go away.''
Made me think of an instance where - if I remember correctly - some monks were excitedly talking about psychic powers & miracles, and they asked the Buddha to describe the foremost power & miracle.
To this he replied that to teach was the highest, most miraculous power of them all. Because to teach others to reach the realization of nibbana truly can't be compared with anything else- no magic or wondrous events can compete with that!
Yes that is the Kevaddha Sutta, I mentioned it in a video awhile back: ruclips.net/video/S0mO1WgVvig/видео.html
Thanks for another clear video, Doug! 🐱🙏
I really love the Buddha's down-to-earth response. There are some Zen successors of it. Here's one:
_When Bankei was preaching at Ryumon temple, a Shinshu priest, who believed in salvation through repetition of the name of the Buddha of Love, was jealous of his large audience and wanted to debate with him. Bankei was in the midst of a talk when the priest appeared, but the fellow made such a disturbance that Bankei stopped his discourse and asked about the noise. “The founder of our sect,” boasted the priest, “had such miraculous powers that he held a brush in his hand on one bank of the river, his attendant held up a paper on the other bank, and the teacher wrote the holy name of Amida through the air. Can you do such a wonderful thing?” Bankei replied lightly: “Perhaps your fox can perform that trick, but that is not the manner of Zen. My miracle is that when I feel hungry I eat, and when I feel thirsty I drink.”_
And here's another one:
_Dazhu Huihai was asked by a Vinaya master, "When one seeks to follow the Way, is there a particular manner in which he should behave?"_
_"There is," Dazhu said._
_"Please tell me about it," the Vinaya master requested._
_"When one is hungry, one eats; when one is tired, one sleeps."_
_"But everyone does that," the Vinaya master complained. "Your behavior isn't different from that of commoners."_
_"They're not the same at all," Dazhu said._
_"In what way are they different?"_
_"When most people eat, they don't just eat; their mind are preoccupied with a thousand different fantasies. When they sleep, they don't just sleep; their minds are filled with any number of idle thoughts."_
When your head is stuck in the clouds, the master brings you back down to earth.
When you can only see what's in front of you, the master lifts you up high up in the sky.
In both cases you're out of balance. Ignoring half of reality. The master brings you back to the center.
This is the middle way. What more is there to say?
Thereupon the Lord touched the ground of this billion-world-galactic universe with his big toe, and suddenly it was transformed into a huge mass of precious jewels, a magnificent array of many hundreds of thousands of clusters of precious gems, until it resembled the universe of the Tathagata Ratnavyuha, called Anantagunaratnavyuha. Everyone in the entire assembly was filled with wonder, each perceiving himself seated on a throne of jeweled lotuses.
🙏😉
Thank you for making these videos! They are a great source to learn from and I am grateful for you putting out videos regularly and for free too!
My pleasure!
Amazing as always, thank you a ton.
My pleasure!
As always. The Buddha brushes aside all the myths and fables about him to reassert a more superior quality that his journey has led him to, being non other than, Samma Sati. Thanks Doug.
🙏😊
Namo budhhay🙏
🙏😊
Buddha was the greatest psychologist. Nothing more, nothing less.
Well I find this to be a parallel with Bodhidharma whose biography also got hagiographical elements such as how he crossed the Yangtze River on a reed similar to how the infant Siddhartha walked seven steps after his birth🤔
Oh sure there are hagiographical elements in many early biographies of famous people.
The Buddha's first step story was either a foreshadowing of astrologers explaining to the parents who Siddhartha Guatama will turn out to be or Maya's (Siddhartha Guatama's mother) dream prior to giving birth to Siddhartha Guatama. It is not the literal story of the birth of the prince.
I've done meditation past couple of weeks from like 1 hour to 10 minutes to 30 minutes etc, but i always have random thoughts and sometimes its very difficult to let them go by without getting infatuated by them. Is this normal?
100% normal! Just keep bringing yourself calmly back to the breath: that's the practice.
Maybe baby Buddha's first words are related to the belief that babies retain some memory of their previous lives or even arcane knowledge in general. I have heard that in an Indian context, so maybe it was/is a folk belief or connected to some metaphysical explanation in the then-scholarly circles eg. the gandhabba explanation of birth
Can't remember where I heard it (possibly Miranda Shaw) but I had understood that the seven steps were related to the seven days that his mother lived. Those, in turn, were related to the fact that at that time (and before), a birth was not celebrated until 7 days after it had happened as a hedge against infant/maternal mortality. So the 8th day would be the first when the mother was back with her husband, and because she died at the end of the seventh, she engaged in nothing that caused further birth. All wrapped up in the notion of the last birth, which is related to the "thus gone" idea -- tathagata (which means thus gone).
Yes I didn't get into the numerology of seven steps, hard to really do anything more than speculate about it though since there isn't any mention in the text of what it might mean.
Topic request: Buddhist holidays? Eg what are Uposatha and Vesak and all that?
I'll put it on the list!
🙏🌹🌹🌹
🙏😊
I wonder if this is a very late sutta, perhaps a Sthaviravadan text written in part to counter the rise and proliferation of early docetic schools and mythologies after the schisms rather than being a hagiographic text - essentially saying yes you may hear all of these things but what is important and should be recalled foremost is my mindfulness.
Well, key aspects of the text exist in both Chinese and Pāli, so there is likely some core that predates schism.
FOR ME, Mahayana makes everything just so much more complicated than necessary.
Was buddha a historical? Or Any archeological findings found?
I've done videos on this, for example most recently: ruclips.net/video/lRXQnI2uDlw/видео.html
what does circulist buddhism mean?
I'm not familiar with that phrase.
@@DougsDharma sorry i dont know how you spell it.
like what does it mean by a secular Buddhist person?
@@Sophias_booktube See: ruclips.net/video/yTxKgz8MeWg/видео.html
how can one person get rid of negative Karma when still staying with there parents and grumpy old dad?
do you have supernatural powers.doug
One of the good examples of why not to take suttas literally. They were written by humans, after all. Just to make myself clear, I think we can render what the right practice is from Suttas otherwiseI wouldn't practice myself,but making claims like this is exactly what Buddha said or Buddha never said this..are unreasonable. Humans always spoil everything they touch throughout history and thinking that Buddhas teaching was somewhat spared to this is just extraordinary and bizarre in my humble opinion. By the way I can't care less if Buddha was Prince or untouchable, all I care about is if his teaching works..
do you know when suttas were compiled?
🙏
@sankettt first, once between 250 - 300 years after Buddhas paranibana,as far as I know. Someone please correct me if that's not right
@@jaroslav6109 no, the first buddhist council was held just after his death at Saptkarni Caves, Rajgir and the motive of this council was to preserve his teachings. many prominent monks such as Mahakassapa, Ananda, Upali etc recalled his teachings and wrote it, which the books are called as Suttapitaka and Vinaypitaka.
@@sanketttI don't think they wrote anything at 1st council.
Its a story symbolic of the birth of the awakening Self.
When Siddhartha Gautama was born, those who were physically present in Lumbini garden witnessed the normal human birth of a prince. At the same time, sages in deep meditation at the summit of distant mountains witnessed His marvelous birth with the mind's eye, they saw the Tathagata walk seven steps, the lotus flowers, and heard His incredible and amazing proclamation.
Both the mundane and the sublime are true at the same time and there is nothing strange about all this unless you've turned your back on the spiritual world, locked yourself in a rational prison and sealed your third eye shut.
🤔
after all chinese, japanese, tibetian, laos, burmese translations/texts are not trustworthy. they gained the knowledge from india and wrote them accordingly which suits them. one major example to give is many westerners call it as Buddha's Dharma, but it is actually Buddha's Dhamma. Dharma is sanskrit word, the language which evolved after 5th century. Dhamma is pali word. base of any language is it's grammar and if we learned it what we write first, a two letters word or a three letters word? धम→→Pali, धरम→→Sanskrit.
Vedic Sanskrit predated Pāli by centuries, and the word "dharma" exists in Vedic. For more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma . (The devanagari script is much later).
@@DougsDharma Here you go👇
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_reliable_source
try finding vedic sanskrit inscriptions in written form before B.C. i bet you can't. by the way vedic sanskrit and sanskrit is not different. as you mentioned devanagari is much later, try finding sanskrit written in another script and not in devanagari script.
@@sankettt Pāṇini's grammar of Sanskrit would have been composed sometime around the Buddha's lifetime. Looking only at written examples isn't good scholarship. Oldest written Pāli Tripitaka is only a few centuries old.
@@DougsDharma Doug your arguments are weak. How can you establish Vedic Sanskrit when you can’t even find a single written evidence of it ? Even until Ashokan Empire they were writing in Brahmi / Dhamma scriptures. Indian history hasn’t been kind to Buddha. That itself should ring suspicion. Modern day historians are working to establish Vedic period which doesn’t even exist. Please read more counter argumentative books. Start with “ insufficient evidences of Vedic period” by Rajeev Patel
@@DougsDharmaand please stop relying on Wikipedia as facts