Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;Engaging with the Historical Buddhaand#8221; offers us a glimpse of the talk, Searching for the Buddha, from the major new series of talks by Vishvapani to mark the launch of his new book: and#8216;Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened Oneand#8217; (Quercus, 2011).
The act of engaging with the historical Buddha is an act of imagination. Discarded bits of rag, the texture of his face, the color of his skin, his physical form and his presence as it was compared to a Lionand#8217;s Roar, and other elements of the natural world.
Talk given at the Manchester Buddhist Centre, 2011.
[music] Dharma Bites 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] So, let's start by imagining the Buddha, because however historical we intend to be, the act of engaging with the historical Buddha is an act of imagination. Let's imagine the Buddha not as this archetypal figure that we see before us, and not as a glowing figure in resplendent robes, because we've got no reason to think that he actually looked like that. So, what would he have looked like? Would he would have been Indian for a start? Or maybe northern Indian, you know, pale skin perhaps? The ropes that the Buddha seems to have worn weren't wonderful silk or saffron or anything like that. They were gathered from scavenged, from cremation grounds, discarded bits of rag, sewn very roughly together, made out of hemp. His face would almost certainly have been whizzened, and in fact, in one of the best-known sitters of the text that we have, Ananda, his companion, says, "It's amazing, you used to look really great, but now you've got all the wrinkles on your face." So, as he got older, he looked older. The Buddha, in months, only shaved once a month. So, he probably had considerable amount of beard, and a fair bit of hair on top. Should he be so lucky? And his skin would have been darkened. And this was actually quite an issue in the Buddha society, because the rich people, the Brahmins, as I've stayed indoors, but the workers, the shoulderers and the people who came out of us, they were out in the fields, so their skin became dark. Now, the Buddha was walking the roads, so he'd have had dark skin, you know, darker than average, weather-beaten, and he was probably pretty fit, because he did so much walking. Now, as well as that, we read that he had a kind of an aura, a kind of effect that people who met him, felt they walked into this force field of loving-kindness. Certainly, not everyone felt that, but some people did, and they felt a powerful presence. And this presence that he had is often associated with the natural world. So it said that when he spoke, it was as if he was expressing himself like a lion's roar, and he's sometimes compared to an elephant or a tiger. So there's something dangerous in his presence. There's something that speaks of the wild, but, perhaps I should add, the wild that's been tamed, the wild that's been brought under control. So that's, in a way, a starting point for looking at, well, what is this connection between the Buddha and the natural world, which, of course, we don't have if we imagine him in a clear blue sky. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
