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Rev. Enrique Galvan-Alvarez
Shin Buddhist Fellowship - United Kingdom
Sakyamuni Buddha Encounters the Power of Others
I am sure you are all familiar with the story of Shakyamuni Buddha and how he became enlightened. Sometimes we think that he relied on his self-power and awakened through his own efforts. That might be true in a sense, but the more I hear the story of Shakyamuni I cannot but appreciate the many people and events that derailed his plans and led him to full awakening. He couldn’t have awakened if it hadn’t been for so many beings who sustained, challenged and taught him. In many ways his enlightenment was the result of many of these unexpected encounters and events.
The Buddha often entrusted himself to the power of others who helped him along his way. There is a lot of other-power or other-powers leading him to realize awakening, teach others and, eventually, entering parinirvana, or dying. By returning and connecting with these powers, these facts of life, he awakened to how things truly are. This was the Buddha taking refuge or responding to the call of great compassion, the call of what we call Amida Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha entrusted himself to the other power of Amida Buddha, which is the benefitting power of many others who were an integral part of his existence.
The beginning of young Siddhartha’s path begins when he is confronted with the four sights, that of an aging person, an ill person, a corpse and a monk. This distressing sight awakened Shakyamuni to the reality of impermanence and aroused his vow to find a way out of suffering. Had it not been for those four people who, somewhat accidentally, were there to be seen by Shakyamuni, he would not have had that important experience that set him on his path. This is the first time that Shakyamuni hears the call of other-power, the call of life itself, inviting him to return to immeasurable light and immeasurable life.
Shakyamuni then went on to study with various teachers. They didn’t provide the way he was looking for, but had he not met them he would have never found out! These teachers, even by negative example, guided him on his path of awakening. Finally, Shakyamuni took a strict vow to fast and meditate with great zeal. He persevered at this practice, a good example of his self-power, only to find out that it wasn’t the way forward. And this is for me the key moment in the story of the Buddha. Not his great realization under the Bodhi tree or his first teaching. The Buddha was exploring the limits of his self-power, facing his own death through determined self-will. Then a woman appeared, as if magically, out of nowhere and, moved by his ill appearance, offered him a bowl of rice. His fellow practitioners perceived this as a violation of the vow they had all taken together, and Shakyamuni was confronted with following his own, strong but self-destructive, will or to entrust to this other-power, that challenged and showed him a gentler, more compassionate way.
Shakyamuni ate the rice and through Sujata, he entrusted himself to a power outside of himself. This event gave Shakyamuni enough energy to continue his meditation under the Bodhi tree and become enlightened. But had Shakyamuni refused the bowl, or had Sujata not showed up at the right time at the right place, we would have no Buddhism today. Thank you, Sujata! I regard her as the Buddha’s most important teacher. Perhaps she is a manifestation of Amida, leading the young Shakyamuni to overturn his self-power and let himself go into other-power. You could say that at this point Shakyamuni truly took refuge. He responded to the call.
Then, energized by food and having accepted his limitations, the realization that must have been slowly forming in his heart finally matured. In a long night of sitting meditation, the Buddha faced his own demons and understood the essence of the teaching that we now call Buddhism. Even at this point, Mara plays a key role in making Shakyamuni face every corner of his consciousness and see clearly the workings of his own ego. Even Mara helped the Buddha become enlightened by negative example, by showing him his bonno, his blind passions or blinding angsts. First desire, then fear, finally pride or ego. In this way, Mara thoroughly pointed at every area that the Buddha needed to direct his attention in order to fully realize his own nature and the nature of reality. So, thank you Mara too, for acting as the other-power that led the Buddha to awakening.
But the story does not end with enlightenment. Awakened as he was, the Buddha still had a residue of self-absorption. He wasn’t ready to teach and thought he would never share what he had discovered. Then again, two others showed up to derail his plan, to challenge his self-power and allow him to entrust to other-power. These were the gods Brahma and Indra, who begged him to teach. Thanks to them we also have the teaching of Buddhism today.
The Buddha went on to teach and hadn’t it been for his many disciples, who asked lots of awkward questions, and who also provided an audience and an inspiration, we wouldn’t have any sutras. They, in a sense, drew the teaching out of Shakyamuni by being there, by asking questions, by sharing their life with him.
Even the Buddha’s death resonates with the flavour of other-power. Unlike other sages, Shakyamuni did not choose to pass away in a profound state of meditation, taking full control of his own life and death. Instead he entrusted himself to the other-powers that had guided his life. When a layman, Cunda the silversmith, offered him by accident food that was poisonous, he knowingly ate it anyway in order to fully accept and appreciate the layman’s offering. Shakyamuni’s gesture does not only echo the theme of entrusting to other-power but he is also moved by compassion, the same force that moved Sujata to give the Buddha the bowl of rice that returned him to life. Paradoxically, the acceptance of another bowl meant death, perhaps teaching us that life and death are but two sides of the same coin, and they are both embraced by great compassion.
It is this power of great compassion and great wisdom that in Jodo Shinshu we call Amida Buddha, and it is this power that I see at work in the life of Shakyamuni Buddha. Far from the romantic image of the Buddha as a lone hero, a genius who stands above the crowd, Shakyamuni is deeply embedded in a vast network of many beings and forces who nurture, support and teach him. It is by relying on that network that he becomes enlightened and it is through those connections that all of us will also awaken. This is the meaning of entrusting to Amida Buddha, the many causes and conditions that enable us to live and realize the way things truly work. We express this entrusting through the saying of ‘Namo Amida Butsu’, which reveals the deep interrelationship between awakening and delusion, Buddha and sentient beings, suffering and liberation.
Namo Amida Butsu
In gassho
Rev. Enrique Galvan-Alvarez
*Excerpted and adapted from an article entitled 'Who Takes Refuge?' previously published in Pure Land Notes, the Journal of the Shin Buddhist Fellowship UK, issue #51, Spring of 2022. Permission to rework original for Buddha Post kindly given by Rev. Gary Robins
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