The Buddha had the capacity to read deep into people’s
minds and discern the maturity of their spiritual
faculties and their potential for achieving liberation.
When he encouraged others to go forth into
homelessness, he generally recognised that such people
had the capacity to attain final realisation in the
present life.
Just about all versions of the Buddha’s biography tell
us that the Buddha made his great renunciation of the
household life shortly after his wife gave birth to
their first and only child, the boy Rahula. According to
the classical story, he departed late at night on the
very same day that his wife gave birth, slipping out of
the palace undetected while everyone else was asleep.
Many Western students of Buddhism find this action hard
to empathize with; some even consider it a breach of
duty, so contrary does it run to our own sense that a
man is obliged to remain with his family at least until
the children reach maturity. Yet, for traditional Asian
Buddhists, part of the appeal of the Buddha’s life story
rests on the resoluteness with which he heeded the call
to the spiritual quest even when this demanded that he
leave behind his wife and newborn son.
For Buddhist tradition, justification for this decision
hinges on two presuppositions embedded deep within the
Indian cultural view of the period; first, that one’s
wife (or wives) and children are one’s personal assets (upadhi);
and second, that one’s wife (or wives) and children are
generally the personal assets to which one is most
attached. For this reason, leaving them to embark on the
spiritual quest becomes the most difficult act of
renunciation a man can make, a true display of
detachment and determination. One who can so act thereby
testifies to the strength, sincerity and loftiness of
his yearning for enlightenment, and thus to his right to
attain buddhahood.
Indeed, according to the Jatakas, the relinquishing of
wife and children in previous lives in one of the “five
great relinquishments” a bodhisatta must make to fulfill
the perfection of giving (danaparami). The Gotama Buddha
fulfilled this requirement in his life as Prince
Vessantara, who handed over his children and wife to a
cruel brahmin. (The brahmin, it turned out, was the
chief god Sakka, who assumed this guise to test
Vessantara’s resolve and returned the family members
after Vessantara passed the test.)
Apologists for Buddhism often say that the Buddha could
give up his wife and child because he was intent of
finding the way to liberation for all the world, and
thus that the universal good he sought took precedence
over his private obligations to wife and children. This
argument, however, is not supported by the most archaic
texts, which do not explicitly highlight an altruistic
motivation behind the Buddha’s embarking or his “noble
quest”.
These sources do not endorse the idea that the Buddha
left behind home and family in order to find the path to
the Deathless for the whole world. As they depict his
renunciation, his primary purpose was to find the way to
release from old age, sickness and death for himself. It
would thus not be legitimate to try to justify Prince
Siddhartha’s renunciation by a principle of beneficence.
This interpretation of the renunciation is more typical
of later literature, when the figure of the Buddha was
being glorified and his quest was given a more
distinctly universal dimension.
But even if we grant to the Bodhisatta such an
altruistic motive, we still run up against the somewhat
discomfiting fact that after his enlightenment, as the
Buddha, he encouraged others to give up their wives and
children and take the homeless life, a point illustrated
by such archaic sources as the Suttanipata, the
Dhammapada, and the Samyutta Nikaya (see e.g. Dhammapada
345-346). During the first phase of his ministry,
householders even launched a protest against the Buddha,
complaining that “the ascetic Gotama gets along by
breaking up families,” by luring men away from their
wives and children and ordaining them as monks.
It took some effort on His part to convince the people
that he was acting in accordance with Dhamma. A
well-known sutta in the Udana (I,8) depicts a young monk
sitting in mediation. His former wife comes to him with
their young son and says, “Support me and our son,
ascetic.” Three times she makes this appeal, but he does
not even look up at her. Finally she gives up and walks
away. The Buddha, who has been observing this, does not
advise the young monk to disrobe and return to his
family. Rather, he recites a verse praising the man’s
unshaken equanimity.
Those who might find this side of early Buddhism
disturbing should understand that the Buddha had the
capacity to read deep into people’s minds and discern
the maturity of their spiritual faculties and their
potential for achieving liberation. When he encouraged
others to go forth into homelessness, he generally
recognised that such people had the capacity to attain
final realisation in the present life. From his
perspective, a man faces two obligations - one towards
his family and clan, the other towards himself and the
weightiest duty he has toward himself is to secure his
permanent liberation from the suffering of repeated
birth and death.
The Buddha would probably not encourage a man to leave
his family if its members were utterly dependent upon
him for their living. In fact, the Buddha speaks
eloquently and convincingly about the duties a husband
should fulfill towards his wife and a father towards his
children (see e. g. the Sigalovada sutta, Digha Nikaya
31) Thus he does not encourage the husband or father to
neglect the welfare of his family.
However much we might feel that a young son should have
regular contact with his biological father - or with a
surrogate father - figure in his immediate family -
Indian tradition did not accept this as an absolutely
binding obligation,. Our own commitment to it, too, is
not as unqualified as we might imagine. We would have no
trouble accepting the decision a man might make at a
time when his nation faces a genuine threat to its
security to leave his family and join the armed forces,
even when by doing so he might risk death, thereby
orphaning his children and widowing his wife. Most
people would regard this as an act of courage and
self-sacrifice. So why then should we feel such a
decision is unwarranted when a person seeks to gain full
enlightenment and unshakable liberation - an achievement
that would bring vast merit to his family if they
accepted his decision with love and trust?
In our efforts to understand Prince Siddhartha’s
decision, it becomes clear from the suttas that the
Buddha regards one’s obligation to one’s highest
spiritual destiny, that is, to win release from the
bonds of samsara, as more compelling than one’s
obligation to one’s mundane parental and marital
commitments when pursuing such a goal does not cause
one’s family members harm. Nevertheless, it is very rare
in Asian Buddhist countries today to find a young man
who would leave his wife and children to become a monk.
The general ordinance, implicitly accepted by just about
everyone, is that a family man must wait until his
children have grown up and become independent before he
can leave the home life to become a monk. The same, of
course, applies to a mother who wishes to become a nun.
( Courtesy - Inquiring Mind)
පසෙලාස්වක
අව
අටවක
අමාවක
පුර අටවක