The Buddha of the East

My first introduction to Buddhism was through a 10-day silent retreat I attended when I was 19. Prior to this retreat, I knew nothing about meditation or Buddhism.

10 days of full-on physical and psychological torture miraculously resulted in deep peace in the end. Since then I’ve done over 20 such courses and lived in a retreat center for 7 months. 

In many ways, I feel I have found my spiritual home in Buddhism, but it wasn’t until I visited Thailand (and Sri Lanka afterwards) at age 37 that I began to understand the deeper aspects of what the Buddha had taught. 

The Buddha of the East, the way I saw him, is not one of Sky God, but a Mud Prince. 

And just like anything, when Buddhism comes to the West, we perceive it through our Western lenses and perspectives. Let me clarify what I mean by that. 

When I first heard the word “enlightenment,” I was a teenager. Since then, this word both fascinated and confused me, both empowered and humbled me in ways I could not have predicted. 

If I’m asked today which words I could use to replace “enlightenment,” I would say only two words come close enough for me: Peace and naturalness. 

In the East I witnessed a Buddha of nature. 

Wherever I went, he was surrounded by flowers and trees if not entire forests. Even in city temples in the busiest areas, he was adorned with petals of various colors, scents, and food offerings. 

I saw a Buddha not of overly detached transcendence (like a Sky God), but one of profound connection with Life - a Buddha of the mud. 

This was a Buddha deeply planted in the messiness of day to day living inviting me and you and everyone to come back and find our true home in the naturalness of things - and among nature. 

What I saw and felt was not a Buddha of mere scripture, nor this was a Buddha of mere spiritual transcendence, but a historical figure whose life expresses an attitude of profound practicality and deep relating with all there is. 

According to the story, the first thing the Buddha does after the recognition of true nature (awakening) is to touch the ground. Can anything be more natural than that?

Writing and contemplating about the Buddha and his life is a privilege to me. As I write these words, deep joy and gratitude swell within me, bringing me close to tears - utterly in awe of the profound maturity with which this historical figure lived.

A life of exploration and discovery and then service for the good of all beings.

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma-sambuddhassa. “I pay homage to the Enlightened One.”

In gratitude and inspiration, I bow. 

Who is the Buddha? 

The Buddha’s life story speaks of a prince deciding to leave the confining security of his family home and begin a quest to find freedom from suffering.

Here we have an individual brave enough to leave his conditioning and go off on an inner and outer adventure to discover what lies beyond the walls of his family’s palace - and also beyond suffering.

Into the Unknown. 

According to the story, the Buddha explores the entire spectrum of his being and through such thorough exploration, transcends his limited sense of self along with his problematic relationship with pain. 

And emerges, as a result of such a full encounter with Life, as a free being. 

Each of us feels confused in life. Such confusion is fundamental to being human. The Buddha used confusion as a fuel for the deepest growth and awakening possible. 

While the East tends to reduce (yes, reduce) him to merely a deity to worship, in the West we tend to reduce him to an imaginary vision of a perfect human.  

The East can miss the Buddha’s teachings through blind worship without direct experiencing as a path to awakening, while the West can miss the very humanness of the Buddha in our desperate desire to find immunity from suffering.

Looking for perfection within is merely a defence against the shame and unworthiness we already suffer from. 

The Buddha of the East, the way that I perceive him, is simply a human being (like you and I) who did not settle for a life of blind confusion and suffering. 

We see in him someone honest and genuine, someone full of life, friendliness, and determination to discovering what he seeks.

He has all the characteristics of a mature person.  

As they say in the East, the Buddha is like a good friend, a “kalyana mitta.” 

Let us not disconnect from the naturalness he sought and then taught until his last breath. Let us not make an unrelatable God out of him, or merely a figure of transcendent freedom, disconnected from the mud of life.

The Buddha’s uncaused peace enables him to be of service to beings everywhere, naturally.

Far from a detached enlightenment of no feeling or no care, he is overflowing with genuine compassionate concern. His peacefulness has enough room to include a profoundly broken open and tender heart. 

He is an activist in the best sense of the word - full of active love for the world. 

If the Buddha is showing us anything at all by the way that he lived, it is the sanity in stopping to feel our pain.

It is the need to recognize our interconnectedness with all of Life and to be as caring as possible, in every way that feels natural to us.

The Buddha is a vision for the recognition and the full restoration of the naturalness of things. The Buddha is us coming home to ourselves, to our pain and emotions, to the many dimensions of our being: The personal, the relational, the social, as well as the spiritual. 

The Buddha is a complete embrace of Life as it is and through such radical non-resistance, freedom from the shackles that bind us. 

The Buddha is Life lived fully. 

According to historical records, the Buddha contemplated and guided people to deal with every part of their lives including politics and government. His Enlightenment did not distance him from the practical needs of societies and people, nor did it make him bitter and uncaring. 

The deeper our roots are in the mud of everyday living, the vaster the consciousness that can flower and bloom through us.

Come to Buddhism with a rigid and serious mind and you will forever miss the teachings of the Buddha.

Come to it innocently with warmth and tenderness within, with an alert and discerning mind, with humour and humility and you’ll hear everything the Buddha has to say (and more). 

There is more enlightenment in the innocent curiosity of a child than in a thousand years of disconnected, dry religious study. 

Whenever I think about the Buddha, I see two archetypes blending together: The scientist and the poet. 

Approach Buddhism with the intellectual vigour of a scientist and the heartfulness of a poet. Let your mind find quiet by itself and let your spirit soar, dancing in harmony with existence. 

Cut though your delusions and magical thinking with the utmost respect and compassion for the part of you that is looking for a shortcut exit from suffering. 

Ground your spirituality in actuality and here-and-now practicality and the possibility for very deep relating with those closest to you. 

Don’t reduce the Buddha’s teachings to a belief system with which to create an imaginary worldview. 

Don’t let your practice turn into exaggerated individuality (often framed as independence) that breeds isolation and loneliness where unrecognized fear and shame and guilt reign supreme. 

The Buddha sang the song of Freedom in everything that he was, in everything that he said and did. 

Let us tune into this song as clearly as we can by aligning fully with the naturalness within. 

Let us bow in humility and inspiration, let us rise to the natural fullness of our being. Let us live - one with the mud and the stars.

Bhavatu Sabba Mangalam. “May all beings be happy.”