Learn Buddhism: A Buddhist Easter

Easter is celebrated by Christians around the world. But does Buddhism have a similar resurrection story? Yes and no. While Jesus and the Buddha were two different people, religions, and paths, we can find some similarities between their stories and "resurrection".

In order for Siddhartha Gautama to become the Buddha, his belief in “self” needed to die. When this occurred, his true natural state of Nirvana was resurrect

Transcript

Welcome to Learn Buddhism.

I'm Alan Pedo.

Easter is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus that's observed by Christians from around the world.

But do we have something similar in Buddhism?

Well,

Yes and no.

Of course we're talking about two separate people,

Two separate locations,

Two separate religions,

And two separate beliefs,

But we do find some similarities.

For example,

Siddhartha Gautama,

The man who would become the Buddha of our era,

He had his own resurrection story,

But it's not in the same way as Jesus.

In order for Siddhartha Gautama to become the Buddha,

His belief in self needed to die.

When this occurred,

His true natural state of Nirvana was resurrected.

I'm going to talk more about that as we get into this episode,

But that is foundational for us as Buddhists.

We don't call it the resurrection.

He was enlightened and became the Buddha,

But it is an important part of our religion.

But let's talk about some things that are somewhat similar between these two remarkable religious leaders.

The first one is the test and temptation.

So we have two separate locations where these two people lived,

Separated by over 500 years.

Jesus was born 500 years after the Buddha,

But we're seeing some things in their religious journeys that are a little bit similar,

And one of them is this test and temptation.

So Jesus went out into the wilderness as part of his experiences,

Effort,

His determination,

Where he was fasting.

What's interesting and important about this is at the end of those 40 days,

He was confronted by the devil.

So the devil is looking at Jesus in this,

What he believes,

A very weak state where he can do this influence over him and basically change him and make him do what he wants to do.

So this is where the devil goes to Jesus and says,

You must be really hungry,

Right?

And so here's this stone.

You got this power.

You can change it into a loaf of bread to feed your hunger.

But Jesus knows what the devil is doing,

And he's like,

No,

Not going to do it.

So Jesus keeps going and going and going,

And he even gives what we might just jump on to go,

Yes,

I want this.

He goes,

You know what?

All this is yours.

He basically took Jesus up and said,

Hey,

Look at all this land.

This could all be yours.

He'd be the ruler over everything,

Right?

And so now he's going on to power and control,

But Jesus is still not tempted by this at all.

And to the point where he mocks and ridicules and tells the devil to go away,

Be gone.

The point was Jesus now saw what the devil does and was no longer influenced or in any way challenged or tempted or anything by the devil or his actions.

This was the power,

And the devil had to go because he's not going to win.

He's not going to win with Jesus.

Jesus bested him.

Now we see Siddhartha Gautama going back 500 years.

He also went out into the wilderness where he was trying to learn from the best teachers of the time to find the truth so he can become enlightened.

But no matter what,

He wasn't finding that truth.

He was very skilled.

He was understanding things,

But the truth that they were teaching was never complete.

It was never really getting him to where he needed to be.

So there's a point in Siddhartha's journey where he is meditating under what we now call the Bodhi Tree or Tree of Enlightenment for 49 days.

You see a little similarity here.

We're going to 40 days basically between these two.

That is a testament to strength and endurance and practice and everything else between these two remarkable figures where Siddhartha is also seemingly in his weakened state.

So Buddhism has Mara.

Mara is sometimes likened to the devil,

But he's a demon inside Buddhism but not in the same way as the devil.

Now he confronts this enlightened Siddhartha because he knows that the next step for Siddhartha is to become the Buddha of our era.

Now if he can stop Siddhartha right now,

One enlightened being,

Okay,

What's the big deal?

But what he's worried about is that Siddhartha becomes the Buddha.

A Buddha teaches others on how to become liberated themselves,

Become enlightened.

This is something Mara doesn't want because Mara wants to control.

Just like the devil wants control,

Mara wants control as well because when we start creating these unskillful actions,

These unwholesome karma,

It's keeping us trapped in a cycle of rebirth and that's what Mara wants.

So he tempts Siddhartha.

He presents him with his three beautiful daughters.

Doesn't impact Siddhartha at all.

He says,

No thank you basically because Siddhartha understands impermanence.

He understands dependent origination.

He understands a lot of concepts and teachings fundamentally now because he discovered them on his own.

That didn't work so Mara is beside himself like,

What else can I do?

So he throws his entire army at Siddhartha because remember he's trying to stop him from becoming the Buddha.

This entails everything from this scary threatening army just rushing down on Siddhartha where he's still meditating.

He's still sitting very tranquilly peacefully.

Doesn't seem worried whatsoever.

We see arrows being thrown at Siddhartha but he raises his hand and they transform into flowers.

So something remarkable is going on here and what it is is Mara being defeated.

Mara is realizing there's nothing I can do.

So basically Siddhartha has bested Mara because he can see what Mara is,

What Mara is doing.

Right now as laypersons,

As everyday human beings,

We don't see what's really happening.

We don't see what we are really doing.

We don't understand what we are really doing.

But in this case Siddhartha did.

He's an enlightened being.

He's seeing Mara for what Mara truly is and Mara has no longer any effect on him.

Being defeated he goes away.

So we see both of these figures going away from these two religious figures.

Now with Mara gone Siddhartha became the Buddha.

He dedicated himself to teaching others and he spent over 40 years teaching others what he had learned and helped others become enlightened as well.

And it's his teachings that we are currently following right now.

We are in his era.

So this was a remarkable story between the two where it teaches us as lay Buddhists that effort is really important.

We have the threefold training in Buddhism and part of that is going to entail effort,

This determination to continue on the path inside Buddhism as the Buddha taught.

It's going to be challenging for us at times.

It's going to be scary.

We're going to have things that tempt us.

But if we stay on the path eventually we'll get there.

Maybe future existences.

But as we continue this effort,

This practice,

We can be there just as Siddhartha did.

The next one is what I call the weakness and kindness.

So with both of them we see something very important as we are getting towards my resurrection example.

We see Jesus.

He's about to be crucified.

He is being told to carry this heavy cross all the way to the hill on Calvary.

But he's in his weakened state.

He has been beat.

He has this crown of thorns on his head.

He is beyond carrying this heavy cross.

He's just in this diminished state physically.

He can't do it.

So he's falling several times.

This is where one of the guards pulls somebody from the sidelines,

Simon,

And it helps him to carry the cross.

So this is essentially shouldering the burden as well.

So it's no longer just Jesus.

Now Jesus has somebody who's helping him bring that cross.

And this is important because the resurrection is crucial for Christianity and for the story of Jesus.

So if he can't get that cross to Calvary he's not going to be crucified.

He's not going to be brought down to that cave.

He's not going to have that resurrection.

So this needs to be done and Simon's there to help him carry this cross.

Now Simon goes on later on to other roles in Christianity where he's going to even be like a bishop.

But at this point he's a little reluctant to do this but he's helping Jesus do this.

And this is important.

There's a kindness here and a compassion for this person who is in a weakened state to fulfill their mission.

We go down to Siddhartha.

So I talked about how Siddhartha was sitting and meditating under the Bodhi tree,

Tree of alignment.

But there was a step before that.

So as I mentioned Siddhartha went out into the wilderness,

Essentially the forest,

And he learned from all his teachers and he was trying all these different techniques to the point where he's like,

You know,

I'm going to try this this last technique where barely going to be eating anything.

And this is sometimes where you see imagery such as statues where the Buddha looks like a walking skeleton or a sitting skeleton.

This is what we're talking about right now.

This is that time where he went to the extreme because the belief was you can realize higher states of enlightenment if you just stop with all this nourishment and everything else you can realize it more.

And that didn't happen.

So he's like this was the wrong path.

So he goes down to the river to clean himself because he's not bathing,

He's not doing anything.

It's just a horrible state for him.

And in his weakened state he gets basically almost like carried away by the currents which is not really that strong but in his weakened state is strong enough where he almost gets carried away and almost dies.

But he's able to make it to shore and he just like collapses.

I mean he's just this is dire straits for Siddhartha.

But a young girl,

A maiden,

Walks by and she is remarkable in Buddhism because without her there's no Buddhism.

She gives him some milk rice and this touches his lips and he takes it in.

I mean he's just on on the edge of death here.

And this starts to nourish his body slowly slowly.

And this is where we get that middle way in Buddhism that the Buddha taught because he realized I can't be going to these extremes.

Yes our bodies are impermanent of course.

You know there's the five aggregates in Buddhism where we are a temporary grouping of five different things working together in something called nama rupa which makes us believe we are permanent,

Unchanging,

And independent.

That's the belief here due to this illusion of all these five aggregates working together in this concept called nama rupa that makes us believe that.

And it works so beautifully and seamlessly.

We believe it strongly but he's realizing that yeah you know what this body is impermanent it's just a temporary grouping but we need it in order to become enlightened to escape the cycle of birth and death,

Rebirth.

We need this body so that means don't go to the extremes of where you're trying to starve your body or do things like that or to the other extreme where you're just lazy and or maybe you're just eating all the time or whatever to that effect.

You want to nourish your body keep your body as healthy as possible because this is what's helping you on this path towards enlightenment.

And of course we are all at different stages with our bodies and our health and everything else like that but his point is you just have to look after yourself because it's your body and it is this body and your mind that's helping you on this path towards enlightenment.

You can go either direction but that's not going to get you there.

It's this middle way and not going to extremes and that's just one part of it but that that's an important concept that came from this particular part where he was given that milk rice.

So without sujata we wouldn't have had the buddha.

We wouldn't have had buddhism right now.

It could be a much longer time before we would have had a buddha on our earth to give us these teachings.

So that small act of kindness saved him and without her we would not have had the resurrection.

So let's go to the final part the resurrection.

We know with Jesus he was crucified.

He died.

He was put into a cave and that was it you know for all and every new he was dead.

But in the Christian religion this is where the miracle happens.

So after three days the big boulder big stone gone moved off the side so now it's open and where Jesus was no longer there.

He was resurrected.

This is foundational for Christianity.

He was resurrected.

Now with the buddha he didn't die.

So remember he was saved from death by sujata by that milk rice and then he was able to meditate for 49 days.

But he did have to die and just like I mentioned in the beginning of this episode that was the death of the idea of self.

Now for those of you that heard my other prior podcast and video and article on this we're not saying that you don't exist right now.

Yes you and I absolutely exist right now.

We're physically here.

We think.

We touch things.

Yes we are alive.

We are talking about that belief that we are permanent in some way.

That we are unchanging and that we are independent of other things.

We don't need anything else to exist.

You know we're here.

Buddha said that's the delusion.

That's our ignorance of the truth.

So as he is meditating for 49 days in this intense state that's where he had the breakthrough on dependent origination essentially causes the conditions.

He under things things must arise and fall due to causes and conditions.

That includes ourselves.

That includes thoughts.

That includes all phenomena.

All conditioned things.

And he taught that conditioned things are impermanent and because we are impermanent we suffer.

Dukkha.

That's that unsatisfactoriness.

That unpleasantness.

That suffering.

That is what we are trying to end in Buddhism.

But we have to do that by understanding self and what it really really means.

So as he said again we are ever-changing.

We are impermanent and we are here due to causes and conditions.

So I mean we are going to eventually no longer be in these these five groupings right here.

So what's really important about this is is this belief we have in self as I mentioned here.

We give rise we give fuel to something called the three fires.

Sometimes called the three poisons.

And this is greed anger and ignorance or delusion.

And this is important because this gives rise to us creating unwholesome karmic actions.

And karma these karmic actions in Buddhism is what continues throughout the cycle of rebirth.

It is also what chains us to that cycle of rebirth.

So karma whether that's wholesome or unwholesome karma is all essentially chains to this cycle of rebirth.

Enlightened beings like the Buddha who no longer have that wrong view of self but the right view of self they are liberated from that.

They are broken those chains so the karma they generate no longer binds them to this cycle of rebirth where they are constantly re-becoming in these five aggregates.

So he was able to fundamentally understand self.

And when that happened those three fires greed anger ignorance lost their fuel.

And when they lost their fuel he was no longer creating those unwholesome karmic actions or any karmic actions that binds them to the cycle of rebirth.

This was his true natural state.

So if you want to use that fire imagery again just imagine theoretically you're on fire well that's an unpleasant experience or if your hand touches a flame or something like that right unpleasant unsatisfactory suffering right we don't want that your natural state is not to have fire on your skin right if we think about the three fires inside Buddhism those are not natural to us those are conditioned we are allowing those to happen and when they happen we cannot see what self is.

So when we look at our true self in Buddhism it's absent of the three fires it's absent of all this suffering and dissatisfaction and satisfactoryness it's nirvana.

Nirvana is the absence of the three fires and that's where we see the Buddha his aligned followers,

Bodhisattvas,

Other buddhas they are in their true natural state their true self if you will of nirvana and that is really the resurrection story inside Buddhism.

It's said hard does enlightenment when you came to Buddha because he had resurrected so to speak his true natural state of nirvana he was transformed and this is so important to us as buddhists that we celebrate this we celebrate the buddha's enlightenment in that particular way.

Now for a final part of the story what happened after the resurrections or immediately thereafter so Jesus now he's in a spiritual body he wasn't even recognized by his former disciples they didn't realize it was Jesus the the person they've been with all this time couldn't even realize it was him.

So this is a remarkable and always very interesting portion of it to me they couldn't see him they didn't something was different about him that they were blinded to it.

Now was the Buddha he also had something very similar so now he's the buddha right sadharta became the buddha and he went forth now he met with his five former disciples so both of them are meeting their disciples again right now they did recognize him as sadharta not the buddha so basically to the five former disciples who were also with them during that very last very challenging practice that he was doing where they were barely eating anything they're looking at him as sadharta who's kind of looking healthy now you know he's abandoned that other practice that they were doing and they were a bit repulsed by that because they're like well we're still doing that you left us and they didn't see anything special about him but thankfully they did and it continued on to many different schools that we have today and a rich history inside buddhism.

So do you have any questions about the quote-unquote resurrection of sadharta gatma into the buddha?

I would like to hear from you you can send me a message from my website lmpdo.

Com social media or if you're on Spotify you can also leave a message there thank you and I'll talk with you in our next episode.