Buddhism for Beginners
36
Buddhism for Beginners
36eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781490787947 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trafford Publishing |
| Publication date: | 03/22/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 36 |
| File size: | 7 MB |
| Age Range: | 4 - 8 Years |
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CHAPTER 1
There once was a Buddhist brother and sister named, Chen and Bre' who were devoted to their faith and they lived in the city of New Delhi, India. As they grew older in their understanding of their faith, there came a time when they were 14 and 13 years old that they were invited to attend a three day retreat with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama! Of course they were not the only young people to come, for many were also coming to be taught by His Holiness.
Now, His Holiness lived in Dharamshala (pronounced: Dar-am-shala) which was around 320 miles to the north and it took nearly seven hours to get there from where Chen and Bre' lived.
On the first day there, after they had unpacked their things in the places where they would be staying, they went to a hall where they would receive the first teachings of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. And in his first teachings for that late afternoon gathering, he simply told them the story of the Buddha. And it went like this:
The Dalai Lama said, "Once there was a Queen named Maya who lived near the northern border of India. She is said to have had a dream of a white elephant which entered into her right side. And when Queen Maya discovered she was with child, she went out into a field and held on to the branch of a tree which supported her while her baby boy was born. And though she had given to birth him and even named him, Siddhartha Gautama (Sidd-hartha Gau-ta-ma) — which means, 'one who has accomplished a goal' and 'one who makes the darkness go away' — she died only a week later.
"We are told that seers said that her son would either be a great king or the one who would show the way to enlightenment. His father, being the great king, Suddhodana (Sudd-ho-dana) wanted his son to be a great king like he was himself; not 'the savior of the world.' And so his father, the king, tried to shield Siddhartha from all suffering, while at the same time he gave him in every pleasure imaginable. And when Siddhartha turned sixteen his father gave him his cousin, Yasodhara who was also sixteen to be his wife. And with Yasodhara they had a son who they named, Rahula."
His Holiness then taught them the "Four Passing Sights."
The Dalai Lama continued saying, "So it seems that one day Siddhartha became curious as to how people lived outside of the palace. So one day he went out of the palace into the streets and he saw an old man and learned the lesson that nothing lasts forever.
"Then he saw a sick man and this made him aware of the fact that all suffer to some degree in this world. And then he saw a dead person being carried through the streets and so he learned that everyone will one day die.
"Finally, the fourth passing sight was of a holy man. And so it was that after seeing these four things, Siddhartha vowed that he must find the way out of suffering.
Then His Holiness told them of "The Great Going Forth." "At the age of 29, Siddhartha, in the middle of the night said goodbye to his wife and son. He ordered the gate keeper to bridal his horse and the two of them rode off towards the forest. He sent the gate keeper back to break the news, while he shaved his head and gave up his expensive clothes for the clothes of a homeless man. Then he went deep into the forest in search of enlightenment — for six years!
"First he found a Hindu master to teach him all that he knew of Hindu teachings but then he ended up joining a group of five wandering holy men. They did things like going without sleeping or bathing, eating only six grains of rice a day, and meditating for hours on end in uncomfortable positions.
"When Siddhartha was nearly at the point of death because of this way of living, a village girl saw him and brought him a bowl of rice to eat. And so he ate the rice and bathed in a river because he saw that he had been trying to starve his way to enlightenment for six years but was no closer to answering the question of suffering. This experience taught him the truth of the 'Middle Way' between pleasure and pain. But the five holy men that he had been with turned their backs on Siddhartha, believing that he had given up the true spiritual path.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Buddhism for Beginners"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Richard E. Kuykendall.
Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
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