The World Rulers (Buddhist "chakravartins")

Seth Auberon, Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; G.P. Malalasekera; John Kelly

Asia 200 BC showing outlines of "great footholds of clans" (maha-janapadas) and empires (consolidated lands), like the Greco-Bactria Kingdom in Indo-Greek Afghan Gandhara.

Afghan (Gandharan) Buddhist monks with Greek King Menander (Milinda), Bactria (WHP)

 

Chakra at center of Indian flag

The special name given in Buddhist texts to a world ruler or monarch is cakka-vatti. It means "Turner of the Wheel," the Wheel (cakka, chakra) being the well known Indian symbol of empire. 

More than 1,000 sons are his; his dominions extend throughout the Earth to its ocean bounds (sāgarapariyantam) [a reference either to space and the planet in the Milky Way ocean or to the subcontinent of India bounded by seas]; and [the ruler's empire] is established not by the scourge nor by the sword, but by righteousness...

 

...When the world monarch is about to die, the Wheel slips down from its place and sinks down slightly. When the king sees this he leaves the household life, and retires into homelessness, to taste the joys of contemplation [meditation], having handed over the kingdom to his eldest son. At the king's death, the Elephant, the Horse and the Gem return to where they came from, the Woman loses her beauty, the Treasurer his divine vision, and the Adviser his efficiency (DA.ii.635).

 

Golden Buddha (Boddo) coin (miami.edu)

The world monarchs (cakka-vattis) are rare in the world, born in ages/aeons (kalpas) in which buddhas do not arise (SA.iii.131).

The Cakkavattisīhanāda Sutta gives the names of seven who succeeded one another. In the case of each of them, the Wheel (cakka, chakra) disappeared. But when his successor practiced the noble (ariyan) duty of a world monarch, honoring the Dharma and following it to perfection, the Wheel reappeared.

In the case of the seventh, his virtues gradually disappeared through forgetfulness; crime spread among his subjects, and the Wheel vanished forever. More

King Milinda questions Ven. Nagasena

John Kelly (trans.) Milindapañha or "Questions of King Milinda" (excerpts)

The metallic Milinda/Menander I coin

The Milinda-pañha, the 18th book of the Khuddaka Nikaya (Burmese version of the Pali canon), consists of seven parts (see further on).

The conclusion states that it contains 262 questions, but the editions available today only contain 236. Although not included as a canonical text in the traditions of all the Theravada countries, this work is much revered throughout and is one of the most popular and authoritative Buddhist works in Pali [a uniquely Buddhist language very similar to Sanskrit].
 
Composed around the beginning of the common era and of unknown authorship, it is set up as a compilation of questions posed by King Milinda [Greek King Menander I] to a revered senior monk named Ven. Nagasena.

Nagasena answers the king's many questions

Milinda is identified by scholars with considerable confidence as the Greek King Menander of Bactria, a dominion founded by Alexander the Great.

The area corresponds with much of present day Afghanistan. King Menander's realm would have included Gandhara, where Buddhism was flourishing at that time.
 
What is most interesting about the Milindapañha is that it is the product of the encounter of two great civilizations -- Hellenistic Greece and Buddhist India [which in ancient times included all of modern Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan, which is what Gandhara was]. So it is of continuing relevance as the Wisdom of the East meets the modern Western world.

• [NOTE: It is more likely that Buddhism co-arose in Afghanistan because the Buddha was from there. The evidence for this is more archeological than anything. Afghanistan contains the earliest anthropomorphic depictions of the Buddha, the largest Buddha figures, the richest and most massive temple complexes, such as the incomprehensible finds at 2,600-year-old Mes Aynak near the modern capital of Kabul. Buddhism is currently thought to be 2,600-years old. Is it reasonable to believe that the first year the Buddha began teaching in India, someone thought to found a massive temple with monastic residences?]

King Milinda poses questions about dilemmas raised by Buddhist philosophy that we might well ask today. And Ven. Nagasena's responses are full of wisdom, wit, and helpful analogies. More

• Other translations from I.B. Horner and Andrew Olendzki
  

"What the Buddha Taught" (best book)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Walpola Rahula, the first Buddhist monk to become a professor at a Western university, lectured at Swarthmore, UCLA

The golden Buddha with golden arhats listening to the Dharma (Thai-on/flickr.com)

  

What the Buddha Taught (W. Rahula)

Most people cannot bear to look at book titled What the Buddha Never Taught -- even though it is an account of real life practices
 a modern Buddhist monastery. They are drawn instead to tradition, to "truth," to What the Buddha Taught.

This text, which can be read free here, is rightly heralded as one of the greatest publications on Buddhism in the history of English. It ranks right up there was the great sutra translations in English of Bhikkhu Bodhi and Maurice O'Connell Walshe and the previous generation of the British Pali Text Society (PTS) like Rhys Davids, Caroline Rhys Davids, and Frank Lee Woodward.

A Sri Lankan scholar-monk, Ven. Walpola Rahula, somehow managed the impossible -- succinctly covering all of the important aspects of the Dharma in one relatively short and well written book. 

Buddha (Mesamong/flickr)

How he did this has been difficult for us to figure out. We must suppose that he avoided obvious formulas and stereotyped texts to present it.

But the Buddha himself formulated those "lists," the bane of Buddhist students who have not yet realized that the lists are only a device to remember to mention everything. They have no magic or purpose beyond that. The best list would be the Seven Factors of Enlightenment explained in terms of the Seven Requisites of Enlightenment, which are 37 factors, of which the Seven Factors of Enlightenment are just one group. The Greco-Buddhist monk Ven. Nagasena spelled out this ancient formulation centuries ago. See how easy it is to become boring and weighed down bywe presunumbers and lists and terms? How does Ven. Rahula avoid it? Years of study, insight, and teaching, we presume.

Only one book

Meditating deva in gold at Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai, Thailand (_cFu/flickr)

 

If there were only one book one was ever going to read about Buddhism, it would not be Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, which is not about Siddhartha Gautama but about another guy named "Siddhartha" in a fictional tale. The Buddha is far in the background. 

It's like Monty Python's Life of Brian, which is not about Jesus Christ but instead about a Jewish boy born in a manger, visited by three wise men on the day he is born, who grows up to be called "messiah" and "healer" as he fights Pagan Roman imperialism and temple hypocrisy. This perfectly describes Brian. The Christ is far in the background. But everyone assumes the movie is about Jesus, just as everyone assumes Siddhartha is about the Buddha's early life. 

Thailand (Laurence Hunt)

Nor would it be The Dhammapada, a collection of Buddhist aphorisms that hardly even make sense without the accompanying stories left out of most modern "pocket" versions treating the text like some kind of "Buddhist Bible." No, unless it's going to be a collection of sutras like Bhikkhu Bodhi's wonderful excellent anthology or his recorded series, "The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is" available free on CD from the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS/CYM) in upstate New York.

Nor would it be Buddhaghosa's compendious Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), which purports to be a meditation manual but is written so densely as to be impenetrable even for experts and scholars. One is better off tackling his earlier Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga by Upatissa, aka Buddhaghosa). Both try to cover topics that need a living meditation master, for they are training manuals not ordinary books. They contain a great deal of commentarial literature, which many people today foolishly reject or disregard as not being sutras the Buddha uttered. What we fail to understand as Westerners is the long Indian tradition of spiritual teachers making statements their students and students' students explicate and comment on. This exegetical literature is not a comment but a detailed explanation of the practice.

The same is true in Judaism, as a living tradition of storytelling and endless interpretation to make things real in one's life. But as modern Christians, the idea makes little sense to us: We want it hard and fixed, absolute and fundamentalist. Teaching was never like this, except that writing made it so. The Buddha did not write, nor did the Vedic seers (rishis) before him or Jewish-Jesus of Nazareth after him. The mystical experience cannot be communicated that way, try as we might. The Pagan teachers of Europe and the shamans everywhere in the world. It used to be a round, a spin, a toss with storytelling to match.

Nor would it even be the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is all well and good to listen to when dying but not such a hot read for a layperson in life.

Nor would it be Ven. Nyanatiloka's Buddhist Dictionary: A Manual of Doctrine and Terms, which is written as a series of essays rather than simple entries and serves as an excellent resource.

Nor would it be a catechism. If a person had only one Buddhist book to read, it would have to be:

What the Buddha Taught

HERE ARE THE CONTENTS:

CONTENTS: List of Illustrations, Foreword, Preface, The Buddha.

CHAPTER I: The Buddhist Attitude of Mind, Human is supreme—One is one's refuge—Responsibility—Doubt—Freedom of Thought—Tolerance—Is Buddhism Religion or Philosophy?—Truth has no label—No blind faith or belief, but seeing and understanding—No attachment even to Truth—Parable of the Raft—Imaginary speculations useless—Practical attitude—Parable of the wounded man, THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS.

CHAPTER II: The First Noble Truth: Dukkha, Buddhism neither pessimistic nor optimistic but realistic—Meaning of "Dukkha"—Three aspects of experience—Three aspects of "Dukkha"—What is a "being"?—Five Aggregates—No spirit opposed to matter—Flux—Thinker and Thought—Has life a beginning?

CHAPTER III: The Second Noble Truth: Samudaya: "The Arising of Dukkha"—Definition—Four Nutriments—Root cause of suffering and continuity—Nature of arising and cessation—Karma and Rebirth—What is death?—What is rebirth?

CHAPTER IV: The Third Noble Truth: Nirodha: "The Cessation of Dukkha'—What is Nirvana?—Language and Absolute Truth—Definitions of Nirvana—Nirvana not negative—Nirvana as Absolute Truth—What is Absolute Truth?—Truth is not negative—Nirvana and Samsara—Nirvana not a result—What is there after Nirvana?— Incorrect expressions—What happens to an Arahant after death?— If no Self, who realizes Nirvana?—Nirvana in this life.

CHAPTER V: The Fourth Noble Truth: Magga: "The Path," Middle Path or Noble Eightfold Path—Compassion and Wisdom—Ethical Conduct—Mental Discipline—Wisdom—Two sorts of Understanding—Four Functions regarding the Four Noble Truths.

CHAPTER VI: The Doctrine of No-Soul: Anatta, What is Soul or Self?—God and Soul: Self protection and Self-preservation—Teaching "Against the Current"—Analytic and Synthetic methods—Conditioned Genesis—Question of Freewill—Two kinds of Truths—Some erroneous views—The Buddha definitely denies "Atman"—The Buddha's silence—The idea of Self a vague impression—Correct attitude—If no Self, who gets the result of Karma?—Doctrine of Anatta not negative...

CHAPTER VII: "Meditation" or Mental Culture: Bhavana, Erroneous views—Meditation is no escape from life—Two forms of Meditation—The Setting up of Mindfulness—"Meditation" on breathing—Mindfulness of activities—Living in the present moment—"Meditation" on Sensations—on Mind—on Ethical, Spiritual, and Intellectual subjects.

CHAPTER VIII: What the Buddha Taught and the World Today, Erroneous views—Buddhism for all—In daily life—Family and social life—Lay life held in high esteem—How to become a Buddhist—Social and economic problems—Poverty: cause of crime—Material and spiritual progress—Four kinds of happiness for laypersons—On politics, war, and peace—Non-violence—The ten duties of a ruler—The Buddha's Message—Is it practical?—Asoka's Example-The Aim of Buddhism

SELECTED TEXTS: Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth (Dhammacakkappavattana-sutta), The Fire Sermon (Adittapariyaya-sutta), Universal Love (Metta-sutta), Blessings (Mangala-sutta), Getting rid of All Cares and Troubles (Sabbasava-sutta), The Parable of the Piece of Cloth (Vatthupama-sutta), The Foundations of Mindfulness (Satipatthana-sutta), Advice to Sigala (Sigalovada-sutta), The Words of Truth (Dhammapada), The Last Words of the Buddha (from the Mahaparinibbanasutta). Abbreviations. Selected Bibliography. Glossary. Index. READ IT

Byzantine History Made Easy (audio)

Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Marc Haefele, John Rabe (Off-Ramp)

Archangel Michael (Buddhist Sakka, King of the Devas), 1300-1350 AD, Constantinople, tempera and gold on wood (Gift from Istanbul, Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens).

Byzantium: Heaven and Earth and Constantinople, too

Buddhist Messiah Maitreya (WQ)

What civilization lasted 1,100 years, almost into Columbus’ time, that hardly anyone thinks of as a civilization? Byzantium.

It was a Yelp-5-Star civilization that bridged ancient times to modernity. And it’s now showing at both of the Gettys in Los Angeles.
  

First the Romans took over the Greeks. Then, 800 years later, the Greeks took over the Romans. [Messianic Buddhism-influenced] Christianity came into the mix, and the result was the magnificent Byzantine Empire, which once spread from North Africa all the way to Crimea (Ukraine).

• 

  Greco-Buddha, Gandhara

  Greco-Indian Buddhist empires: Bactria, Seleucid, Sogdia, Gandhara
• Ancient Greece: the Buddhist monk and King Menander I (Milinda) In the land of the Bactrian Greeks, there was a city called Sagala, a great center of trade. Rivers and hills beautified it, delightful landscapes surrounded it, and it possessed many parks, gardens, woods, lakes, and lotus-ponds. Its ruler was King Milinda (Menander I), a man who was learned, experienced, intelligent, and competent, and who at the proper times carefully observed all the appropriate Brahminical rites, with regard to things past, present, and future. As a disputant he was hard to assail, hard to overcome, and he was recognized as a prominent sectarian teacher. One day, a large company of Buddhist saints (arhats) living in a well-protected spot in the Himalayas sent a messenger to Ven. Nagasena. He was dwelling at Asoka Park in Patna. They asked him to come, as they wished to see him, to have him go dispute the Greek king. 

While Western Europe was collapsing during the Dark Ages, Byzantium was a world center of art, literature, and culture. Yet, its story is largely forgotten in the deep dark gap between ancient and modern history.

• Read up on Byzantium after seeing double Getty exhibits
• What is Greco-Buddhism, Kingdom, Greco-Buddhist art?

"Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections" is at the Getty Villa through August 25. "Heaven and Earth: Byzantine Illumination at the Cultural Crossroads" is at the Getty Center through June 22, 2014.

Aphrodite, 1st century (NAM)

In a bid to remedy this, the Getty is hosting a rare doubleheader called Heaven and Earth. The art from several Greek museums is on display at the Getty Villa, while the manuscripts are at the Getty Center. This has never happened before. Nor has any art of the past millennium ever been shown at the classically dedicated Getty Villa.

• Eureka! Huntington opens Archimedes exhibit with text and puzzle

Why now? Not that the recovery of the civilization of Greeks who called themselves Romans isn’t much overdue. But the new consciousness or awareness of this rich and tumultuous Byzantine culture seems to spring from Greece itself.
 

Buddha, 1st century (Guimet)

“It was always there,” said Peter Poulos, an American-born official of the Bernaki Museum. “There are wonderful Byzantine churches all over Athens, built over almost every ancient pagan temple.”

• Getty to return illegally removed ancient manuscript to Greece

But in recent years, modern Greece has rediscovered this mighty culture that endured far longer than the glory that was Classical Greece. Byzantium continued that glory. That’s one reason Modern Greece wants to share this heritage to the world.

The Getty Villa has on show more than 160 ikons, sculptures, and other works of art, many of which illustrate Byzantine art’s connection to... The intricate passages of this great art through the medieval world were indeed truly byzantine. Some of the most fascinating stuff here shows the Byzantine effects on the art of Central Asia [land of the Shakyas, the Buddha's relatives]... LISTEN

• See the shows at BOTH Gettys (getty.edu)
• 7 Byzantium books to read after visiting double Getty exhibits 
• The competitive sport of tree climbing comes to Pasadena

• 5 classic Easter eggs from favorite animated movies
• Angels pitcher CJ Wilson's shocking confession
• 130-year-old Heritage Square building damaged in car crash
• Boston Marathon bombing: Studio City runner returns to race
• L.A.'s Angels Flight railway in limbo in downtown
• Mike Kelley - a (too short) life in full at MOCA Geffen Contemporary
• Re-evaluating Friedkin's "Sorcerer" and other "flops" by the wizards of the 1970s
• Awkward Family Photos exhibit comes to the California Heritage Museum 

Charles Manson (LAPD photo archives)

• Mimi Pond's Over Easy: Sex, drugs, and gourmet omelets
• Pete Seeger tribute comes to Downtown Los Angeles
• Picture This: Inside the LAPD's rarely seen crime photo archives
• NBA commish on Clippers owner's alleged remarks: No sanctions yet 
• Paramount Drive-In re-opens tonight after being closed for more than 20 years

Punk Rock is Dying (sort of)

RIP Mike Atta: Hardcore punk founder, guitarist for OC band

John Rabe (Off-Ramp/SCPR.org)

The Middle Class may have invented hardcore, an important genre of punk rock, but to say they invented it implies intent.

"It's not like The Middle Class guys, who were all teenagers at the time, like 15-17, who had barely discovered punk, and kinda taught themselves to play. What they had heard was that punk was loud and fast, and be kind of crazy. So with that in their heads, they just started playing loud and fast, there was nobody around to tell them, 'Hey, you're playing too loud and too fast!'" - Chris Ziegler, editor and publisher of LA Record.

In any case, this group of teens from Santa Ana (Orange County) was doing something nobody else was doing, and they were successful and influential. LISTEN

• Off-Ramp is a lively weekly look at Southern California through the eyes and ears of radio veteran John Rabe (from Pasadena's KPCC FM). News, arts, home, life... covering everything that makes life here exciting, enjoyable, and interesting.

REBIRTH and Family Guy's Brian (cartoon)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; Seth MacFarlane (FOX.com)

Brian, while alive, once appeared on Bill Maher's talk show with Huffington Poster Ariana.

(Family Guy) ''Brian's Death'' the full story

Bertram confronts Stewie's predecessor

Just in "time" for the holidays, Brian is back! But how? He died just last week. Genius Leonardo da Vinci descendant Stewie rebuilt his time machine and averted catastrophe, or sent himself and others down a different timeline. Is creator Seth MacFarlane growing tired of his greatest creation (next to Roger the talking Grey alien on "American Dad")? 

(JB) Brian Griffin's FUNERAL. With the dissolution of the body, after death,

one continues in accordance with one's just desserts, that is, those

actions willed, performed, and accumulated (karma).

I am Death, and I will kill 'em all!

Or, or is MacFarlane such a genius that nothing and no one is beyond reach of his pencil and voice. It's a soap opera after all, and anyone can be brought down and raised again. So it go us to thinking about rebirth (patisandhi, "again becoming"). Many articles will follow on the subject, so let's begin with a formal definition. 

Brian the hack publishes self-help secrets

NOTE: Buddhism never means "reincarnation," which would suggest that something or someone is again enters flesh. In fact, that is not what happens. As unbelievable as it may sound in the face of all of our assumptions, an impersonal process continues. We do not "die" at death but die at every moment, and this cyclical process continues in spite of physical "death," which does not even slow the process down one tiny bit. All things -- but most notably form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness -- are unsatisfactory, impermanent, and insubstantial (not-self). And when and if we directly see this liberating-truth, we will see these three universal "marks of existence."

(JB) "Family Guy" - Brian is Back ! (Stewie Saves Brian Griffin)

Issa and Lord Vishnu on a heavenly cloud

REBIRTH (patisandhi, literally, "reunion, relinking") is one of the 14 functions of consciousness (viññāna-kicca). It is a karma-resultant type of consciousness and arises at the moment of conception, that is, with the forming of new life in a mother's womb. 

Immediately afterwards it sinks into the subconscious stream of existence (bhavanga-sota). It is conditioned thereby, again and again, with corresponding states of subconsciousness. It is really the rebirth-linking-consciousness that determines the latent character of a person.

 

"Neither has this (rebirth-) consciousness transmigrated from the previous existence to this present existence, nor did it arise without such conditions as karma, karma-formations, propensity, object, and so on. That this consciousness HAS NOT come from the previous existence to the present existence, yet that it HAS come into existence by means of conditions included in the previous existence, such as karma and so on, this fact may be illustrated by various things: such as an echo, the light of a lamp, the impression of a seal, or the image produced by a mirror. 

"For just as the resounding of the echo is conditioned by a sound and so on and nowhere a transmigration of sound has taken place, just so is it with this consciousness. Further it is said, 'In this continuous process, no sameness and no otherness can be found.' For if there were full identity (between the different stages), then also milk never could turn into curd. And if there were a complete otherness, then curd could never come from milk....

"If in a continuity of existence any karma-result takes place, then this karma-result neither belongs to any other being, nor does it come from any other (karma), because absolute sameness and otherness are excluded here" (The Path of Purification, VisM, XVII 164ff).

 

The enlightened Ven. Nagasena answers the great King Milinda, Bactria (Central Asia)

King Milinda (King Menander I)

In "The Questions of King Milinda" (Milindapanha) the Greek King Menander I has this discussion with an ancient enlightened Buddhist monk:

KING: "Now, Ven. Nāgasena, the one who is reborn, is that person the same as the one who has died, or is that person  another?"

MONK: "Neither the same nor another."

"Give me an example."

"What do you think, O king: Are you now, as a grown up person, the same that you had been as a little, young, and tender baby?"

"No, venerable sir. Another person was the little, young, and tender baby, but quite a different person am I now as a grown up."...

"Is perhaps, in the first watch [portion] of the night, one lamp burning, another one in the middle watch, and again another one in the last watch?"

"No, venerable sir. The light during the whole night depends on one and the same lamp.''

"Just so, O king, is the chain of phenomena linked together. One phenomenon arises, another vanishes, yet all are linked together, one after the other, without interruption. In this way one reaches the final state of consciousness neither as the same person nor as another person." TO BE CONTINUED

Why become a Buddhist ascetic? (King Milinda)

Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, "The Questions of King Milinda" [Menander] (Miln), Milindapañha (as.miami.edu/phi/bio/Buddha/Milinda)

Indo-Greco art from Mes Aynak ("Copper Well"), Afghanistan (irtiqa-blog.com)

 

Lay Life vs. Monasticism

Greek King Milinda (Menander 1) coin

King Milinda (Greek, Menander) asked the Buddhist sage: "Venerable Nagasena, the Blessed One has said:
 
"‘Right spiritual progress is praiseworthy for householders and wandering ascetics alike. Both householders and wandering ascetics, when progressing rightly, can accomplish, because of their right progress, the right method, the Dharma, which is wholesome.’ 

"If, Nagasena, a householder, dressed in white, enjoying the pleasures of the senses, inhabiting a house overcrowded with spouse and family, using fragrant sandalwood of Benares, as well as garlands, perfumes, and creams, owning gold and silver, wearing a turban ornamented with gold and jewels, can, if s/he progresses rightly, accomplish the right method, the Dharma, the wholesome, and if a wandering ascetic, bald-headed, clad in saffron robe, dependent on alms offerings for a livelihood, careful to fulfil correctly the four sections of monastic virtue, submitting to the 150 path-to-liberation (pratimoksa) rules, and observing all 13 Sane Ascetic Practices (dhutanga), without omitting any, can also, if progressing rightly, accomplish the right method, the Dharma, the wholesome -- then, venerable sir, What is the difference between the householder and the wandering ascetic? 

 

"Fruitless is your austerity, useless is the homeless (wandering ascetic) life, barren is the observation of the monastic rules, in vain do you observe the sane ascetic practices! What is the use of inflicting pain upon yourself if you can gain nirvana while remaining at ease?"

UCLA: Save Buddhist-Afghan site (WQ)

Nagasena replied: "You have quoted the Blessed One's words correctly, your majesty. To make right progress is indeed the most excellent thing of all.

"And if the wandering ascetic, in the consciousness of being a wandering ascetic, should fail to progress rightly, then one would be far from the state of an ascetic, far from a supreme life. Still more so would that apply to a householder dressed in white.

"But both the householder and the wandering ascetic are alike in that, when they progress rightly, they accomplish the right method, the Dharma, the wholesome.

Wish-fulfilling gem

"Nevertheless, your majesty, it is the wandering ascetic who is the master of the pure life. To be a wandering ascetic has many and numerous, even infinite, virtues (benefits). To measure the virtues of being a wandering ascetic is not at all possible. It is like a [chintamani] jewel that fulfills all one's wishes; one cannot measure its value in terms of money and say that it is worth so much.

 

Like the waves in the great ocean, one cannot measure and say that there are so many. All that the wandering ascetic still has to do, one succeeds in doing rapidly and without taking a long time over it. And why is that? It is because the wandering ascetic, your majesty, is content with little, easily pleased, secluded from the world, not addicted to society, energetic, independent, solitary, perfect in conduct, austere in practice, skilled in all that concerns inner purification and spiritual progress.

 

Beautiful Buddhist jewelry recovered from the Mes Aynak monastic complex/town archeological site, Afghanistan, suggesting that beauty, baubles, and sensual delights were quite popular. Treasure dated from 500 AD to 700 AD (Kadir/Salam Viking).

 

Such a person is like your javelin, your majesty -- smooth, even, well polished, straight, clean, and shining. When it is well thrown, it will fly exactly as you want it to. In the same way, whatever the wandering ascetic still has to do, one succeeds in doing it all rapidly and without taking a long time over it."

 

"Well spoken, Nagasena. So it is, and so I accept it."

Nagasena continued: "In any case, your majesty, all those who as householders, living in a home and in the enjoyment of sensual pleasures, realize the peace of nirvana, the highest good, they have all been trained in former lives in the 13 Sane Ascetic Practices peculiar to [Buddhist monastic] disciples, and through them they have laid the foundations for their present realization and attainment. It is because they had purified their conduct and behavior by means of them then that now even as householders, living in a home and in the enjoyment of sense pleasures, they can realize the peace of nirvana, the highest good.

Child plays with novice monk, Leh, Ladakh, Buddhist India (Vincenzo Rossi/flickr.com)

 

House or Monastery? 

Bad dog! Check your motives.

"But whoever enters the Monastic Order bad motives -- from covetousness, deceitfully, out of greed and gluttony, desirous of gain, fame, or reputation, unsuitably, unqualified, unfit, unworthy, unseemly -- that person shall incur a twofold comeuppance, which will prove ruinous to all one's good qualities.

In this very life, one shall be scorned, derided, reproached, ridiculed, and mocked. One shall be shunned, expelled, ejected, removed, and banished. 

What could account for Sam winning the "Ugliest Dog in the World" contest? (EIT)

  

Aw, poor baby! (ugliest dog in the world)

In the next life, like foam which is tossed about, up and down and across, one shall cook for many hundreds of thousands of aeons (kalpas, which also be interpreted as meaning "ordinary lifespans") in the great Waveless Deep (Avici) hell, which is a hundred leagues big, and all ablaze with hot, scorching, fierce, and fiery flames. 

"And when one has been released thence, one's entire body will become emaciated, rough, and black, one's head swollen, bloated and full of holes. 

As hungry as a ghost or preta (WP)

Hungry and thirsty, disagreeable and dreadful to look at, one's ears all torn, eyes constantly blinking, entire body one putrid mass of sores, dense with maggots, bowels afire and blazing like a mass of fire fanned by a breeze, helpless and unprotected, weeping, crying, wailing, and lamenting, consumed by unsatisfied longings -- that person who once was a religious wanderer shall then as a large hungry ghost roam about on the earth bewailing that fate.
 

"But if, on the other hand, a person enters the Monastic Order (Sangha) suitably, qualified, fit, worthy and seemly, content with little, easily pleased, secluded (withdrawing and protecting the senses) from the worldly, not addicted to society, energetic and resolute, without fraud or deceit, not gluttonous, not desirous of gain, fame, or reputation, devout and with confidence (saddha, faith), out of a desire to free oneself from old age and death and to uphold the Buddha's dispensation (sasana), then one deserves to be honored in two ways, by both devas and humans.

 

The devas find one dear (wallpaper.365greetings.com)

  

Beauty pageant

"One is dear and pleasing to them. They love and seek after one. One is to them as fine jasmine flowers are to a person bathed and anointed with oil, or good food to the hungry, or a cool, clear, and fragrant drink to the thirsty, or an effective medicine [antidote] to those who are poisoned, or a superb chariot drawn by thoroughbreds to those who want to travel quickly, or a wish-fulfilling jewel to those who want to enrich themselves, or a brilliantly white parasol, the [spaceship-like] emblem of royalty, to those who would like to be rulers, or as the supreme attainment of the fruit of enlightenment (arhatship) to those who wish for Dharma.

The 37 Requisites of Enlightenment

 "In that person

• The Four Foundations (Posts or Pillars) of Mindfulness reach their full development, as do
• The Four Right Efforts,
• The Four Roads to [Psychic] Success,
• The Five Faculties,
• The Five Powers,
• The Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and
• The Noble Eightfold Path.

"One attains to calm and insight, and one's progressive attainments continue to mature, and one becomes a repository of the Four Fruits of the Spiritual Life (Samana Phala), of the Four Analytical Knowledges, the Threefold Knowledge, and the Six Super Knowledges, in short, of the whole Dharma of the spiritual life, and one is consecrated with the brilliantly white parasol of emancipation." More

Buddhism in ancient Greece (King Milinda)

Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, "The Questions of King Milinda" [Menander] (Miln), Milindapañha (as.miami.edu/phi/bio/Buddha/Milinda)

Ancient Greek influence expanded to ancient India's northwestern frontier (Indo-Greeks)

Greek King Menander I (Milinda) engages Ven. Nagasena on the Dharma in Bactria

 

Gold Greek Buddha coin (as.miami.edu)

Because of his Greek (Western) heritage, the king of Bactria asks many questions that occur to Westerners today, which makes this work particularly valuable to modern readers. These are not normally raised in an Indian (Eastern) context.

As a consequence of the conquest of the Persian empire, the Greeks gained control of Bactria -- modern Afghanistan -- together with northern India. The local Greek rulers managed to establish their independence from the Seleucid Empire, which first held control over the area. 

 

Greek rule of Bactria continued until about 165 BC when the Shakas destroyed the Bactrian kingdom. Greeks continued to rule, however, in southern Afghanistan and northwestern India (Gandhara) for another 150 years. The most important of these kings was Menander I, known as "Milinda" in Buddhist sources, who ruled about 115-90 BC. Buddhism had reached the area [due to early converts in the Shakya clan, the Buddha's extended family, which was likely from this wealthy frontier area along the Silk Road even as the Buddha taught far to the east in India (Afghanistan has Buddhist art and architecture such as monastic complexes and statues as old as Buddhism, such as Mes Aynak)]. In addition, missionaries [were sent out by the Buddha] and later by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka more than a century earlier.

Buddhists in ancient Greece

Afghan Buddhist artifact from Mes Aynak, Afghanistan. This archaeological site is set to be destroyed by Chinese miners eager to extract mineral deposits (Jay Price/Getty Images/TheGuardian co uk)

  

Why did Ven. Nagasena go to Bactria? In the land of the Bactrian Greeks there was a city called Sagala, a great center of trade. Rivers and hills beautified it, delightful landscapes surrounded it, and it possessed many parks, gardens, woods, lakes, and lotus-ponds. Its king was Milinda, a man who was learned, experienced, intelligent, and competent. At the proper times he carefully observed all of the appropriate Brahminical rites with regard to things past, future, and present. As a disputant he was hard to assail, hard to overcome, and he was recognized as a prominent sectarian teacher.

 

One day a large company of enlightened disciples (arhats) of the Buddha living in a well-protected area in the Himalayas sent a messenger to Ven. Nagasena, who was then residing at Ashoka Park in Patna, asking him to come, as they wished to see him. Nagasena immediately complied by vanishing and miraculously appearing before them.

 

The arhats said to him: "That King Milinda, Nagasena, constantly harasses the Sangha (monastic order) with questions and counter-questions, with arguments and counter-arguments. Please go, Nagasena, and quench him!" 

 

"Save Mes Aynak" demonstration, UCLA/Westwood Federal Building, summer 2013 (WQ)

  

Nagasena replied: "Never mind one king, this King Milinda! If all of the kings of India would come to me with their questions, I could well dispose of them, and they would be no more trouble after that! You may go to Sagala without any fear whatsoever!" The elders (theras) went to Sagala, lighting up the city with their saffron robes, which shone like lamps, and bringing with them the fresh breeze of the sacred mountains.

 

Ven. Nagasena stayed at Sankheyya Hermitage together with a great number of monastics. King Milinda, accompanied by a large retinue of Greeks, went to him, greeted him in a friendly and courteous manner, and sat respectfully to one side. Nagasena returned these kind greetings, and his courtesy pleased the king's heart.

The king said, "Ven. Nagasena, will you converse with me?"

"Your majesty, if you will converse with me as the wise converse, I will, but if you converse with me as kings converse, I will not."

"Ven. Nagasena, how do the wise converse?"

"Your majesty, when the wise converse, whether they become entangled by their opponents’ arguments or extricate themselves, whether they or their opponents are convicted of error, whether their own superiority or that of their opponents’ is established, nothing in all this can make them angry. Thus, your majesty, do the wise converse."

"And how, venerable, do kings converse?"

"Your majesty, when kings converse, they advance a proposition, and whoever opposes it, they order that person’s punishment, saying, ‘Punish this person!’ Thus, your majesty, do kings converse."

"Venerable, I will converse as the wise converse, not as kings do. Let your worship converse in all confidence. Let your worship converse as unrestrainedly as if with another monastic, novice, lay disciple, or a keeper of the monastery grounds. Be unafraid!"

"Very well, your majesty," said the elder in assent. More