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Spartan Surfers

c. 5th century BC

The Buddha

An Indian teacher who left a comfortable home to understand suffering, and whose diagnosis of the restless mind, and the practical path out of it, still guides hundreds of millions of people.

Read the life25 sourced lines

In one line

Siddhattha Gotama, called the Buddha, "the awakened one," was a wandering teacher in northern India who taught that suffering grows from craving and clinging, and that a disciplined path of ethics, meditation and insight can end it. He did not ask to be worshipped or believed on authority; he asked people to look at their own minds.

The life

The Buddha left no writings. His teachings were memorized by his followers and passed down orally for several centuries before being written down. The oldest collection to survive complete is the Pali Canon of the Theravada tradition, committed to writing in Sri Lanka, by tradition around the 1st century BC. Parallel collections survive in Chinese, Tibetan and fragments of Sanskrit and Gandhari. Scholars use the points where these agree to reconstruct the earliest layer. The full story of his life, with its palaces and miracles, comes mostly from later works, such as the Buddhacarita, a Sanskrit poem by Ashvaghosha from around the 2nd century AD, and the commentaries. The early discourses give only scattered memories in his own voice.

His dates are uncertain. The traditional Theravada dating puts his death in 544 BC; many Western books give 563 to 483 BC; a large number of scholars now favor a death around 400 BC. All agree he lived about eighty years.

He was born into the Sakya clan, a people of the Himalayan foothills whose chief town was Kapilavatthu, at a place called Lumbini. An inscribed pillar set up there by the emperor Ashoka around 249 BC records that "here the Buddha was born," which shows the site was revered within two or three centuries of his life. His father, Suddhodana, was a leading figure in the clan; later tradition makes him a king, though the Sakyas seem to have been governed by a council. His mother, Maya, died soon after his birth, and he was raised by her sister. He married, and had a son named Rahula.

The famous story of the "four sights," in which the sheltered prince sees an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a wandering holy man, belongs to later tradition. The early texts tell it more plainly. In one discourse (Majjhima Nikaya 26), the Buddha remembers: while still young, a black-haired youth in the prime of life, he shaved his head and beard and went forth from home into homelessness, while his mother and father wept. In another (Anguttara Nikaya 3.38; numbering varies between editions), he recalls the luxury of his youth and how, reflecting that he too would grow old, sicken and die, the pride of youth, health and life left him.

He studied meditation with two teachers, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, mastered what they taught, and left them unsatisfied. Then he turned to extreme ascetic practice, fasting until, as he later described it, his spine could be felt through his belly. This failed too. He remembered a moment from childhood, sitting in the shade of a tree in a calm, happy absorption, and wondered whether that was the way. He took food again. His five companions left him in disgust.

Sitting under a fig tree at what is now Bodh Gaya, in the state of Bihar, he attained what Buddhists call awakening or enlightenment, at about thirty-five. He went to the Deer Park at Isipatana, near Varanasi, and gave his first sermon to his five former companions, the Setting in Motion of the Wheel of the Dhamma (Samyutta Nikaya 56.11). For about forty-five years after that he walked the plains of the Ganges, teaching kings, merchants, farmers, outcasts and wanderers, and founding orders of monks and, later, nuns.

His last journey is told in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (Digha Nikaya 16). Old and ill, he described his body as a worn-out cart held together with straps. He fell sick after a meal from a smith named Cunda and told his followers that Cunda must not be blamed. At Kusinara, lying between two sal trees, he invited the monks to ask any last question; no one did. His last words, in the Pali: vayadhamma sankhara, appamadena sampadetha, which we translate: "All conditioned things pass away. Strive on with care."

The big ideas

The middle way

His first sermon begins by rejecting two extremes: the pursuit of sensual pleasure, and harsh self-punishment. Both are unprofitable. Between them lies a middle way that leads to calm, insight and freedom. He had lived both extremes himself.

The four noble truths

The core of the first sermon. There is dukkha: suffering, stress, unsatisfactoriness, built into a life of aging, sickness, loss and not getting what we want. Dukkha has a cause: craving (tanha), the thirst for pleasure, for becoming, for not-becoming. It can end: when craving fades, suffering fades. And there is a path to that end.

The eightfold path

The path has eight parts, often grouped in three. Ethics: right speech, right action, right livelihood. Mental discipline: right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. Wisdom: right view, right intention. "Right" (samma) means complete or well-tuned, not obedient.

Impermanence and not-self

Everything that arises passes away (anicca). Because things change, clinging to them brings pain. And there is no fixed, unchanging self (anatta) to be found in body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations or consciousness. The Buddha did not teach that you don't exist; he taught that when you look for a permanent owner behind experience, you don't find one, and that seeing this loosens the grip of self-concern.

The mind comes first

The Dhammapada, an early verse anthology, opens with the claim, in Max Müller's 1881 translation: "All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts." The point is practical: train the mind, and speech and action follow.

Hatred ends by non-hatred

Dhammapada verse 5, in Müller's translation: "For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule." The Pali word Müller renders "love" is averena, literally "by non-hatred."

Don't confuse the raft with the shore

In the parable of the raft (Majjhima Nikaya 22), a man crosses a river on a raft he has built, then asks whether he should carry it on his head forever. No: the teaching is for crossing over, not for holding on to. And in the parable of the arrow (Majjhima Nikaya 63), a man shot with a poisoned arrow refuses treatment until he knows who shot it, and what the bow was made of. He will die first. The Buddha set aside questions that do not lead to freedom from suffering.

What their lines mean for you

At work. Right livelihood asks a quiet question: does your work harm anyone? And right effort is not maximum effort. In a famous discourse (Anguttara Nikaya 6.55), the Buddha tells an exhausted monk named Sona, a former lute player, that a string tuned too tight or too loose gives no music. Find the tuning.

In training. Mindfulness began as training, not therapy: attention to the body, breath, feelings and mind, practiced daily. The middle way is the athlete's lesson too. Neither coast nor burn out.

In grief. The Buddha did not promise that loss would not hurt. He taught that everything that arises passes away, and that much of our suffering comes from demanding otherwise. Later commentaries tell the story of Kisa Gotami, a mother mad with grief who was sent to find a mustard seed from a house where no one had died, and found none. It is a commentary story, not an early discourse, but it captures the teaching: you are not alone in this.

In anger. Hatred ceases by non-hatred. In a simile from the Samyutta Nikaya (7.2), when an angry man abuses the Buddha, he answers that if a guest refuses the food you offer, it stays with you. Abuse he does not accept stays with the giver.

On the ocean. The discourses often use water: the great ocean that has one taste, the taste of salt, as the teaching has one taste, the taste of freedom (Udana 5.5). And the restless mind is compared to rough water; settle it and you can see the bottom.

With ambition. The Buddha's own path began by walking away from the ambition his family had for him. He did not condemn effort; he called for it, to his last breath. He condemned craving, the thirst that no achievement satisfies.

Where people get them wrong

  • "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." Not in the early discourses. A related image appears in Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga (5th century AD), which compares an angry man to someone picking up a burning ember or excrement to strike another and soiling himself first.
  • "Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without." No source in the Buddhist canon. Modern.
  • "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless it agrees with your own reason." A free modern rewrite of the Kalama Sutta (Anguttara Nikaya 3.65). The real text tells the Kalamas not to go by hearsay or scripture alone, but to judge teachings by whether, when practiced, they lead to harm or to welfare, and it pairs that with the advice of the wise.
  • The fat, laughing Buddha. That figure is Budai, a Chinese folk monk associated with Maitreya, from around the 10th century AD. He is not Siddhattha Gotama.
  • The Buddha was a god. Early texts present him as a human being who found and taught a path. Later traditions developed many views of his nature, but he did not claim to be a god.
  • "What you think, you become." A compressed paraphrase of Dhammapada 1. The original is about how actions flow from the mind and bring results, like a cart wheel following the ox.

Read them yourself

Translations of the last words and short phrases in this essay are our own from the Pali.

Timeline

  • c. 480 BC (or earlier by traditional reckoning): born at Lumbini into the Sakya clan
  • c. 450 BC: leaves home to become a wandering ascetic, at about twenty-nine
  • c. 445 BC: awakening at Bodh Gaya, at about thirty-five; first sermon at the Deer Park near Varanasi
  • c. 445 to 400 BC: about forty-five years of teaching across the Ganges plain
  • c. 400 BC: dies at Kusinara, aged about eighty
  • c. 249 BC: the emperor Ashoka erects an inscribed pillar at Lumbini
  • c. 1st century BC: the Pali Canon is written down in Sri Lanka
  • c. 2nd century AD: Ashvaghosha writes the Buddhacarita, the first full poetic life
  • c. 5th century AD: Buddhaghosa writes the Visuddhimagga and commentaries in Sri Lanka
  • 1881: Max Müller's Dhammapada and Rhys Davids's Buddhist Suttas appear in English
  • 1896: the Ashoka pillar at Lumbini is rediscovered and its inscription read

Every line we carry

Each one links to its source, what it means, and the shirt in any of our looks.

  1. Mind goes first. Mind leads. Everything is made of mind.

    The Dhammapada opens by putting the mind ahead of every action. What you say and do flows from the state you are in, and so do the results. Tend your mind first and the rest follows it.

    Dhammapada 1, our translation from the Pali

  2. Hate never ends hate. Only non-hate ends it.

    Answering hatred with hatred only feeds it. The cycle stops when someone refuses to continue it, and the verse calls this an eternal law. Be the one who stops it.

    Dhammapada 5, our translation from the Pali

  3. Wakefulness is the road to the deathless. Carelessness is the road to death.

    Appamāda means alert, careful attention. The verse treats it as the whole path and its absence as a slow death. Stay awake to what you are doing.

    Dhammapada 21, our translation from the Pali

  4. Make yourself an island no flood can overrun.

    Through effort, care and self-control, the wise build solid ground inside themselves. When the flood of events rises, that ground stays above water. Build your island before the storm, not during it.

    Dhammapada 25, our translation from the Pali

  5. A tamed mind brings happiness.

    The mind is quick and lands wherever it likes. Training it is hard, and worth it, because a steady mind carries its own contentment. Practice a little restraint with your attention every day.

    Dhammapada 35, our translation from the Pali

  6. Don't watch what others did or didn't do. Watch your own.

    Keeping score of other people's failings is easy and useless. The only ledger you can change is your own. Look at what you have done and left undone today.

    Dhammapada 50, our translation from the Pali

  7. Irrigators guide water. Fletchers straighten arrows. The wise shape themselves.

    Every craft works on its material: water, arrows, wood. The wise take themselves as the material. Treat your own character as the thing you are building.

    Dhammapada 80, our translation from the Pali

  8. Like solid rock in the wind, the wise don't shake at praise or blame.

    Praise and blame blow in from everywhere and change direction often. If your sense of worth rides on them, you will be pushed around all your life. Be the rock, not the leaf.

    Dhammapada 81, our translation from the Pali

  9. Hearing the truth, the wise grow clear, like a deep, still lake.

    A deep lake is calm and you can see to the bottom. That is what understanding does to a person. Go deep enough and the surface settles.

    Dhammapada 82, our translation from the Pali

  10. Better one word that brings peace than a thousand empty ones.

    Volume is not value. One useful sentence that calms someone beats a thousand that don't. Say less and mean it.

    Dhammapada 100, our translation from the Pali

  11. Beat a million men in battle. Beat yourself, and you're the greater victor.

    Conquering a thousand times a thousand men is less than conquering one: yourself. The hardest opponent is the one who knows all your excuses. Win that fight first.

    Dhammapada 103, our translation from the Pali

  12. Drop by drop, the water jar fills.

    The verse warns that small wrongs pile up like falling drops, and the next verse says the same of small good deeds. Nothing is too small to count. Choose which jar you are filling.

    Dhammapada 121, our translation from the Pali

  13. You are your own protector. Who else could be?

    No one else can do your inner work for you. A well-trained self is the rare protector the verse promises. Stop waiting to be rescued and start training.

    Dhammapada 160, our translation from the Pali

  14. Do no harm. Do good. Clear your mind.

    This verse is the teaching of all the buddhas in three moves. Avoid what hurts, do what helps, purify your own mind. Simple to say, a lifetime to live.

    Dhammapada 183, our translation from the Pali

  15. Among those who hate, we live happily, free of hate.

    You do not need a peaceful world to be at peace. Others may carry hostility; you don't have to pick it up. Your happiness can be independent of their hate.

    Dhammapada 197, our translation from the Pali

  16. Health is the best gain. Contentment is the best wealth.

    Most of what we chase is worth less than what we already have when we are well and satisfied. Contentment cannot be bought, only practiced. Count these two riches first.

    Dhammapada 204, our translation from the Pali

  17. Beat anger with calm, meanness with giving, lies with truth.

    Each bad quality has an opposite that defeats it. Meeting anger with anger only doubles it. Answer with the thing the other person is missing.

    Dhammapada 223, our translation from the Pali

  18. They blame the silent. They blame the talkative. No one escapes blame.

    Quiet, talkative or careful, someone will criticize you. The verse calls this an ancient fact, not a new one. Since you cannot avoid blame, stop shaping your life around it.

    Dhammapada 227, our translation from the Pali

  19. You have to do the work. Buddhas only point the way.

    Even the best teacher can only show the road. The effort is yours and cannot be outsourced. Take the directions and start walking.

    Dhammapada 276, our translation from the Pali

  20. Everything that is made passes away.

    Every formed thing, from a mood to a mountain, is temporary. Seeing this clearly, the verse says, is the path to purity. Hold things with an open hand.

    Dhammapada 277, our translation from the Pali

  21. As an elephant in battle takes the arrow, I'll take harsh words.

    The war elephant keeps going when the arrows hit. Insults are arrows of a smaller kind. Absorb them without breaking stride.

    Dhammapada 320, our translation from the Pali

  22. Don't go by hearsay, tradition or scripture. Know for yourselves.

    The Kālāmas were confused by competing teachers. The Buddha told them not to accept a claim because of reports, tradition, texts or a teacher's prestige, but to see for themselves what leads to harm and what leads to good. Test ideas by their fruits in your own life.

    Kālāma Sutta (Aṅguttara Nikāya 3.65), our translation from the Pali

  23. Everything made falls apart. Keep going with care.

    These were the Buddha's final words. All conditioned things decay, so there is no time to waste. Use the time you have with attention.

    Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 16), last words, our translation from the Pali

  24. The teaching is a raft: for crossing over, not for holding on.

    A man builds a raft to cross a river, then leaves it on the shore instead of carrying it on his head. Teachings are tools to get you somewhere, not things to cling to. Use what helps, then put it down.

    Alagaddūpama Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 22), our translation from the Pali

  25. Don't chase the past. Don't long for the future.

    The past is gone and the future has not arrived. What is left is the present, which the verse asks you to see clearly as it happens. Put your attention where your life actually is.

    Bhaddekaratta Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 131), our translation from the Pali