Sakyamuni Buddha, Part 2

When Siddhartha attained  Nibbana He wanted to help His former teachers but they were beyond help because they were reborn  as unconscious beings (Asanna Satta). These are beings born because of  the trance they were in and they have no thoughts, but a succession of atoms of and energy. They remain like statues and at the end of many aeons, will again get the rebirth thought and normal life with conscious activity in the three realms with ceaseless renewing existence either in hell, or realm of hungry ghosts, animal, human, asura or heavenly beings. By then, teachings of the Buddhas  would have vanished from this world.

For the origin of the universe, please read the Agganna  Sutta.  The Buddha’s description 2500 years ago corresponds very closely to the modern scientific view.

Buddhism does not teach the following:

that everything crops up without a cause,

that good deed and bad deed produce no effect

that there is no after-life

that there is an almighty God

that the earth was flat

The Buddha said :

“Blessed are they who earn their livelihood without harming others.”

I don’t know what his almighty god was then. But it was  my mother who told me according to the Chinese, it was Panku.  Panku even claimed that he was the one who invited all the Buddhas to this universe, and that all the Buddhas receive commands from him.

During the Buddha’s time, a deva who believed he was the almighty god, and a creator, came down to earth to challenge the Buddha. The deva wanted to kill the Buddha unless the Buddha kowtow to him. The Buddha refused but invited the deva to play a game. The loser would kowtow to the winner. The deva was glad to accept this game. He suggested the Buddha must find out where he was when he vanish from thin air. The deva  suddenly vanished, but the Buddha found him. It was then the Buddha’s turn to vanish from thin air. The Buddha attained Nibbana. Obviously, the deva which was a common being could not find him. The deva kowtowed to the Buddha and departed.

Another tipping point in his life was caused by the following incidents:

seeing an old man : the pride in youth left him

seeing a sick man : the pride in health left him

seeing a dead man : the pride in life left him

His most learned disciple was Ananda (Buddha’s cousin) and Ananda was the last of the 1250 disciples to attain Arahanthood.  Ananda spent a lot of him time serving the Buddha and the guests of the Buddha. After the Great Decease of the Buddha, Ananda was less busy and he concentrated on meditation, attaining Arahanthood while lying down. Before this, he approached Mahakashyapa for three times seeking assistance to attain enlightenment but was always turned down by Mahakashyapa. These words were from Mahashyapa to Adanda: “ Only you can help yourself”. Only then did Ananda realize that he had to depend on himself if he wanted to attain enlightenment. He went to a secluded and solitary place to meditate and attained enlightenment. The fact was at that moment, he relied on no one and therefore there was no more attachment. This attainment qualified him to participate in the first convocation of the Sangha with the aim of settling questions of doctrine and fixing the text of the scriptures. This Meeting was carried out, three months after the Buddha’s final Nibbana, by five hundred monks who were Arahants. An Arahant  has perfect memory. They met at Sattapanni Cave (at Rajagaha) to recite the Dharma and the Vinaya so that it could be passed on to future generations. The Buddhist teachings were memorized by these five hundred monks, each monk was responsible for a certain sections of the teachings. These monks passed on the teachings to younger monks and that was why we still have the Dharma today.

The First Council Meeting, sponsored by King Ajatasatta, (carried out long before King Asoka was born) was presided by Mahakashyapa, with 499 Arahants, to settle the questions of doctrines, standardizing the Buddha’s teachings,  and fix the text of the Scriptures, by reciting and memorizing, in Satiapanni Cave, situated outside Rajagaha,  during the rainy season retreat, three months after the Pari-Nibbana of the Buddha.  Ananda attained Arahanthood on that day, before the meetng started and was qualified to attend that meeting.  With his presence, there were five hundred monks. Thus the Tripitaka was recorded and has been studied and practised until today.

The 2^nd Council  Meeting was carried out 100 years later at Valukarama in Vesali, to review the conclusions of the first meeting, and also to settle the Ten Points controversies started by the Vajjian monks. About a century after the Parinibbana, some monks of the Vajjian clan at Vesali introduced the Ten Points or Dasa Vatthuni which were against the Vinaya or Rules of Discipline. Venerable Yasa who was Vinaya expert from Kosabi objected to the Ten Points, one of which was that the laity must not give money to the monks. Still the laity gave money  to the monks who would divide the takings at the end of the day among themselves and gave Ven. Yaya  his due share. Yasa refused his share and reprimanded them. These monks passed a motion of censure against him asking him to apologize  to the laity for forbodding them to perform dana to the Vajjian monks. Yasa requested another monk to accompany him as a witness to the reconciliation  with the laity of Vasali, and won over their support. Then the Vajjian monks charged Yasa with proclaiming a false doctrine to laymen and expelled him from the Saangha.

Ven. Yasa went to Kosambi and sent messages to the monks of the Western country, of Avanti, and of the Southern country to enlist their support to stop the deterioration of the religion and ensure the preservation of the Vinaya. He also went to Ahoganga hills in the Upper Ganges to consult Ven. Sambhuta Sanavasi of Mathura and team up with sixty monks from the Western country( Pava), and eighty-eight from Avati of the Southern country. Venerable Sambhuta Sanavasi advised them to consult Ven. Revataof  Soreyya (Kanauj), a leading monk recognized for his piety and learning. Accompanied by him they traveled to Soreyya to meet Ven. Revata. But Revata knew of their mission and was on the way to Vesali to meet them. Both parties met at Sahajati where Ven. Yasa asked for his opinion regarding the Ten Points. Each of them was declared unlawful by Venerable Revata.

The Vajjian monks also went to Sahajati to enlist the support of Ven. Revata but Revata refused to support them. When the Sangha met to decide on the matter, Revata suggested that it should be settled at the place where the dispute originated. So they went to Vesali  where the Sangha assembled but again it was fruitless discussion. It was decided to refer to a body of referees. Ven. Revata selected four monks of the East and four from the West. Those from the East were: Ven. Sabbakami, Salha, Khujjasobhita and Vasabhagamika. Those from the West were: Ven. Revata, Sambhuta Sanavasi, Yasa and Sumana. Of the eight six were pupils of Ven. Anada, who lived to 120 years old, while Ven.Vasabhagamika and Sumana were pupils of Ven.Anuruddha who lived to 150 years. When the referees convened, Ven. Sabbakami, the most senior Arahant, with 120 rain retreats questioned by Ven. Revata,  adjudged the Ten Points as unlawful, according to the Vinaya. The same hearing was re-enacted before the full assembly and the verdict unanimously upheld.

After this issue was settled Rev. Revata selected 700 Arahants to hold the Actual 2nd Council to prevent  the deterioration  of Buddhism. This Council spent eight months rehearing the Dhamma & Vinaya  to ensure that the true doctrine was preserved and handed down to future generations.

The 3^rd Council Meeting was done at Pataliputta, 200 years later, at 253 BC, under the patronage of King Asoka, to finalize the conclusions of the Second Meeting. This third Council meeting was attended by one thousand monks, the main aim was to rid the Sangha of corruption and bogus monks who held heretical views.  All those fake monks who held that there was a self or ego were told to leave the community of monks.

Later, from 444 to 100 BC, because of famine and schisms in the Sangha, it was necessary to preserve the Buddhist religion. King Vattagamani convened the 4^th Council where 500 monks recited the Buddha’s teachings and wrote them on palm leaves for the first time. The written records were named the Pali Tipitaka, (Pali Canon).

The Fifth Council

This event took place in Mandalay, Myanmar in 1871 A.D. Three learned elders, Ven. Mahathera Jagarabhivamsa, Ven. Narindabhidhaga and Ven. Mahathera Sumangalasami, led the Council which was attended by 2400 monks. This joint Dhama recitation lasted five months.

At the end of this Council, the entire Tripitaka was inscribed on 729 marble slabs in Myanmar script. Each marble slab measured 1.68 meter high, 1.07 meter wide and about 0.13 meter thick. All these slabs were housed in a miniature pagoda on a special site in the grounds of  King Mindon’s  Kuthodaw at the foot of Mandalay Hill.

The Sixth Council

This took place from 1954 to 1956 at Kaba Aye, Yangon. A total of 2474 monks from Myanmar, and 144 monks from Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam were present. The preliminary preparation took three years, from 1951 to 1954.  The Tripitaka and its allied literature were examined with the differences noted, and correction made. The final version was approved unanimously by all the monks. All the 40 books  of authenticated and accepted versions were chanted by 2600 monks in five sessions spread out over two years from 1954 to 1956. This achievement was the dedicated efforts of the 2600 monks, and many other lay people. The task was completed on the full-moon day of May 1956, to coincide with the 2500 anniversary of the Lord Buddha’s MahaParinibbana. The scriptures were examined thoroughly several times and then printed, covering 8026 pages, in 40 volumes. At the end of this Council, all the participating countries had the Pali Tripitaka translated into their native scripts except India.

Manjusri was the brightest of the 1250 disciples but he was not the first one to attain Arahanthood. A person cannot attain Nibbana by academic knowledge, intellectual reasoning, by rites or rituals.  Without the help of rites or rituals, there were many people who attained Nibbana immediately after the Buddha had completed teaching a discourse.

Cula-panthaka was not able to learn by heart, a Pali verse which consisted of four stanzas with eleven characters in each, and forty-four characters all together, even though he had spent four months trying to do it. However, later on, the Buddha told him to contemplate on a piece of white cloth, mashing or squashing it, reciting “rajo-haranam, rajo haranam”, which means : “ bringing about dust, bringing about dust”. Cula-panthaka became an Arahant within  a single morning.