Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;The Buddha andamp; His Messageand#8221; Sangharakshita speaks to us about who the Buddha was vs. what the Buddha said. Sometimes we are told, the Buddha didnand#8217;t say anything at all.
The Bodhisattva ideal was emphasized by those among the early Buddhists who considered that they could learn from the Buddhaand#8217;s life and activity as well as from the doctrines he taught; from his compassion as well as from his wisdom.
From the talk, and#8220;The Origin and Development of the Bodhisattva Idealand#8221;, given in 1969.
This talk is part of the series Aspects of the Bodhisattva Ideal.
[music] Dharma Vites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. [music] We are told that the Buddha meets a certain monk, a certain disciple, or the monk meets the Buddha. And either in reply to a question or spontaneously, the Buddha gives a few words of instruction. The words are still in the scriptures. And they are usually very simple words, just a few of them. And then to our astonishment we read, that hearing those words, monk so-and-so, or nun so-and-so, became enlightened, became an arahant, and this is really staggering. And we can't help thinking, well, but why? Why? How? We read those same words, we read them a hundred times over, we might even read them aloud. But nothing happens. The mate might be a dim glimmer of understanding. We might just think, well, of course, yes, it is so, we agree, we accept. But nothing as it were clicks, nothing happens. And we certainly don't go spiraling up into enlightenment. Nothing, nothing like it. So how was it? How did it happen? How was it that on these occasions, and there are quite a number of them recorded in the scriptures, these few words, apparently, were able to produce such a dramatic, such a tremendous effect. You might try to explain it by saying, well, after all the monk was prepared, and that is true. It's not the whole truth, but it is true. Very likely he'd been meditating for years and years before he approached the Buddha and put his question. So he is ready, he is receptive. But it isn't the whole explanation. There's another factor to be taken into consideration a factor which is even more important, in which those are important. We often overlook, and that is, the Buddha himself. It wasn't a question of just those words being spoken as it were or appearing in the air. It was the Buddha speaking those words. And in a sense, it didn't really matter what the Buddha said. It was the Buddha who was saying those words. It was the Buddha who was speaking. So it wasn't so much what the Buddha said to the monk that made the impression, which brought about the transformation. It is what the Buddha himself was, which produced the impression, and which brought about the result. Sometimes we find sometimes we are at all. The Buddha didn't say anything at all. It didn't even have recourse to words, but the effect was still the same. The effect was tremendous. We all know the story, the old story of the golden flower. This is a Zen story, of course. We know the story of how the Buddha, without saying anything, held up a golden flower in the midst of the assembly. All the monks were sitting around hundreds, thousands of them, all quietly sitting, meditating. They all saw the Buddha, hold up his golden flower, and the Buddha didn't say anything. And no one understood what he meant by it. No one understood what he was getting at, except one, a very old disciple, Mahakasya. So he understood what the Buddha was getting at, so he looked at the Buddha and he smiled. And the Buddha looked at him and he smiled. And we are told that that was the origin of Zen. But that, as they say, is another story. The anecdote may be apocryphal. It's said now to have been invented, or about a thousand years later, but that doesn't really matter. It embodies a very important truth indeed. And the truth is that the Buddha, golden of the Buddha, taught, influenced people quite as much by what he was, and by what he did, as by what he said. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [music fades out] [music fades out] [music fades out] You [BLANK_AUDIO]
