THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE AWAKENED ONE

 Do Not Turn the Buddha Into a God Who Grants Favors

Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammāsambuddhassa.

There is something deeply worth reflecting on.

More than two thousand years after the Buddha Gotama appeared in India, people make golden statues of him, place him upon magnificent lotus thrones, light incense, offer flowers, bow before him—and ask for all kinds of things.

They ask for good health.

They ask for wealth.

They ask for success and status.

They ask for prosperity in business.

They ask to be spared from misfortune.

They ask for their children to pass their examinations.

They ask for the dead to be reborn in a good destination.

But there is one question that few people stop to ask:

Did the Buddha devote his life to teaching people to ask him for favors—or to showing them the cause of suffering and how to bring that cause to an end for themselves?

This is where we need to wake up.

The Buddha Did Not Appear in This World to Establish a System of Prayer and Petition

In the Pāḷi discourses, the Buddha does not appear as a creator god standing outside life, arbitrarily changing the destinies of living beings.

He is the Sammāsambuddha—the Perfectly Self-Awakened One.

What he discovered was not a ritual for changing one's fortune.

Not a sacred formula for erasing kamma.

Not a method of bargaining with divine powers.

What he discovered was the truth of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering.

He revealed Dependent Origination—paṭiccasamuppāda.

He taught kamma.

He taught impermanence—anicca; suffering and unsatisfactoriness—dukkha; and not-self—anattā.

And he showed a path of practice through which greed, hatred, and delusion—lobha, dosa, moha—can truly diminish and ultimately be abandoned.

This is a revolution that takes place within the human mind.

Because when suffering comes, our ordinary instinct is always to look outward:

Who will save me?
Who will give me what I want?
Who will take this suffering away?
What must I offer so that I can get what I want?

But the Dhamma turns the light completely around:

What conditions are giving rise to this suffering?
What is the mind holding on to?
Where is craving arising?
Where is clinging taking hold?
What kind of kamma am I creating through body, speech, and mind?
What causes must change for the results to change?

Both approaches may appear to seek the same thing: freedom from suffering.

But they move in entirely different directions.

One wants to change the result without looking back at the cause.

The other turns back to understand the cause, abandon the cause, and cultivate the Path.

This distinction must be clearly understood.

Do Not Turn the 62 Views Into “62 Religions”

The Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1) presents sixty-two kinds of speculative views into which human beings can fall.

But accuracy matters: these are sixty-two views, not historical evidence that there were exactly sixty-two non-Buddhist religions or sects in India at that time.

More important than the number is the mechanism behind them.

A person encounters the world, has experiences and feelings, forms interpretations and conclusions; then, without seeing reality clearly as it actually is, the mind begins to grasp a view and identify with it:

“This is the truth.”

“Only I am right.”

“This is mine.”

“This is my view.”

At that point, a view is no longer merely an idea.

It becomes clinging—upādāna.

And once the sense of “I” has entered into a view, a person may defend that view as though defending his or her own life.

Therefore, if we study DN 1 only to point at other people and say, “Those are wrong views,” we have not yet reached the root of the teaching.

We must turn the question back upon ourselves:

What is this mind clinging to right now?

If studying the Dhamma makes our sense of self increasingly inflated, makes us increasingly contemptuous of others, and makes us increasingly obsessed with winning arguments, then we need to be extremely careful.

We may be studying wrong view while quietly cultivating another form of clinging to views.

The Awakened One Also Walked Through a World of Opposition

The Pāḷi discourses and Vinaya do not portray the Buddha's life as a road covered only with flowers.

At the very beginning of the Brahmajāla Sutta, the wanderer Suppiya follows behind the Buddha and the community of monks, criticizing the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Saṅgha in many ways.

The Buddha's response is worth studying carefully.

He did not teach the monks to become angry in order to “defend the Dhamma.”

Nor did he teach them to become delighted and conceited when others praised them.

When criticized—do not allow hatred to take control.

When praised—do not allow craving and conceit to carry the mind away.

That is strength.

The strength of the Dhamma does not lie in speaking louder than one's opponent.

It lies in a mind that is no longer carried away as before by the eight worldly conditions—gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain.

Devadatta—and a Lesson Deeper Than the Story of an Attack

The Pāḷi textual tradition records the grave conflict involving Devadatta, including attempts to harm the Buddha.

But if we read these accounts merely to hate Devadatta, we have missed the Dhamma.

What deserves our attention is this:

How far can a mind go when it has been taken over by greed, hatred, and delusion?

At first, there is only a desire.

A desire to be superior.

A desire to be recognized.

A desire for position.

A desire to make others follow one's will.

If this is not seen in time, craving is nourished into clinging; clinging protects an “I”; and when that “I” is obstructed, hatred finds fertile ground in which to grow.

From a very small movement in the mind, given sufficient conditions, great actions and heavy kamma may follow.

So do not look only at the Devadatta of more than two thousand years ago.

Look at the seed of Devadatta when it first appears within ourselves:

What happens in the mind when someone surpasses us?

What happens when we are not respected?

What happens when our interests are threatened?

What happens when others refuse to do what we want?

This is where the Dhamma begins to come alive.

Compassion Is Not Weakness

There is another misunderstanding: that someone who does not become angry must be weak.

That is not so.

A person who does not react because of fear and a person who is capable of responding but whose mind is not governed by hatred are in two entirely different states.

Mettā—loving-kindness—is not sentimental weakness.

Karuṇā—compassion—is not blindly tolerating what is unwholesome.

When wisdom sees a person being consumed by greed, hatred, and delusion, we can oppose an unwholesome action without cultivating hatred toward the person committing it.

This is much harder.

Striking back when angry is easy.

Insulting someone when we are insulted is easy.

But to see anger rising within ourselves, not identify with it, and not allow it to become harmful speech or harmful action—that is the battlefield of practice.

The deepest enemy is not standing outside us.

It is greed, hatred, and delusion when they are taken to be “I” and “mine.”

A Stone Does Not Rise Because People Pray for It

In the Asibandhakaputta Sutta (SN 42.6), the Buddha gives a particularly powerful image.

Suppose a large stone is thrown into deep water, and then a crowd gathers around it, praying and pleading for it to rise.

Would their prayers cause that stone to float?

No.

Likewise, something whose nature is to float would not be made to sink simply because a crowd prayed for it to do so.

The point strikes directly at the belief that prayer can replace the consequences of kamma already performed.

This is something Buddhists today need to examine very carefully.

If a person remains greedy but asks the Buddha for wealth;

remains angry but asks the Buddha for peace;

continues to live unwholesomely but asks the Buddha to erase bad kamma;

refuses to train the mind but expects a ritual to carry them to liberation—

then the problem does not lie only in the ritual.

The problem lies within the very structure of craving.

The mind wants the result without creating the corresponding cause.

It wants peace but refuses to abandon hatred.

It wants merit but refuses to live wholesomely.

It wants wisdom but refuses to observe delusion.

It wants liberation while still tightly embracing sensual craving, craving for existence, and the sense of “I.”

Then that very same craving puts on religious clothing and continues to crave.

Before, one craved money through business.

Now, one craves money through praying to the Buddha.

Before, one craved status through worldly competition.

Now, one craves status through religious observance.

The object has changed, but craving may not have changed at all.

This is the knot that must be cut.

Offering Is Not Wrong—but We Must See What the Mind Is Doing

We should not fall into the opposite extreme.

The Buddha did not reject generosity, offerings, reverence, or wholesome deeds.

The problem is not the plate of fruit.

The question is what kind of mind is being placed into that offering.

One person makes an offering out of respect, gratitude, generosity, and the wish to support those who genuinely practice the Dhamma—that is one thing.

Another person places an offering before an image of the Buddha while inwardly bargaining:

“I give you this; please give me that”—

that is an entirely different mental process.

One is training in letting go.

The other is demanding something in return.

Outwardly, the two actions may look almost identical.

But kamma lies in intention—cetanā.

Therefore, the Dhamma does not merely tear down external forms.

The Dhamma shines its light directly upon the mind operating behind those forms.

Do Not Use the Buddha to Serve Our Own Craving

This may be the most painful irony of all.

Before one who showed the path of dispassion, we ask him to help us satisfy our craving.

Before one who taught impermanence, we ask that everything we love remain unchanged.

Before one who taught the abandoning of clinging, we kneel and pray that the things we call “mine” continue exactly according to our wishes.

Before one who showed the path to the end of suffering through wisdom, we try to turn him into a supernatural power whose purpose is to fulfill our worldly desires.

Look carefully.

At that point, we may not truly be seeking the Buddha.

We may simply be seeking a power great enough to serve our own craving.

This is why a student of the Buddha must establish Right View—sammādiṭṭhi—first.

“Be an Island Unto Yourself” Does Not Mean Inflating the Ego

In the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN 16), the well-known instruction is preserved:

“Attadīpā viharatha, attasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā; dhammadīpā, dhammasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā.”

Live with yourselves as an island, yourselves as a refuge, with no other refuge; with the Dhamma as an island, the Dhamma as a refuge, with no other refuge.

But “yourself” here must never be understood as:

“I am strong. I need no one. I am the center.”

If understood that way, we would be using a teaching of liberation to nourish the ego.

Walking the path for oneself means:

No one can keep the precepts in our place.

No one can observe our anger in our place.

No one can abandon our greed in our place.

No one can see impermanence, suffering, and not-self in our place.

The Teacher shows the way.

The student must walk.

A physician diagnoses the illness and gives the medicine.

The patient must take it.

If we kneel before the prescription a thousand times but never take the medicine, the illness remains.

The Noble Eightfold Path—Ariya Aṭṭhaṅgika Magga—is a path to be developed and practiced, not a doctrine merely to be worshiped.

How, Then, Do We Truly Honor the Buddha?

Not by becoming angry on his behalf.

Not by insulting another religion or tradition.

Not by memorizing many Pāḷi terms and then looking down upon those who do not know them.

Not by changing our religious label and assuming that we therefore possess Right View.

If yesterday we were superstitious, but today we are conceited because “I know the true Dhamma,” then only the object of clinging has changed.

The grasping remains.

The most direct way to honor the Buddha is to bring the Dhamma into the very place where suffering is arising.

When greed arises—know greed.

When anger arises—know anger.

When the desire to be superior arises—know it.

When the desire for praise arises—know it.

When we are criticized and want to retaliate—know it.

When we find ourselves praying for something, ask:

Is this mind seeking liberation, or is it seeking a way to satisfy craving?

Then look deeper:

What conditions gave rise to this mind-state?
What is it clinging to?
If I stop feeding it with thoughts, fantasies, and grasping, what happens to it?

This is where the Dhamma leaves the page and becomes living Dhamma.

The True Footsteps of the Awakened One

Perhaps we do not need to add blood to the Buddha's feet in order to recognize his greatness.

The truth is already great enough.

After his awakening, he devoted the rest of his life to teaching a path that is very difficult for a world governed by craving to hear:

There is suffering.
Suffering has a cause.
That cause can cease.
And there is a path that must be developed to bring about its cessation.

That path does not flatter the ego.

It requires us to turn back and look directly at ourselves.

No blaming.

No bargaining.

No running away.

No searching for an external power to do the inner work for us.

Sīla—ethical conduct—so that body and speech do not continue creating unwholesome kamma.

Samādhi—collectedness of mind—so that the mind becomes sufficiently steady and clear.

Paññā—wisdom—so that what we call “I” and “mine” can be seen as arising because of conditions, changing because of conditions, and ceasing when those conditions cease.

And right there, in that seeing, grasping begins to weaken.

Greed weakens.

Hatred weakens.

Delusion weakens.

These are the footsteps of the Buddha that a practitioner must follow.

Not footsteps before which we merely kneel and weep.

But footsteps pointing in one direction—the way out of suffering.

So before asking the Buddha to give us one more thing in life, stop for a moment.

Look directly at the mind.

What dhamma is arising?

Because of what conditions?

What does the mind want?

What is it afraid of losing?

What is it grasping as “I” and “mine”?

And in that very moment, instead of asking the Buddha to do the work for us—

begin practicing what he showed.

That may be an offering purer than a thousand gifts.

That may be a bow deeper than a thousand prostrations.

And that is how a disciple of the Buddha truly follows the footsteps of the Teacher:

Not praying for craving to be satisfied,
but practicing to see craving, understand craving, and bring craving to an end.

Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammāsambuddhassa.

Sādhu! Sādhu! Sādhu!