The buddha you know as "Buddha". According to Chan tradition, he is the fourth buddha of the present eon (kalpa), "Auspicious". Born as Gautama, he is often referred to as Shakyamuni Buddha.
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| This isn't "Buddha", this is some Chinese dude named Budai. | THIS is Buddha. |
From the Jingde Chuandeng Lu ("Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp", hereafter "CDL") and the Pali Canon (Nikaya citations):
He was of the noble caste. … He led many heavenly beings to the other shore, expounding the practice of 'taking up ones proper stature', his body also appearing in all the ten directions when expounding the Dharma. (CDL)
His father received a prophecy that his son would either become a great king or a great spiritual leader. Fearing the loss of his heir, his father made sure that he had a cloistered life shuttered in the palace. Thus, until nearly his twenties, Gautama did not even know that sickness and death existed:
In his nineteenth year, wishing to explore beyond his home [in the palace] he thought to himself, 'What might I come across out there?' and wandering forth from the four gates beheld four things. In his heart was the warmth of compassion that caused him to ponder deeply, saying, 'This old age, sickness, and death can ultimately be done away with.' (CDL)
So Gautama leaves home and adopts the life of a wandering mendicant, seeking the liberation of all beings. He practiced under at least two gurus, surpassing each, and lived for a time as an ascetic, a practice he eventually abandons in favor of the Middle Path. This story is told in MN 36.
The Lalitavistara Sutra says that, "In the twelfth month, on the eight day, at the time of the appearance of the morning star, the bodhisattva became a buddha called 'the teacher of gods and men'." At that time, he was thirty years old. (CDL)
Upon attainment, the Buddha is hesitant to teach something so subtle and difficult to understand:
Then, [he thought]: "This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise. But this generation delights in attachment, is excited by attachment, enjoys attachment. … And if I were to teach the Dhamma and if others would not understand me, that would be tiresome for me, troublesome for me. … As the Blessed One reflected thus, his mind inclined to dwelling at ease, not to teaching the Dhamma. (SN 6.1)
Then Brahma Sahampati … thought: "The world is lost! The world is destroyed! The mind of the Tathagata, the Arahant, the Rightly Self-awakened One inclines to dwelling at ease, not to teaching the Dhamma!" … [Then he appeared to Gautama and said:] "Lord, let the Blessed One teach the Dhamma! Let the One-Well-Gone teach the Dhamma! There are beings with little dust in their eyes who are falling away because they do not hear the Dhamma. There will be those who will understand the Dhamma." (SN 6.1)
Then the Blessed One, … out of compassion for beings, surveyed the world with the eye of an Awakened One. As he did so, he saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, … those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world. (SN 6.1)
Now the Buddha takes the Bodhisattva path and vows to go "down into the weeds" and liberate beings:
Having seen this, he answered Brahma Sahampati in verse: "Open are the doors to the Deathless / to those with ears. / Let them show their conviction. / Perceiving trouble, O Brahma, / I did not tell people the refined, / sublime Dhamma." (SN 6.1)
He then gives his very first sermon on the Four Noble Truths to five of his former fellow ascetics, who initially scorn him for giving up the ascetic life:
After this, in the Deer Park, he turned the Dharma-wheel of the Four Noble Truths for the sake of Anna-Kondanna and the rest of the five ascetics, expounding the Way and its Fruition. He taught the Dharma while living in the world for forty-nine years. (CDL)
TODO
- Attainment under the Bodhi Tree?
- "Magic milkshake"?