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The Teaching Career
SO BEGAN A forty-five-year ministry . . . [c. 528-483 BCE] during which the Buddha wandered between the towns, villages and cities of the middle Ganges plain, mainly in the ancient kingdoms of Magadha and Kosala.
From the start he seems to have possessed a kind of radiance that stirred a deep response in those who met him. He was also a teacher of consummate skill and, though he never set himself up as a competitive rival to other religious teachers or to the brahmin priesthood, all the indications are that he was very concerned to get his message across. For one thing, he wished his teachings to be formulated in the local dialects in which they would he fully accessible to ordinary people and not in the rarefied liturgical language of the times. And it is clear from the accounts that large numbers of people, of all classes and conditions, became enlightened by his teachings.
There are many stories relating to this phase of the Buddha's life, but the story of Kisagotami exemplifies as well as any the Buddha's skill as a teacher.
Kisagotami was a poor widow who had suffered many cruel reversals in life. Then, a final twist of the knife, the beloved baby that was all she had in the world died. She was inconsolable and would not have the child's body cremated. Despairing, some of her fellow villagers suggested she go to see the Buddha. She arrived before him, still clutching the child's corpse in her arms. "Give me some special medicine that will cure my child," she begged. The Buddha knew at once that the woman could not take the bald truth, so he thought for a while. Then he said, "Yes, I can help you. Go and get me three grains of mustard seed. But they have to come from a house in which no death has ever occurred." Kisagotami set off with new hope in her heart. But as she went from door to door, she heard one heart-rending tale of bereavement after another. That evening, when she returned to the Buddha, she had learnt that bereavement was not her own personal tragedy but a feature of the human condition—and she had accepted the fact. Sadly, she laid down her dead child's body and bowed to the Buddha.
The Buddha's teachings are not merely for intellectual contemplation. They involve practice: things to do-and things requiring discipline and application. Though many of his early followers were lay-people, there were also those who wished to give up the world and family life in order to devote their time and energy entirely to the Dharma So emerged the Sangha, the community of Buddhist monks, to which later nuns were admitted. At first the Sangha lived lives of extreme simplicity as homeless mendicants, dressing in rags, living only on alms-food and seeking shelter in caves and beneath the roots of trees. Later, however, thanks to the largesse of wealthy lay benefactors—the Buddha numbered among his devotees kings, aristocrats and rich merchants—they obtained more permanent and comfortable residences during the Monsoon or Rainy Season. These were the beginnings of vihare: Buddhist monasteries.
