The Life of the Buddha by Tenzin Chogyel

Author:Tenzin Chogyel
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2015-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

AUSTERITY

In Akanishta Heaven, body and mind fully developed,

In front of Buddhas as numerous as a heap of sesame seeds,

You are blessed and now named Vajradhatu,

You are awakening again—to you I bow.

THREE METAPHORS

The Bodhisattva remained with five ascetics, and together they undertook renunciation at the top of Mount Gaya. While they lived there the Bodhisattva had a flash of insight and developed three metaphors for the experience of awakening that no one had heard before:

A piece of driftwood that is soaking wet will not catch fire no matter how much it is rubbed. Just so, the body and the mind that are dowsed in desire are unable to reach liberation.

Even if the driftwood is only moist this will still be the case. Just so, even if the body is kept apart from desire, if the mind is not kept apart, one remains unable to reach liberation.

Only a dry stick is able to catch fire. Just so, body and mind must be well separated from desire.

Given this, the Bodhisattva came to understand that cognition, vision, and perception were needed, and that the styles of asceticism followed in these degenerate times were unhelpful. A reformer needed to refute these practices.

“So,” he thought, “I must begin to practice asceticism and austerity.”

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