Shakyamuni's life experience is recorded in the Buddhist scriptures, originally Buddhism is an atheistic religion, and Shakyamuni opposed the existence of gods in the world.
However, later Buddhists, in order to facilitate the spread of Buddhism to the public, shengsheng praised the Buddha as a god, adding a lot of mysterious and imaginary elements to the Buddhist scriptures, so the story of Shakyamuni looks very mysterious and false.
The most original Buddhist scriptures are very accurate, as soon as the Buddha died, the government immediately organized a team of 500 people around the Buddha to record the Words and deeds of the Buddha, and 500 people confirmed each other, and only those who approved of it would be recorded.
Moreover, the Buddha also followed a person named Ananda all his life, who had a super strong memory, and the Buddha spoke the Dharma for half a day, tens of thousands of words and hundreds of thousands of words, and he could repeat it to other disciples word for word the next day.
He followed the Buddha until his old age and death, so many words and deeds were recorded by him.
The following is to see him as an ordinary person, not mythological, look at his life experience is like, will you envy such a life?
1. The Princely Period
Shakyamuni was born in a small country in Nepal, his father was a king known as the King of Pure Rice, this name is a transliteration, the people at that time were very simple, the meaning of Pure Rice King is pure rice.
The King of Pure Rice was 54 years old and had a son, and the queen was 45 years old before she became pregnant with Shakyamuni.
Seven days after Shakyamuni was born, the queen died.
Shakyamuni's surname is Gautama, his name is Siddhartha, and for convenience, he is collectively called Buddha.
It is said that a half-immortal came to the palace to show the little Buddha, and cried excitedly, saying that this child would not become an emperor in the future, but would become a master of all worlds.
This story does not know whether it is true or false, whether it is made up for posterity is difficult to say, anyway, it does not get in the way, just look at it.
Of course, king Jing rice hopes that his son will inherit the throne in the future so that he can expand his territory, so he has paid great attention to cultivation since he was a child.
He was very good at horseback riding, archery, and fencing, and it is said that the king also held a martial arts conference, in which the sons of the princes and nobles participated, and the Buddha won the championship.
The story sounds like a black curtain, with the king holding a game and the prince winning the championship, it's hard not to be suspicious.
But this is a single champion of riding and shooting, whether the arrow is shot or not, it should not be good to fake, and the credibility is OK, but it does not matter.
The little prince lived in a very luxurious life, there was a palace in the three weathers of warmth, coolness and rain, and the palace maids and servants and other pleasures needless to say, but he was sensitive by nature, liked to study some religious books at that time, and the customs of monastic practice at that time were also popular, and there were many famous teachers, so the Buddha had the opportunity to contact them.
The king was very worried, so he hurried to marry him a daughter-in-law, and soon gave birth to a son.
Once, when the Buddha was out, he saw a sick corpse on the side of the road and felt very painful, thinking about how to save human beings from suffering.
Finally, on the night of his 29th birthday, he planned to become a monk.
Before leaving, the Buddha spoke a lot to his wife, who he loved very much.
Then, the last time the Buddha went to the banquet, his wife, although reluctant but sensible, asked the servant to prepare the horse and luggage for the Buddha, and then lay down and slept.
Late at night, the Buddha walked through the banquet hall, and on the ground lay beautiful dancing girls who were sleeping, but at this moment they slept like corpses on the battlefield.
He rode out of town on horseback.
Second, almost starved to death
The Buddha changed clothes and luggage with a hunter, began practicing, and then went around looking for masters and learning the method of practice with them.
After practicing for a while, he reached a certain level of meditation, but he could no longer improve, so he practiced asceticism with 5 friends.
They believe that the mind will be liberated only if the body is no longer a slave to fear.
So they tortured themselves in various ways:
Teeth clenched, body tight, so that the whole body is soaked with sweat.
Stop breathing for a while until the thunder in your ears burns.
Tie your head tightly with a steel hoop and let your body be grilled by a fierce fire.
They believe that through such asceticism, allowing themselves to taste suffering can make the mind peaceful.
The Buddha stopped bathing, stopped eating, and ate only the dried pomegranates on the ground, and even the dried cow dung was filled with hunger, and the Buddha's thin skin hung down, and his skeleton could be clearly seen.
When he gently rubs the hair on the top of his head, a handful of hair will fall to the ground and lose his hair severely.
The Buddha tasted the taste of asceticism day by day, and one day he suddenly realized that asceticism was wrong and that there was no point in torturing himself.
When I figured it out, I saw that the sun was setting, the afterglow and the breeze were intoxicating, and the world was quiet.
He walked over to a corpse, the body of a puffy young woman, which would be cremated in two days, so her clothes were useless. The Buddha tore off some of the cloth from his clothes, and he used this cloth to make new clothes for himself.
He went to the river to bathe, but because of the severe lack of nutrition, when he was about to climb up, he was physically weak, and fortunately grabbed a dead branch to climb out of the water.
He spread out the cloth to dry, thinking of begging in the village, and fainted because he was too weak.
This was a very dangerous experience for the Buddha, and if no one in the woods happened to save him, he would die.
He tried all kinds of asceticism, but he did not die, and when he first wanted to abandon the asceticism, if he suddenly fainted and starved to death, this plot would be too absurd.
Fortunately, a young girl passed by and went to worship the mountain god with milk, cakes and lotus seeds, and the girl saved him.
The Buddha drank one bowl and motioned to the girl to make another bowl.
He replenished his strength, thanked the girl, and practiced in the woods. Girls often bring their friends to see him, and he tells stories to the children.
Buddha is very good at making up stories, he tells the children about the Buddha, always through a touching and exquisite story (I have been touched by the story), he taught the children to be friendly, kind, help each other, the children like him.
The Buddha continued to meditate and meditate, and finally one day he completely figured it out and attained enlightenment!
He found that the suffering was gone, that the world was different, and that the deeper he went into meditation, the more he could see the truth of the world.
He realized that the body is not just a vessel, but a temple of the soul, a raft that crosses to the other shore, and we have to treat our bodies well.
Neither asceticism nor sharing pleasures.
After the Buddha attained enlightenment, he went to the 5 ascetic companions who had heard the Buddha's words and gave up asceticism.
Third, all the way to open and hang
The next experience was the Buddha's journey all the way, and almost anyone who talked to him for a few minutes would submit to the Dharma and worship him as a teacher.
This included kings, rich merchants, princes, queens, prostitutes, sudras with the lowest caste, leaders of other sects, brahmins, and their own families.
From this point of view, the buddha's realm is far beyond That of Confucius.
Confucius had no ambitions all his life, but Buddha was a guest of the king and rich merchants.
A wealthy merchant built a bamboo forest ashram for the Buddha, in which thousands of disciples practiced together.
The Buddha came home and everyone loved him and many followed him.
Fourth, a few small stories
Here are a few short stories to illustrate that the Buddha was not actually pedantic, he was very clever:
1. The king asked him to save the city where the plague had broken out, and he went, and at the same time he took a doctor, who preached the Dharma to the people, and the doctor cured the disease, and finally the plague was eradicated.
He understood that a doctor was needed to contain the plague.
2, there is a man who wants to assassinate him, but he can't get his hands on it, the assassin threw away the dagger, knelt in front of him, he said to the assassin, don't go down the mountain from the same road, because the employer will ambush people to kill people, you go down the mountain from the back of the mountain, take the family to escape.
3. The Buddha surrendered the serial murderer, and the process was very exciting:
The story is too long to mention briefly.
When the murderer came to the street, everyone was closed and the government was arresting him.
The Buddha went down the street and confronted this man.
In short, the Buddha first persuaded the killer, who already had remorse, but said that there was no turning back.
Buddha said, follow me, I protect you.
The Buddha was good friends with the king and later protected the murderer.
You read that right, the Buddha ended up using his connections to get him.
The murderer later became the most devout disciple, and the murderer was often beaten half to death when he went out to beg, but he did not fight back, did not return the mouth, and often returned in blood without complaint.
With the wisdom of the Buddha, if he is not sure, he will not rush to death, and when he shoots, he must have absolute certainty.
It is normal for the Buddha to avoid disasters when he encounters war or something.
5. Death
In the end, the Buddha lived for 80 years before he died.
Before his death, the Buddha was in a wood, and he asked his disciples to gather people and give them one last lesson.
After the Buddha finished speaking, he asked the surroundings: Do you have any questions? Ask now if you have a question, don't wait until later to blame yourself for why you are facing the Buddha today and not asking clearly.
The Buddha asked three times, and no one asked, and the Buddha said: Life is impermanent, there must be death in life, and you must practice diligently to gain liberation.
When he finished speaking, he closed his eyes.
Can a Buddhist master really say that death is death?
Many animals have the ability to predict the date of their own death. When elephants know the time of their death, they go to a mysterious place to die.
Human beings should have it too, but people think too much, forget to perceive the body, and lose this skill.
In the later period, many Buddhist masters were able to meditate and die.
About the relic.
In fact, the relics are a kind of similar crystal formed in the body after long-term abstinence in the human body.
Hu Yinmeng kept the crystalline particles in his mother's ashes and put them in a bottle.
Buddha abstinence for so many years, the formation of relics is a lot, this is not a myth.
In short, the Buddha was a great teacher, and together with Jesus and Lao Tzu, he should be regarded as the three soul teachers of the world, and the realm was so high that it was close to God.
Of course, none of them were gods, and they discovered a way to alleviate human suffering, which they practiced all their lives.