The Buddha's Sister: "Beautiful Joy"

Myanmarpedia (Burmese Buddhist records) edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Enthralled with her own beauty and popularity even as a nun, Sundari Nanda managed to break free and become enlightened (en.domotica.net)

Sundari Nanda
Nanda was the the stepsister of Prince Siddhattha (who years later became the Buddha), the daughter of his father King Suddhodana and his adoptive mother Queen Maha Pajapati Gotami (the sister of Siddhattha's biological mother).

Because she brought great pleasure and joy to her parents, she was named Nanda, which means joy and pleasure. Nanda grew up to be extremely graceful and beautiful and was often referred to as Sundari Nanda or "Nanda the Beautiful."

When her mother, Queen Maha Pajapati, and other Sakyan ladies gave up the household life to take up the spiritual life, Sundari Nanda decided to join them. However, she did not do so out of confidence in the Buddha or the Dhamma. She was ordained as a nun to conform to the wishes of her relatives, whom she loved greatly.

Lovely Nanda was very popular and respected by everyone. People were touched by the sight of a stunning royal daughter, the sister of the Buddha, wandering the streets for alms in the simple saffron robes of a nun.

Her mind, however, was not on her enlightenment and emancipation from rebirth and suffering (samsara). She was instead enthralled with her beauty and popularity.

She knew this was not in keeping with the high ideals of the Noble Order. Afraid that the Buddha would admonish her for her vanity and preoccupation with beauty and popularity, she avoided seeing him.

One day the Buddha called for all of the female monastics in residence near him to come one at a time for instruction. Sundari Nanda did not comply because she felt guilty and did not want to face him. The Buddha then called for her specifically. She came and he gave her spiritual instruction that emphasized all of her good qualities.

Even though this discourse made her feel joyful and uplifted, the Buddha realized that her mind/heart (citta or stream of consciousness) was not yet ready for a liberating discourse on the Four Noble Truths.

Seeing that she was still enthralled with her beauty, he created an exquisite vision of a beautiful youthful maiden whose beauty surpassed lovely Nanda’s own radiance. He then caused the image to suddenly age before her eyes.

Sundari Nanda's vision: Beauty fades quickly with time lapse magic.

Sundari Nanda saw the beautiful maiden shrivel, her skin growing wrinkled and discolored, her hair turning grey and falling out. She saw the exquisite form collapse with in frailty and finally die, bloat, and disintegrate into a mass of foul liquid, and bones, and dust.

As the body decomposed becoming an unspeakably ugly sight, bloated with worms and giving a stench, lovely Nanda realized the nature of this body with which she had been so preoccupied. Disillusioned and finally freed of the fetter of a long held attachment, her mind was ready to see clearly the profound teaching of the Buddha's Dhamma (Dharma).

The Buddha then explained to her the liberating Doctrine of impermanence and the hidden repulsive aspects of her very beautiful body. He gave her the loathsomeness of the body (in 32 parts) as her special subject of meditation.

Because of her strong attraction to her beauty -- even in light of the vision that had temporarily freed her of it -- it was necessary for her to contemplate the loathsomeness of the body to penetrate the Truth.

In no long time, Sundari Nanda attained full enlightenment (became an arahant) and expressed her struggle for this supreme attainment and the bliss of nibbana (nirvana) as follows:

“Nanda, behold this body,
Ailing, impure, and putrid,
Develop the meditation on the foul,
Make the mind unified, well composed.
As is this so was that,
As is that so this will be [cause and effect],
Putrid, exhaling a foul odor,
A thing in which fools delight.
Inspecting it as it is,
Unwearying by day and night,
With my own wisdom I pierced right through,
And so saw for myself.
As I dwelled ever heedful,
Dissecting it with methodical attention
[parsing the body into its contituent parts with the mind],
I saw this body as it really is,
Both inside and outside, internal and external.
Then I became disenchanted with this body,
My inward attachment faded away.
Being diligent and detached at heart,
I live in peace, fully quenched.”

– (Therigatha 82-86)

(Gnostic Nunnery)

The Buddha's Sister: Sundari Nanda

Wisdom Quarterly

The mysterious pull of beauty is revealed and undone when we see it clearly according to its true nature as composite with an illusory stability.

Sundari Nanda, Suddhodana and Maha Pajapati's daughter, the Buddha's half-sister

Soon after his birth, Prince Siddhartha's mother (Maha Maya Devi) passed away. He was adopted by her younger sister, King Suddhodana's other wife, Maha Prajapati. She was later to become history's first Buddhist nun.

When she was born, Princess Nanda was lovingly welcomed by her parents: Her father was King Suddhodana, the father of the Buddha; her mother was Mahaprajapati. Nanda's name means "joy, contentment, and pleasure." She was so named because her parents were especially joyous about the newborn's arrival.

Nanda was known in her childhood for being extremely beautiful, well-bred, and graceful. To distinguish her from other Sakyans -- the Buddha's extended family -- with the same name, like her brother, she came to be known as Rupa Nanda ("one of delightful form") and Sundari Nanda ("beautiful Nanda").

Over time, many members of her family, the Sakyans of Kapilavastu [likely located in the vicinity of Bamiyan, Afghanistan -- sakya literally meaning "grey earth" according to Wonderlane -- formerly the mountainous desert northwest of India, or less likely but as is traditionally held, southern Nepal] left the worldly life. They renounced it for the ascetic life, inspired by the enlightenment of Prince Siddhartha, who came to be called the "Sage of the Sakyas" (Shakyamuni).

Among them was her and the Buddha's brother, Nanda, and their cousins Ananda and Anurudha, who were two of the Buddha’s leading disciples. When their mother became the first nun, many other royal Shakyan ladies, including Siddhartha's former wife, Princess Yasodharā, became Buddhist monastics.


So Sundari Nanda also renounced the burdensome household life. But unlike many of the others, who sought the best guidance, she did not do it out of

• confidence in the Buddha's enlightenment
• confidence in the efficacy of the Dharma to bring one to enlightenment
• confidence in the success of that Noble Sangha who followed the Path (the Buddha-Dharma) laid out for quickly reaching enlightenment.

She did it out of love for and attachment to her relatives and a feeling that she belonged with them.

Renunciation

It soon became obvious that Sundari Nanda was not focused on her life as an ascetic nun. Her thoughts were mainly centered on her beauty and popularity with the people, characteristics she enjoyed due to the ripening of meritorious actions performed in past lives. This welcome karmic inheritance became an impediment to Sundari Nanda. She neglected to reinforce it with new merit (profitable karma or weighty good actions).

She felt guilty that she was not living up to the lofty expectations of others. She was far from the goal so many members of the Shakyan royal family had left the home life for. And she felt certain the Buddha would censure her. So for a long time, she avoided him.

Enlightenment

One day the Buddha requested all the nuns come to him individually to hear the teaching. Sundari Nanda disregarded the request. The Buddha asked for her to be called explicitly. She presented herself but her demeanor was abashed and anxious. The Buddha wisely appealed to her positive qualities, so she became willing to listen and delighted in his words.

When the Buddha knew the conversation had raised her spirits and made her joyful and ready to accept the Dharma, he began to teach her. Since Sundari Nanda was preoccupied with her physical beauty, he used his psychic powers to produce a vision of a stunningly beautiful woman, one more gorgeous than Sundari Nanda.

The woman then began to age rapidly and forcefully right in front of her. As a result, Sundari Nanda could see in explicit detail what humans otherwise only notice after decades or an entire lifespan: Youth recedes, health and beauty fade, decay and signs aging appear -- wrinkles, hair greying and loss, decline in faculties.

The vision deeply affected Sundari Nanda; she was shaken to the core. Having seen the image, the Buddha could explain the universal mark of radical impermanence [which is not about eventual aging, but moment-to-moment rising and falling of the Five Aggregates] to her in such a manner that she penetrated the truth entirely and thereby attained the first stage of enlightenment, certainty of future liberation, stream-entry.

As a meditation subject, the Buddha advised her to contemplate the impermanent and unpleasant aspects of the body -- to see it as it truly is and thereby be liberated by that truth. This is a systematic contemplation -- the first of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness -- not simply an epiphany (satori) based on a vision of the future loss of beauty. Sundari Nanda persevered for extended periods of practice "diligent and courageous day and night." She described it as recorded in the "Verses of Enlightened Nuns" (Therigatha 82-86):

Ill, impure, and offensive as well,
Nanda, see this jumbled mass [the body].
Toward the unlovely, develop mind
Well-composed to singleness.

As is this, so was that
As that, so will this likewise be.
Exhaling foulness, evil odors,
A thing delighted in by fools.

Diligently inspecting it, just as it is,
By day and night thus seeing it,
With my own wisdom having seen,
I turned away, dispassionate.

With diligence, carefully
I examined the body
And saw this as it really is --
Both within and without.

No longer lusting but quenched
Within this body then was I:
By diligence from fetters freed,
Peaceful was I and quite cool.

As Sundari Nanda had once been infatuated with her physical appearance, it was necessary for her to apply the meditation on bodily unattractiveness to counterbalance that powerful tendency and bias and find equanimity (impartiality).

Later the Buddha recognized his half-sister as being the foremost amongst female monastics who practiced meditative absorption (jhana) -- like the chief female disciple Uppalavanna and chief male disciple Mahamoggallana. This meant that she not only followed the analytical way of insight, but was expert in the foundational stages of serenity.

Enjoying this pure supersensual well-being, she no longer needed any sensual distractions. She enjoyed inner peace at will, in spite of having become a member of the Sangha out of attachment to her loved ones.

I admit it, I'm a doting parent. I want an enlightened child. I show this to her, but she only laughs. She's not getting any younger you know.