The Buddha's Peaceful Protest

Seven, Amber Dorrian, CC Liu (Wisdom Quarterly)
(serenescentsations.com)

Peaceful demonstrations, anti-war protests, sit ins, teach ins, and the like have a long history in Buddhism. The Buddha's own life holds one great example that may have been the model for Burma's Saffron Revolution as Buddhist monks rose up to defy the totalitarian Burmese regime. He repeatedly and peacefully came between two neighboring kingdoms to prevent war. He occupied a spot by the river to bring peace. Eventually, however, he realized that their karma was such that he could only put it off. He had the penetrating insight to eventually realize that. We do not. So we are wise to continue our demonstrations indefinitely.

What peace looks like, which is what NYC's Z Park can look like if the peace is won.

• Thus have I heard. At one time petty squabbles arose between the farmers on both sides of the Rohini river. The river served as the boundary between the Shakyan [where Siddhartha grew up before setting off on a spiritual quest] and the Koliyan kingdoms. Each side was trying to divert as much water as possible to their fields. Finally, these conflicts led to a major confrontation between two armies. The Buddha becoming aware of this arrived on the scene. At first just his presence forced the sides eager for war to rethink their actions. But their selfishness, anger/fear at one another, and ignorance about what was to be lost as a result of war brought them again to the verge of war.
  

The Buddha's "sit in" on the Rohini river to prevent war became a "teach in."

• The Buddha exhorted them on the calamitous results of war and the many advantages of arriving at a peaceful resolution and just settlement. In this way, war was averted and peace restored. It is said that the Buddha has so far been the only religious teacher to visit a battlefront in person to act as a mediator that averts war which, once triggered, never really plays itself out. People, groups, and ideologies want to retaliate even centuries later. Why? It is because the roots (greed, hate/fear, delusion) that led to war have not been addressed at all.

"The people united will never be defeated," Zuccoiti Park patriots chanted as they continued to occupy a corporate creation for peace and economic justice.

War is exhausting itself. Peace is a rest. Peace is easy. Peace is natural. War opposes peace. Peace does NOT really oppose war: It just is. Peace that "opposes" war is not peace, just more war.

Peace is a state in the absence of conflicts. Nonconflict is just a base, not a goal in itself. Beyond peace we want harmony, happiness, growth, development, opposition, cultural evolution.

Conflict is neither good or bad except that what we do with it (how we respond) makes it so. What is the cause of war and peace? Each is due to the various motives in our heart/mind.

The happy resolution (repose) of thoughts that fall under the categories of greed, hate, and/or delusion certainly lead to peace. Permanent peace will only come when one has completely eradicated these mental defilements. Wars will cease and peaceful dialogue between individuals will lead to a world of peaceful and harmonious living.

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The Shakyans (Scythians) of Central Asia

Wisdom Quarterly

The birth of Siddhartha, the future Buddha, from Peshawar, Gandhara (now Pakistan)

The Buddha who is called the Sage of the Sakyas (Sakyamuni) grew up in Central Asia, on the northwestern frontier of India, in modern Afghanistan. He was a member of the noble, royal, or warrior caste (kshtriya) in the ancient Indian system.

The Sakyan territory (maha-janapada) had its capital in Kapilavastu, Siddhartha's hometown, near modern Bamiyan. While he was born away from home in a garden park named Lumbini on the way to his mother's parent's home, possibly in or near modern Iran (a word deriving from Aryan, which the Buddha called himself).

Dr. Ranajit Pal speculates that the real Lumbini garden, the Buddha's birthplace, was in Sistan-Baluchistan, in modern disputed territory where Iran, Pakistan (called ancient Gandhara), and Afghanistan meet. Who were the Sakyans? Might they be the Sakas of Western and Middle Eastern history?

The Sakas or Sakyas?
Wikipedia.org (Sakas)

The Saka (Old Iranian Sakā, Latinized Sacae; Greek Σάκαι; Sanskrit शक [śaka]; Chinese 塞; Old Chinese *sək) were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes.

Greek and Latin texts suggest that the term Scythians referred to a much more widespread grouping of Central Asian peoples.[1][2]

Kings (kshtriyas) with dragons (nagas) associated with royalty in India -- gold artifacts of the Sakas of Indo-Greek/Persian Bactria, at the site of Tillia tepe.

Classical accounts

Accounts of the Indo-Scythian wars often assume that the Scythian protagonists were a single tribe called the Saka (Sakai or Sakas). But in earlier Greek and Latin texts the term Scythians referred to a much more widespread grouping of Central Asian peoples.

"Scythia" was a generic term loosely applied to a vast area of Central Asia spanning numerous groups and diverse ethnicities. Ptolemy writes that Skuthia was not only "within the Imaos" (the Himalayas) and "beyond the Imaos" (north of the Himalayas). He also speaks of a separate "land of the Sakais" within Scythia.[3] He notes that the Komedes inhabited "the entire mountainous land of the Sakas."

The Romans recognized both Saceans (Sacae) and Scyths (Scythae).

Indo-Scythians
Indo-Scythians is a term used to refer to Sakas who migrated into Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, Gandhara, Kashmir, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 4th century CE.

• "Golden prince," a buried skeleton of uncertain sex found wearing 4,000 gold artifacts, dressed in the cataphract-style Eurasian parade armor of a Saka royal from the Issyk kurgan, now emblematic of Kazakhstan (the country just north of Afghanistan)
  

Indian historians see the actual beginning of the Saka Era from 79 AD, after the Kushans conquered the Indo-Parthians and spilled over to the east. The Sakas were once again ousted by the Kushan and forced to wander further into central India.

In Rajasthan they came into the Hindu warrior caste of the Kshatriyas and were assimilated and were now feared nomadic warriors and rulers, for which Rajasthan was long famous.

Under the so-called Kshatriya kings the Shaka Ujjayini ruled from parts of northwest India and presented, for example, under Rudradaman I (r. about 130-150), a competition to the Satavahana dynasty. They were initially dependent on the Kushan. The Kshatriya kingdom was apparently after 397 conquered by king Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/15).

Some South-Asian Sakas includes the Abhira, Nagbanshi, Andhra, Bala, Gurjjara.^[1][2] More

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.