Birthplace

 Nepal is home to the birthplace of one Siddhartha Gautama. As the story goes Siddhartha was a Hindu prince who wanted to experience life outside the walls of palace life. When he witnessed what life was like for those who did not have the luxuries that he took for granted he decided to leave that life behind to find a deeper meaning and purpose to life.

According to many sources Siddhartha Gautama, who became Buddha, was born in 623 B.C. in the famous gardens of Lumbini, which soon became a place of pilgrimage. Among the pilgrims was the Indian emperor Ashoka, who erected one of his commemorative pillars there. The site is now being developed as a Buddhist pilgrimage center, where the archaeological remains associated with the birth of the Buddha form a central feature.

Nepal is still about 85% Hindu today, yet it seems as if it is more known for its Buddhist heritage than Hindu. I do find it interesting that the man known as Buddha had his start as a Hindu prince. Though there are significant differences I suppose it is interesting to point out that the man upon whom the Christian faith is based also started as a member of a different religion. Jesus was a Jewish carpenter

MONASTERY

Sunday afternoon we went to a Tibetan Buddhist monastery close to the school where I am staying. There were not too many monks out but we did get to see their temple and the outside of the dormitories where they live.

The gates to this monastery are always open anyone can come in at any time to seek solace and peace.

Tibetan Buddhism is different from other forms of Buddhism. In fact there are three main schools of Buddhism. The first is Theravada Buddhism which is considered the oldest but it is not as widely practiced. The second is Mahayana Buddhism, which came along a while later and is more commonly practiced. The third is Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is considered heretical by the other two groups because in Tibet, Buddhism mixed with the local religious traditions and what emerged was a syncretistic form of Buddhism.

The grounds of this monastery were very well kept. The monks live a disciplined life and it shows in the well manicured grass and trees.

Buddhism does not believe in God per se; they pray to Buddha, to former Bodhisattvas and to their ancestors for help in this life and in the next. Buddhists will pray to Buddha for help in life and monks in particular will pray for help becoming enlightened. To Buddhists the purpose of life is to become nothing.

This huge gong was just inside the doorway to the temple. It goes off every morning at 5:30am for morning meditation. I sleep close enough to the monastery that it has woken me up on a few occasions.

The Tibetans revere the Dali Lama not as a god so much but as a reincarnation of a Buddha. The Dali Lama has visited this monastery a few times and interestingly, they have enshrined the car that he rode in. No one is allowed to sit in it. Part of the reason there is a monastery here is because India and China have had ongoing disputes about their land and the proper borders. As a way to get under the Chinese’s skin India gave asylum to the Dali Lama and even offered the land to the Tibetan Buddhists to build their Monastery. The monks who live here consider themselves in exile.

Not sure what this cylindrical thing is hanging from the ceiling but I am told that it represents a particularly holy place in the temple. Just behind it you can a mural commemorating an event in the life of Buddha.

The monastery has a very simple layout. The gate is left open all day, so they are not worried about who comes in and who goes out. The grounds are well kept and simple. The Temple was in contrast, very ornate. The walls were covered with murals, there were tapestries hanging from the walls and the ceilings.

These red mats are where the monks sit for their daily meditation times.

At the very front there is a statue of Buddha and he is flanked by two other well known, Bodhisattvas, but don‘t ask who they are. At the front there is also a chair or perhaps better a throne chair on which the Dali Lama sat while here, and since then the chair has been retired.

This is the very front of the temple the main statue of Buddha is about five feet tall and encased in a glass enclosure.

The Tibetan Buddhists have a long history with a deep tradition, and they are still longing to go home. Though this will not likely happen any time soon, they still hold out hope. You will still see the bumper stickers that say “Free Tibet”. The movie "Seven Years in Tibet" and the book are both worth your time. The musical score performed by Yo Yo Ma for the movie is excellent.

I would go into further detail but I am in India to learn about Hinduism and Hindu culture so I will end here. I have written a little more in my post entitled "Buddhism."

SIDDHARTHA

In a small country in what is now southern Nepal a clan called the Shakyas ruled. The head of this clan, and the king of the country, was Shuddodana Gautama. His wife, Mahamaya, was expecting their first child and as was the custom of the day, when the time came near for Queen Mahamaya to give birth, she traveled to her father's kingdom for the birth (this is still practiced in some places in India today). On the way she went into labor in the small town of Lumbini. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy whom she named Siddhartha. She died seven days after the birth and Siddhartha was raised by his mother’s sister, Mahaprajapati until he was seven.

King Shuddodana eager for his son to be a king like himself, decided to shield him from anything that might result in him taking up the religious life. And so Siddhartha was kept in one of their three palaces, and was prevented from experiencing much of what ordinary people consider common. Siddhartha enjoyed the lavish court life while his father shielded him from all of the troubles and worries of life.

Despite all the amenities of palace life, Siddhartha became restless and unsatisfied with fleeting pleasures. His inquiring and contemplative nature drove him to seek something deeper. One day, he left to see what life was like beyond the palace walls. During his foray into the real world he encountered what up until then had been hidden from him. He saw an old man, a diseased person, a corpse being cremated, and a sadhu (holy man, or hermit). Siddhartha realized for the first time that there is suffering in the world and that people ultimately have little control over their lives. It was the fourth sight, his experience with this holy man or Brahman priest, that provided the inspiration which led to a dramatic change in his life.

In about 533 b.c., on the night of his 29th birthday, Siddhartha gave up his life as a prince and secretly left the court. He traveled far and wide for the next five years or so; he became a penniless homeless vagabond. He led a life of self-mortification and spiritual study, becoming first a disciple of several then famous Brahman teachers, later attracting his own disciples. He was looking for a solution to the problem of suffering.

After a long and exhausting period of searching and self-mortification, he became disillusioned with the Indian caste system, Hindu asceticism, and the religious doctrines of his time. He gave up the ascetic life and lost all of his disciples as a result, but he continued his search for truth through the practice of meditation. In the spring of 528 b.c. while meditating under a Bodhi tree in Bodh-Gaya, Siddhartha experienced the Great Enlightenment, which showed him the way of salvation from suffering. He spent seven weeks meditating near the Bodhi tree and became a fully realized Buddha at the age of 35.

In the summer of 528 b.c. Buddha found his former disciples and in his first sermon he taught them what would become the foundation of Buddhism based on ascetic Hindu teachings. In the 45 years following his enlightenment, Buddha traveled around Northern India teaching the tenets of Buddhism. The whole thrust of his teachings is to cease suffering by desiring nothing. His Four Noble Truths are to be pursued by doing the works of the eightfold path. In 483 b.c. he died at the age of eighty as a result of food poisoning.

What is important to know about Buddhism in relation to Indian history is that its growth came about because of a shift in the religious climate in India (and Nepal, there was no India at the time). The reflective and ascetic meditations that had become common for the Brahman priests in his time were what made Buddhism so easily acceptable. In “Sacred part 2” I wrote about the Upanishads which were the latest of the Shruti texts, written in the time of the Buddhism reformation. As you read those texts you find many Buddhist ideas even though it is a Hindu text. Buddhism did not catch on immediately. It was not until King Ashoka in the late 300’s b.c. that it began to spread like wild fire. But before that happened there was another major historical event that took place. The Invasion of the Macedonian Army led by a military leader named Alexander…