Was Gautama Siddhartha a Real Person

One of the most sensitive subjects in religious studies is whether a beloved religious figure was an actual, historic figure. Even for those people for who there is actual historic proof they lived, their lives are often shrouded in myths and legends. 

I have a number of thoughts on this topic. For one, does it matter if the teacher existed in the way our stories say?  Or are the teachings important?  I guess this depends on one's perspective.  

For example, can Christians find meaning in a Christianity with no historic Jesus or resurrection?  Does the Mormon church fall apart if Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon and there were no golden plates or guiding angel?  Does the Torah stand if there was no Moses?

In turn, what if the Buddha is merely a legendary amalgam of different people and their teachings?  Can Buddhism survive on its message if there is no clear messenger?

To this question, my personal answer is yes as a Buddhist.  After 2500 years, it is challenging to separate myth and history regarding Gautama Siddhartha. For me, the practice and teachings are what I find helpful and of importance. I would certainly like there to have been this one genius Buddha who expounded these teachings and served as a role model. Nevertheless, my belief system does not require a Buddha anymore than I need to know the essence of Italian cooking was developed by one incredible chef to be able to take delight in Italian cuisine.  The recipes live on and develop. I suspect Buddhism similarly developed.  And if there was a historic Gautama Siddhartha, I suspect he would want us to focus on the practice. 

On Being Awake

Sometimes I contemplate just what Gautama Siddhartha meant when he talked of being awake.  The very title Buddha means the one who is awake.  A number of people I've known have thought being awake was a poetic way of describing the far more profound experience of enlightenment.  The term nirvana describes being in a state of enlightenment.

In movies and books, enlightenment seems very ethereal.  Sometimes it even comes with superpowers.  And when you die you just evaporate and ascend into a higher state like Star Wars' Obi Wan Kenobi. Enlightenment seems really different than my life of work, family, blogging, meditation, and going grocery shopping.

The thread I see in Gautama Siddhartha's teachings, however, emphasizes a very pragmatic focus on living in the Now and obtaining skills which anyone can learn.  So, the other day when meditating I think I may have awakened for a bit.  It seems somewhat grandiose to claim I have reached enlightenment, but perhaps I just have in a way.

For most of my day and even in my dreams, my mind plays out an endless series of movies in my mind. Some involve the past where I rehash old memories and often in the process reconstruct them based on my current understanding of the situation then.  More often than not, however, these mental films focus on what I should be doing in the future or little scenarios of what may happen.  I endlessly ponder what all is on my To Do list, what needs to be done next, and how to do it.  Sometimes I imagine scenarios that turn out badly with people shouting, rejecting or disapproving of me.  Perhaps I'm late with a project or I'm not attractive to them when I ask them out or I somehow am just not good enough.  These negative projections in my head create a huge amount of fear and anxiety.

On the flip side, I sometimes daydream of things going just as I hoped.  I win the lottery.  My current favorite restaurant is going to have the yummy broccoli casserole on the menu today when I go there for lunch.  My blog becomes immensely popular.  Aliens land and hail me as their God-Emperor. ha

For the years I have been meditating, the work comes in trying to still these movies.  It is hard work trying not to think.  Then the other day I just paid attention to the Now.  I made a breakthrough in mindfulness to get all technical.  I heard the garbage truck outside picking up the weekly trash.  I could hear my cat lightly snoring.  I could smell the comforting aroma of last night's dinner and my partner's scent.  I felt the parts of my skin that felt warm and my ice cold feet.  I could taste the tea I drank with breakfast.

When I looked inward at my body I could feel the tension and anxiety drawing my shoulders together.  I was balled up in a slight way as if expecting someone was about to hit me.  And I could mentally trace these fears to the mental movies that had been playing in my head earlier.

When I tried to survey my emotions just in that second, I felt this kind of splashing ocean of feelings going in every direction.  I could identify an emotion only when I asked about an object or situation.  Otherwise, emotions were like asking What's the color of now?  Well, that plant is green.  The lamp is brown.  Yesterday's underwear in the hamper is red.  Emotions and characteristics attach to objects and situations.

So then I went deeper and asked who I was observing this.  What did I feel.  And I felt nothing.  I didn't have a color or an emotion or even an identity.  I simply was the calm Observer.  It was peaceful.  I didn't have superpowers.  I couldn't move things with my mind (I've tried!).  I simply was awake to the Now.  The mental movies of memories, expectations, and fears were stopped while I observed what was happening in me and around me now.

I've pondered this state a lot.  I've tried and got better at entering it when I'm not meditating by being mindful of this exact moment and what is going on with it.  Strangely, there is this kind of miniature shock like when you are concentrating and someone suddenly turns off the radio that has been playing in the background or knocks on your door.  My attention shifts from a mental place to an awareness place.  I awake.

I am new to this path.  I'm sure there are many more experiences down the Middle Way from which I will learn.  Perhaps I will find enlightenment is something more, but I increasingly think the Buddha was teaching us to awaken to the Now and learn to turn off the mental movies.  To be awake in this way opens a whole new perspective to life which I will examine in another post later.

The Buddha and Budai

This statue with the lit candle represents Gautama Siddhartha, the historic Buddha.
















This cheery wooden fellow on the right represents Budai, a figure in Chinese and other Asian folklore. Budai and the Buddha are often confused.  Budai is even known as the Laughing Buddha to make things more confusing, and he is associated with Maitreya, a legendary future Buddha who will return to the Earth when most of current Buddhism has been forgotten.  Maitreya is an accepted prophecy among some Buddhists.

Recently it has become fashionable to decorate with statues and images of Buddhas.  I have no less than 3 Buddhas and 1 Budai in my home.  Yet, there are no surviving images of Gautama Siddhartha from the first 600 years or so of Buddhism.  Many of our present statues of Buddha have elements from statues of Gautama Siddhartha carved in Gandhara in the 1st or 2nd century of the Common Era.  Gandhara was a kingdom in what is now northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.  Interestingly, the area became Hellenized through the invasion of Alexander the Great and his troops around 330 BCE.  Greek artistic influences created the first statues of the Buddha.

What did the historic Gautama Siddhartha look like?  We don't actually know.  Early Buddhist writings say he was a handsome man who had trained as a warrior when younger.  These writings praise his complexion. His early biographies say Gautama Siddhartha was born in what is today modern Nepal in Limbini.  He taught, lived, and died in northern India.  Ethnically, he belonged to the Sakya people.  When he was younger he lived a hedonistic life as a pampered prince.  Then he was an ascetic who nearly starved himself to death.  He probably had black hair like most South Asian people today.  In his days as a pampered prince perhaps he was a jolly, stocky man, but in his ascetic days he was almost certainly an emaciated stick figure of a man.  Traditional biographies state he lived until the age of 80, a very old age for his day.  Like all human beings, he changed over time.