Once upon a time, the demon tried various methods to obstruct the Bodhisattva (Siddhartha)’s attainment of enlightenment. However, the Bodhisattva was not moved in the slightest. The appearance of a beautiful celestial maiden or the terror of being stabbed with a sword were both repelled by the power of compassion. On the night of February 7th, he overcame the demon, entered deep meditation while emitting great light, and meditated on the truth.
On the following night, he gained the divine eye. By the third night, he dispelled ignorance, attained the light of wisdom, forever cut off all delusions, and perfected the omniscience (the ability to know all things). From this moment on, he began to call himself “Buddha.”
The Buddha sat in silence without speaking. At that moment, Brahma came and requested, “Please teach the Dharma for the benefit of all beings.”
The World-Honored One (a title for Siddhartha after his enlightenment) spent fourteen days using the divine eye (the ability to see distant things) to observe the various thoughts of living beings and did the same for the Bodhisattvas.
The World-Honored One thought: “I have opened the door to the nectar-like Dharma. First, I will teach Alara Kalama ascetic.” Then, a voice from the sky was heard, announcing: “Kalama ascetic passed away last night.”
“Uddaka Ramaputta ascetic is truly a wise person. I will guide him.” However, once again, a voice from the sky was heard, saying: “Ramaputta ascetic passed away last night.”
The Buddha said: “I knew it. I knew that both of them had passed away last night.”
[Translation]
Siro Inuzuka
This text was created by using ChatGPT and Claude to translate a modern Japanese translation into English, and then making some modifications. There may be errors in the English expressions. Please correct any mistakes.
[Explanation]
Shinichi Kusano / Siro Inuzuka
What is particularly interesting is the passage known as the “Brahma’s Request” (梵天勧請).
Brahma (Brahman) refers to “the essence of the world” in pre-Buddhist Brahmanism and Upanishadic philosophy. The Brahma King that appears here is a personification of that concept. Later, Brahma becomes a guardian deity in Buddhism, but here it can be understood simply as “the Supreme God has come.”
Brahma
Brahma asked Shakyamuni(Buddha) to “please teach the Dharma.” In response to this request, Shakyamuni began to preach.
At first, he did not wish to speak about his personal experience to others.
The early Buddhist scriptures (Samyutta Nikaya) contain the following passage. Let me quote it:
“The truth that I have realized is profound, difficult to see, and hard to understand. It is serene, subtle, beyond the realm of thought, and can only be truly known by the wise. Yet the people of this world delight in attachment, indulge in attachment, and rejoice in attachment.”
“Even if I were to preach the law, if others do not understand me, it would only result in my exhaustion.”
Shakyamuni did not believe that the enlightenment he had experienced could be conveyed to others. He was in despair. Brahma admonished him with the analogy of the lotus flower:
“Some beings remain submerged in the water, struggling without reaching the surface, while others bloom into beautiful flowers. They are not tainted by the water.”
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As a result, Shakyamuni accepted Brahma’s request, but his initial despair that “what I experienced is something deeply personal and difficult to generalize” shaped Buddhism’s character as a teaching “without rigid doctrines, changing according to the listener and the circumstances.”
In this episode too, he chose his former teachers, the sages Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, as the first ones he would teach. Although their deaths prevented him from fulfilling this intention, perhaps he thought, “they would understand.”
[Cooperation]
Shinichi Kusano
●Japanese
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