Cheyenne Steele's Blog

In the thirteenth century MARCO POLO had heard of Buddha in Ceylon, whom he named by his Mongolian title of Sagamoni Barcan, a fact which makes it probable that some of this information came from Mongolia. He describes him as the son of the king of Ceylon and the first great idol-founder, though he knew of his greatness as a moral teacher, and declared that if he had been a Christian, he would have been a great saint of our Lord Jesus Christ, so good and pure was the life he led.

In 1660 ROBERT KNOX, an English seaman, was taken prisoner by the Singhalese, and remained in captivity nineteen years. He mentions Buddha as “a great God, whom they call Buddou, to whom the Salvation of Souls belongs. Him they believe once to have come upon the earth. And when he was here, that he did usually sit under a large shady Tree, called Bogahah.” But a much more circumstantial account was given by SIMON DE LA LOUBERE, envoy from Louis XIV to the king of Siam in 1687-8. He had passages from Pali books translated, which give some of the Buddha legend in an intelligible form. He too thought that Buddha was the son of a king of Ceylon. The Indian missionaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were much more astray. The Carmelite PAULINUS A S. BARTHOLOMAEO (1790) confused Buddha with the Hindu God Buddha (the planet Mercury), and also tried to identify him with the Egyptian god Thout (Thoth).

Real knowledge could come only from an actual acquaintance with the Buddhist writings, and in the first half of the nineteenth century two names stand out beyond all others. These are ALEXANDER CSOMA DE KOROS, the Hungarian scholar, and BRIAN HOUGHTON HODGSON, who spent over twenty years in Nepal and for ten years was British Resident there (1833-43). Csoma set out in 1820 in the hope of finding the origin of his nation, and spent four years in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet. He failed in the object of his search, but at Calcutta he found a copy of the Tibetan Buddhist Scriptures, the Kanjur (Bkah hgyur), and the collection of commentaries and other works forming the Tanjur (Bstan hgyur). His analyses of both these collections, which are mainly translations from the Sanskrit, were published in 1836 and 1839, together with Notices on the life of Shakya, extracted from the Tibetan authorities.

Hodgson’s work in its results was even more important. During his residence in Nepal he collected over 400 Sanskrit MSS., which he presented to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, the Royal Asiatic Society, the Society Asiatique, and other libraries, and besides, these many works in modern languages and in Tibetan. Those MSS. Presented to Paris libraries came into the hands of the first Sanskrit scholar of Europe, EUGENE BURNOUF, and it was on the basis of these and on the arrangement of the Scriptures as given in Csoma’s Analysis that he wrote his Introduction a l’histoire du Buddhisme indien (1844). He also translated one of the works sent by Hodgson, the Saddharmapundarika, as Le Lotus de la bonne Loi (1852).

Other investigators in this field were not in general directly concerned with the history of Buddhism, but there were two scholars whose work, drawn from Tibetan sources, contributed the most important historical material before the discovery of Pali works. FRANZ ANTON VON SCHIEFNER published in 1845 a life of Buddha from the Tibetan, and in 1847 PHILIPPE EDOUARD FOUCAUZ issued the Tibetan text with a French translation of the Lalita-vistara, a life of Buddha down to the beginning of his preaching. The Sanskrit text of the latter began to be published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1853. this is the work that became to the scholars of the time the chief source for the legend of Buddha’s life.

But investigations of Buddhism had already begun from a very different source. GEORGE TURNOUR of the Ceylon Civil Service in 1836 brought out the Mahavamsa, an ancient history of Buddhism in India and Ceylon, and the first important Pali work to be published. He also edited and translated several discourses of Buddha from the Pali. A controversy at once arose as to whether Pali or Sanskrit was the language of Buddha, but neither party saw that they were begging the main question. How do we know that this language was either Pali or Sanskrit? We have no right to take for granted that either language was the primary one, nor can we assume that because a certain work is in Sanskrit, it is later than any in Pali. But what is certain about the works discovered by Hodgson is that they belong to a very late, and in some cases to a very corrupt state of Buddhism. All Burnouf’s Sanskrit sources were much later than the Pali, except so far as earlier passages were embedded in them. In one branch of these Sanskrit writings the compliers actually claim to have received new revelations from Maitreya, the great being now waiting in heaven to become the future Buddha. It is not surprising that scholars failed to find any historical basis in this material, or even to reach any general agreement or conclusions. H. H. Wilson writing with the results of Burnouf’s work before him held it “not impossible, after all, that Sakya Muni is an unreal being, and that all that is related of him is as much a fiction as is that of his preceding migrations.” The Russian scholar Vasiliev in the same year declared that “Russian, French, English, and German scholars have in fact written much on this subject. I have read through most of their works in my time, but through them I have not learnt to know Buddhism.”

It became clear that, whatever value the Pali Scriptures might have, it would be necessary to investigate them. The investigation is yet far from being completed, but it is chiefly due to three scholars that the texts have now been printed and made accessible. VICTOR FAUSBOLL, the Danish schoar, in 1854, published the Dhammapada, a collection of religious verses and the first text of the Pali Scriptures to be edited in Europe. From 1877 to 1896 the edited the Jataka with a long Pali commentary which contains a biography of the earlier life of Buddha. HERMANN OLDENBERG edited the Vinaya (1879-83), the ‘Discipline’, and in 1881 THOMAS WILLIAM RHYS DAVIDS founded the Pali Text Society. For over forty year this scholar devoted himself to the editing of all the unpublished texts, and through his own devotion and enthusiasm, which inspired a large number of fellow workers, the Sutta and Abhidhamma divisions of the Scriptures are now practically complete in more than fifty volumes. These with Oldenberg’s Vinaya form the Pali Canon. The first tendency of Pali scholars was naturally to ignore everything but the Pali tradition, but we have later learned much about other forms of the Buddhist Canon as existing in Chinese and Tibetan translations. These, although they warn us against trusting exclusively to Pali, only emphasise the relative important and antiquity of the Pali against the late and degenerate forms that have survived in Nepal and Tibet. It is no longer possible to pit the Lalita-vistara against the Pali as a source of history, and to base theories on documents that can be proved to be accretions and inventions of later centuries.

It is undeniable that in the story of Buddha there has been a growth, and even in the oldest documents we can trace records of varying antiquity. In the following pages an attempt will be made to distinguish the earliest accounts, but this dose not touch the fundamental question. Is there a historical basis at all? It must be remembered that some recognized scholars have denied and still deny that the story of Buddha contains any record of historical events. We further have the undoubted fact that various well-known characters once accepted as historical are now consigned to legendary fiction, such as Dido of Carthage, Prester John, Pope Joan, and Sir John Mandeville. The reply to those who would treat Buddha in the same way is not to offer a series of syllogisms, and say, therefore the historical character is provided. The opponents must be challenged to produce a theory more credible.

The matter stands just as in the case of any historical person, say Socrates, Muhammad, or Bonaparte. We have many records, many related facts, dates, and archaeological remains, as well as the actually existing Buddhistic peoples with their systems. Do these data point to an origin in the growth and spread of a myth, in which the religious belief in a god has been gradually converted into an apparently historical event, or is the basis a historical person who lived in the sixth century B.C.? An indolent scepticism which will not take the trouble to offer some hypothesis come credible than the view which it discards does not come within the range of serious discussion. The first step however is not to debate these view, but to present the positive evidence.

About the Book:

This is an authoritative account of all that is known of the life of the great teacher by the late Edward J. Thomas, who is highly regarded as a Buddhist scholar. He is the author of Early Buddhist Scriptures and The History of Buddhist Thought.

Utilizing information that has never been presented in a Western form, Dr Thomas's treatment of his subject is as thorough as one could wish. His knowledge of the sources, his historical sense, and the soundness of his judgment make him a reliable guide in a complex field.

CONTENTS

Preface (v)

Introduction - the sources (xiii)

I. The ancestry of Buddha (1)

Note on the geography of early Buddhism (13)

II. The home and family of Buddha (16)

III. The Birth of Buddha (27)

IV. Infancy and youth (38)

V. The Great Renunciation (51)

VI. Austerities and Enlightenment (61)

VII. The First Preaching (81)

VIII. Spread of the Doctrine (97)

IX. Legends of the twenty years wandering (113)

X. Ritual Schools. Devadatta and Ajatasattu (124)

XI. The Last days (143)

XII. The Order (165)

XIII. Buddhism as a religion (173)

XIV. Buddhism as a Philosophy (192)

XV. Buddha and myth (211)

XVI. Buddha and history (227)

XVII. Buddhism and Christianity (237)

Appendix. The Buddhist Scriptures (249)

The Theravada (Pali) Canon (257)

Canonical works of other schools (278)

Bibliography (279)

Index (289)

Product Code: IDD970

From the Introduction:

"You are the people Buddha talking about. And you are the people I am depending in. The wheel of Dharma has stopped. It has to be turned again."

As listen to these words, I realize Osho is doing the impossible: bridging a historical gap of 2,500 years and bringing Gautama the Buddha into the present, into the here and now.

In theses discourses, Osho makes us witness to a rare event: Buddha talking to Subhuti, a devoted disciple on the verge of enlightenment, helping him understand the significance of being a bothisattva - one who has the potential to help others experience the same blissful state as Buddha.

But the real significance of this book reveals itself only when, while reading about Buddha and Subhuti, you suddenly realize that the past has become the present. Osho is offering the same possibility to us, to you and to me. He is inviting us to rise with him to those Himalayan heights of consciousness where we can see our potential as bodhisattvas. We, too, are living in a time when the flower of buddhahood is blossoming. And we are doubly blessed, because we are the very beginning.

As Osho points out, the five epochs of Buddha's turning the wheel of Dharma have come to an end. A new cycle is beginning, a new dawn is breaking, a new type of bodhisattva is being born.

This book is an invitation to all those who, feeling the truth of Osho's words deep in their hearts, understand that it is time to awaken as spiritual beings to begin to claim their long-forgotten buddhahood.

Anand Subhuti

From the Back of the Book:

A contemporary Buddha speaks on Buddha, once again bringing these beautiful words of life and illuminating the meaning inherent in them. The Diamond Sutra is one of Gautama the Buddha's most powerful teachings, and here Osho brings a modern-day clarity to these mysterious sutras. [Osho's] greatness is that he doesn't give solutions. Only tools to people to realize themselves.

Elle Magazine, Italy

CONTENTS

1 The Realm of Nirvana (1)

2 Love Released (29)

3 The Wheel of Dharma (51)

4 From the Beyond (75)

5 The Taste of Enlightenment (95)

6 Bodhisattvahood (123)

7 A Dweller in Peace (151)

8 Already Home (177)

9 Pure Land Paradise (205)

10 Utter Emptiness (231)

11 The Fully Enlightened One (259)

About Osho (288)

CONTENTS

1. The Buddha within (1)

2. Surrender is understanding (31)

3. Negation of knowledge (59)

4. Understanding: the only law (87)

5. The fragrance of nothingness (115)

6. Don't be too sane (149)

7. Full emptiness (177)

8. The path of intelligence (205)

9. Gone, gone, gone beyond (229)

10. Sannyas: entering the stream (257)

Product Code: IDF386

About Osho:

OSHO DEFIES CATEGORIZATION, reflecting everything from the individual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facing society today. His books are not written but are transcribed from recordings of extemporaneous talks give over a period of thirty-five year. Osho has been described by the Sunday Times in London as one of the "1000 Makers of the 20th Century" and by Sunday Mid-Day in India as one of the ten people - along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha - who have changed the destiny of India.

Osho has a stated aim of helping to create the conditions for the birth of a new kind of human being, characterized as "Zorba the Buddha" - one whose feet are firmly on the ground, yet whose hands can touch the stars. Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of the East and the highest potential of Western science and technology.

He is synonymous with a revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation and an approach to meditation which specifically addresses the accelerated pace of contemporary life. The unique Osho Active Meditations are designed to allow the release of accumulated stress in the body and mind so that it is easier to be still and experience the thought-free state of meditation.

Introduction:

OSHO'S WORDS are multifaceted, multidimensional, multilayered. Working with his words as an editor is a profound learning experience as, of necessity, one must go over and over his words to ensure on rereading the words for perhaps the fourth or fifth time, I suddenly realized a different meaning, a deeper significance.

I was fortunate enough to be one of the editors in the early Pune days, when we were just embarking on the daunting task of trying to transpose Osho's spoken words into a printed form so that more could share in his awe-inspiring truths - and irreverent jokes! Osho himself was deeply interested in the whole process, and gave loving and perceptive suggestions at every stage: from the editor's efforts to aptly convey his verbal message, to the graphic designing and photography, to the quality of the paper used, and to the initially difficult but ultimately very rewarding task of cajoling the local Indian printers into upping their standards to meet our more Western specifications. In those days much of the printing was done using the letterpress method - the painstaking insertion of individual alphabetical letters with tweezers, into a wooden form!

Of the many wonderful and revealing experiences I had working so closely with Osho on his books, one of the most endearing concerned this one, my favorite, The Art of Dying.

Having just completed the editing, I set about writing an introduction for it but finally gave up after a number of attempts; I had written introduction for the three previous books and was temporarily dry of inspiration. I therefore asked a beloved friend, Swami Anand Devesh, to write something. He was prompt with his masterpiece and I thankfully handed it to Nirvano, Osho's caretaker, to give to Osho, wiped my brow and started on the next book.

But then Osho asked that I also write an introduction. So I drew my inspiration from the recent death of one of our beautiful sannyasins, Vipassana. This was perhaps the most profound, the most 180-degree-turning experience I have had as a disciple of Osho. With Vipassana's death, Osho lovingly but firmly showed us a completely different perspective of death. Centuries of conditioning fell away as we joined Vipassana in her ultimate experience. Here, in this beautiful volume, Osho talks about the art of dying - and the art of living - and the reader's perceptions of death will also be forever altered.

I handed in my effort but when it was returned I was given both introductions which were now almost indecipherable under a sea of red ink corrections - like an English teacher's markings on the essay of a very bad student!

By dint of many crossings-out, rearrangements and insertions of words, sentences and paragraphs, Osho had combined Devesh's and my writings, with his own additions, into his own literary creation! This is what you are about to read. I put Devesh's and my name to the piece, but I should have added the third, the most important - Osho.

AS EVERYONE KNOWS, death is something that happens to other people: strangers, foreigners and dogs. Not conceivably to oneself. This book may make it conceivable to admit mortality. It may even make the prospect exciting, enticing - not to the point of jumping under a bus, but to the point of relaxing into acceptance of an inevitable. And life, thus unladen of dread, may seem more enjoyable.

These are ten of the daily discourses of Osho given at his commune in Pune. Five are based on Hasidic stories, five are his answers to questions put by his followers.

Osho's discourses switch monthly from religion to religion, mystic to mystic: from Sufism to Tao, from Buddha to Heraclitus. Jainism to Hasidism, Jesus to Chaung Tzu. He is at home in all these traditions, since he is standing at the point where all converge. This month he is wearing his rabbi's that. I once heard him say to an American boy nervous of joining his parents in Israel and of what they would say to his acquisitions of an Indian guru: "Tell them that I am an old Jew!" At that moment, with his gleeful laughter and the boy's relief, it was entirely credible.

Osho is a self-confessed authority on jokes of every kind. His 'thing' about jokes has become a well-loved joke in itself!

One of his jokes I have always remembered is, in summary, as follows:
There were once three laughing monks who used to travel from village to village. In each village they would sit in the marketplace and laugh, and before very long everybody would be gathered around them, bellies shaking and tears running with the intensity of their laughter.

Then one of the monks died and a tremendous crowd came to be present at the burning of his body. Somewhat shocked at the fact that his two fellow monks were still laughing, people began to prepare the body to be put on the funeral pyre.

The two monks interceded, however, saying that their friend's dying wish was that his body should be left dressed in the clothes that he had always worn.

The reason for his request was soon understood. As the flames licked the pyre and the clothes started to catch, tremendous explosions were heard and from the pyre arose the most wonderful fireworks display ever seen! The monk had hidden fire crackers in the folds of his garment before he died! And his two fellow monks and all the people laughed and laughed and laughed.

When Osho tells this joke he can never refrain from giving a satisfied little chuckle of his own - for that, I think, is his feeling about death.

He gave us a similar sort of joyful shock when the death of one of his sannyasins occurred here in Pune last year. She was a singing, laughing, dancing person and at her death we sang and laughed and danced. By the river, under the stars, the flames form the wood pyre burning her physical body reflected the flame-colored robes of the crowd encircling her, and the energy arose in one great, amazing, celestial fireworks display.

For the first time for all of us, we saw death perhaps a little as Osho sees it - death, a time for celebration!

Product Code: IDJ579

Contents

1 KNOW HOW TO LIVE (2)

2 WITH NOTHING TO LOSE (30)

3 WALKING THE TIGHTROPE (58)

4 LET IT BE SO (86)

5 HAVING AND BEING (114)

6 THE ART OF LIVING (142)

7 THE TREASURE (166)

8 ONLY THE KNOWER IS LEFT (194)

9 BELONG TO THE TRANSCENDENTAL (220)

10 BEYOND EAST AND WEST (246)

ABOUT OSHO

FURTHER INFORMATION

About Osho:

Osho defies categorization, reflecting everything from the individual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facing society today. His books are not written but are transcribed from recordings of extemporaneous talks give over a period of thirty-five year. Osho has been described by the Sunday Times in London as one of the "1000 Makers of the 20th Century" and by Sunday Mid-Day in India as one of the ten people - along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha - who have changed the destiny of India.

Osho has a stated aim of helping to create the conditions for the birth of a new kind of human being, characterized as "Zorba the Buddha" - one whose feet are firmly on the ground, yet whose hands can touch the stars. Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of the East and the highest potential of Western science and technology.

He is synonymous with a revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation and an approach to meditation which specifically addresses the accelerated pace of contemporary life. The unique Osho Active Meditations are designed to allow the release of accumulated stress in the body and mind so that it is easier to be still and experience the thought-free state of meditation.

Introduction:

This book, Enlightenment: The Only Revolution, is the ultimate challenge, the ultimate invitation. A commentary on the Gita of Ashtavakra. We are called to be liberated right now. To be enlightened this very moment.

It is pure, it is simple, it is urgent. Ashtavakra has given everything in his song. There is no excuse. It is now up to us.

Osho introduces us to Ashtavakra and tells us of the meeting between him, a twelve-year-old deformed boy and Janak - a king. A meeting which leads to a questioning on how to find detachment, wisdom and freedom. Janak is a disciple so receptive and ready that transformation happens simultaneously as the master speaks. He is a listener of such understanding and courage that he immediately awakens.

We are provoked. Can we also receive the divine through these words? Can we also allow these statements to penetrate our heart like arrows, to awaken us?

In these extemporaneous talks Osho shares His wisdom. Telling stories, jokes, reciting poems, answering inquiries from seekers, He weaves his insights with Ashtavakra's Gita to seduce us to turn in. One moment the coolness of pure witnessing, freedeom and detachment, the next the heat of longing for the divine, a heart catching fire.

Osho, says: "We are embarking on a rare journey," that "If you want to understand Ashtavakra you will have to descend into the depths of meditation."

And it is so. This journey is like a lightning strike in a monsoon storm. Everything is illuminated for a split second, then washed and revitalized by the deluge of rain. There is a freshness, a vastness to this message, this invitation. The message is urgent and provocative, yet full of deep concern and loving support. There is nothing to strive for. Just relax, rest in consciousness. It is not a fight, an effort, but an understanding.

"Ashtavakra's words are absolutely unique. Hearing them, it will happen again and again; again and again you will feel that your are not on this earth but have become part of the sky - because these words are the sky. These words come from the homeland, come from that source from which we all come, the source to which we must return. Without going back to it we will never find peace."

Contents

1 The Pure Truth (1)

2 Right Here, Right Now (41)

3 The Lifting of the Veil (85)

4 Meditation: The Only Medicine (125)

5 The Inner Sky (165)

6 The Touchstone of Truth (201)

7 I Have Been Fooled! (245)

8 The Gift of Existence (285)

9 I Bow Down to Myself (325)

10 Beyond Cause and Effect (361)

About Osho (395)

Product Code: IDJ580

CONTENTS

BACKGROUND (1-20)