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 Rel 103 Barnes. Reading Guide (RG) #2.   due Wed.  Jan. 24.

The Sermon of the Buddha at Benares  (modern Varanasi)


Varanasi today on the sacred Ganges river.        A cremation in Varanasi at the Ganges

Background and Instructions, followed by the actual Sermon at Benares

BACKGROUND

The sixth century BCE was the axial age.  "Historic" or "classical" style thought was emerging in India. This style has three major characteristics:
1.  It is the style of thought that seeks a single unity behind the complexities of nature and history, and constructs or discovers a single set of truths and rules that apply universally, to all people everywhere.
2.  This style of thought expresses itself more in abstract systematic analyses than in stories.  Below you will find a story of the first "sermon" or lesson given by the Buddha to five of his former ascetic friends.  Within the story, however, the Buddha gives a simple but systematic analysis of life.
3.  Historic thought is tempted to reject this world on the grounds that this world is too full of suffering or of evil ever to provide true happiness.

In the sixth century BCE in Northern India, the prince Siddhartha Gautama, after first experiencing a life of luxury, and then following a path of asceticism, decided to reject these extremes.  He then reached enlightenment one night sitting under the boddhi tree. He thus earned a new title, "the Buddha," a word which means "enlightened one."

By the time of the Buddha many people in India already shared two major beliefs: reincarnation and karma.  Reincarnation means "re-enfleshment," i.e., rebirth of the self into a new body. A single person could be reborn again and again without end, as though on an endless cycle or wheel: birth, death, rebirth, death, rebirth, death, rebirth . . . .  Karma is the name of the cosmic moral law that every good act and every bad act will be repaid with good and with bad in direct proportion to the act, in some future rebirth.  A person cannot act at all without getting immeshed in this karmic law.

The Buddha taught people to achieve "nirvana." The words means "extinguish" as in extinguishing a fire. The state of nirvana is a state of total detachment, with all cravings or needs or desires utterly extinguished. A person thus lacking in all attachments of any kind would finally upon death be able to escape the curse of rebirth by having nothing at all that would draw the person back into existence.   This is an emphatic case of "world rejection."

In the more common Buddhist interpretation, there never is a real 'person' at all; each inner person is really just a knot of many desires or attachments.  When every thread of the knot has been eliminated there is no attachment left around which a new knot could form.  This belief is called the doctrine of "anatta" or "no-self."

Note that the recounting of the Sermon begins with the words of a monk telling about it, then gives the Buddha's words, and then ends with the monk's description of the responses to the Sermon. Try to keep track of who is speaking.  Paragraphs in the text which are in quotation marks are the remarks of the Buddha.  The parts of the text without quotation marks are the words of the monk telling this story.   The "Blessed One" is the Buddha.  So is "Tathagata," a name the Buddha uses to speak of himself in the 3rd person.

INSTRUCTIONS:  4 questions to answer in writing, about one page single spaced.

1.  The Buddha says that the Middle way is the right path.  This right path consists of six other "right" things.  List those right things (you do not need to give full sentences for these).

2.  Take careful note of the 3 characteristics of “historic” religion given at the top of this page. By contrast, archaic thought thinks there are many diverse gods and not any single ultimate truth; and it describes reality in stories rather than in abstract logic. Identify specific archaic beliefs in this tale about the Sermon.  Then articulate why the sequence of the four noble truths represents a logical sequence.  [The logical sequence indicates this is the time of the beginning of historic or classical thought in India.] Finally, cite some Buddhist idea here that represents "world rejection."

3. The Buddha says "cravings" [desires, attachments] cause human suffering. People take different positions about which cravings the Buddha has in mind. Some say the Buddha claimed only selfish cravings cause suffering. Others say the Buddha claimed that every single craving of any kind at all is a cause of suffering. As you read the Sermon find and cite [put them in writing] all the sentences that would provide evidence one way or another for resolving this argument. Then on the basis of those sentences argue for one of the two positions.

4.  In your opinion,  is the Buddha correct, that "cravings" are the source of all human suffering?  Explain.

TEXT OF THE SERMON AT BENARES

Thus have I heard:  at one time the Blessed One dwelt at Benares at Isipatana in the Deer Park.  There the Blessed One addressed the five monks:-

"These two extremes, monks, [said the Buddha] are not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the world.  What are the two?  That conjoined with the passions and luxury, low, vulgar, common, ignoble, and useless; and that conjoined with self-torture, painful, ignoble, and useless.  Avoiding these two extremes the Tathagata [the Perfect One; that is, the Buddha] has gained the enlightenment of the Middle Path, which produces insight and knowledge, and tends to calm, to higher knowledge, enlightenment, Nirvana.

"And what, monks, is the Middle Path, of which the Tathagata has gained enlightenment, which produces insight and knowledge, and tends to calm, to higher knowledge, enlightenment, Nirvana?  This is the noble Eightfold Way: namely, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.  This, monks, is the Middle Path, of which the Tathagata has gained enlightenment, which produces insight and knowledge, and tends to calm, to higher knowledge, enlightenment, Nirvana."

And the Blessed One spoke kindly to his disciples, pitying them for their errors, and pointing out the uselessness of their endeavors, and the ice of ill-will that chilled their hearts melted away under the gentle warmth of the master's persuasion.

Now the Blessed One set the wheel of the most excellent law rolling and he began to preach to the five monks, opening to them the gate of immortality, and showing them the bliss of Nirvana.

The Buddha said: "The spokes of the wheel are the rules of pure conduct; justice is the uniformity of their length; wisdom is the tire; modesty and thoughtfulness are the hubs in which the immovable axle of truth is fixed.

"He who recognizes the existence of suffering, its cause, its remedy, and its cessation has fathomed the four noble truths. He will walk in the right path.  Right views will be the torch to light his way. Right aspirations will be his guide. Right speech will be his dwelling place on the road. His gait will be straight, for it is right behavior. His refreshments will be the right way of earning his livelihood. Right efforts will be his steps; right thoughts his breath; and right contemplation will give him the peace that follows in his footprints.

"(1)Now this, monks, is the noble truth of suffering:  birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful, sorrow, lamentation, dejection, and despair are painful.  Contact with unpleasant things is painful, not getting what one wishes is painful.  In short the five groups of grasping (skandhas) are painful. 

"(2) Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the cause of suffering:  the craving, which tends to rebirth, combined with pleasure and lust, finding pleasure here and there; namely, the craving for passion, the craving for existence, the craving for non-existence.

"(3) Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering, the cessation without a remainder of craving, the abandonment, forsaking, release, non-attachment. 

"(4) Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the way that leads to the cessation of suffering:  this is the noble Eightfold Way; namely, right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

"As long as in these four noble truths my due knowledge and insight were not well purified, even so long, monks, in the world with its gods, Mara [the temptress], Brahma, its beings with ascetics, brahmins, gods, and men, I had not attained the highest complete enlightenment.  This I recognized.

"And when, monks, in these four noble truths my due knowledge and insight were well purified, then monks . . . I had attained the highest complete enlightenment.  This I recognized.  Knowledge arose in me, insight arose that the release of my mind is unshakable:  this is my last existence; now there is no rebirth. I have even now attained Nirvana."

Thus spoke the Blessed One, and the five monks expressed delight and approval at the Blessed One's utterance.  The devas left their heavenly abodes to listen to the sweetness of the truth; the saints that had parted from life crowded around the great teacher to receive the glad tidings; even the animals of the earth felt the bliss that rested upon the words of the Tathagata: and all the creatures of the host of sentient beings, gods, men, and beasts, hearing the message of deliverance, received and understood it in their own language. 

And while this exposition was being uttered there arose in Kondanna (the eldest of the five monks) the pure and spotless eye of the doctrine that whatever was liable to origination was all liable to cessation.

When the wheel of the most excellent law was thus set turning by the Blessed One, the earth-dwelling gods raised a shout:  "This supreme wheel of doctrine has been set going by the Blessed One at Benares at Isipatana in the Deer Park, a wheel which has not been set going by any ascetic, brahmin, god, Mara, Brahma, or by anyone in the world."  The gods of the heaven of the four Great Kings, hearing the shout of the earth-dwelling gods, raised a shout . . . The gods of the heaven of the Thirty-three, hearing the shout of the gods of the four Great Kings . . . the Yama gods . . . the Tusita gods . . . the Nimmanarati gods . . . the Paranimmitavasavattin gods . . . the gods of the Brahma-world raised a shout: "This supreme wheel of doctrine has been set going by the Blessed One at Benares at Isipatana in the Deer Park, a wheel which has not been set going by any ascetic, brahmin, god, Mara, Brahma, or by anyone in the world."

Thus at that very time, at that moment, at that second, a shout went up as far as the Brahma-world (the highest region), and this ten-thousandfold world system shook, shuddered, and trembled, and a boundless great light appeared in the world surpassing the divine majesty of the gods. . .

This page last revised January 2, 2006.