But we can leave it up here for a while if you guys would like to read it. Yeah. The Life of the Buddha? Will you read it to us? Well, I think I'll read it to you, but I'll also leave it up here so you can read it because it's got nice pictures and things. But this is the only copy Wendy has, and these pictures took her a long, long time to make, so please be very careful with it and don't handle it with dirty hands, okay? More than 2,500 years ago, in northeastern India, Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who was to become the Buddha, was born. It is told that Buddha's mother, Queen Maya Devi, was visited in a dream by a six-tusked white elephant who touched her left side with a lotus flower and caused her to become pregnant with the baby Buddha. Can you all see that? When it was time for the baby to be born, Queen Maya Devi was traveling to her parents'

[01:19]

village, and since it was a warm April day, she and her attendants stopped to rest in the beautiful spring grove of trees at Lumbini. Knowing that it was time for the baby to be born, the Queen took hold of the branches of the giant saw tree in the middle of the grove, and the baby Buddha was born from her right side. The moment the baby touched the earth, he raised his finger in the air and declared that he would become a Buddha. Then he took seven steps to the north and to the east and seven steps to the west and to the south. All of the trees and animals, the stones and the plants and the waters of the Lumbini garden celebrated the birth of the baby Buddha. Close by the Lumbini grove lived a hermit named Ashita who was famous for his wisdom and for his power to understand signs. King Suddhodana, the baby Buddha's father, called Ashita to the grove to see the newborn baby.

[02:19]

When the hermit drew near to the child, he immediately saw the way of the prince's life. He told his parents that their son would either be a very powerful king governing many parts of India or a Buddha born for the sake of everything living. Then the old hermit Ashita put his head in his hands and began to cry. The king was very alarmed, and when he asked Ashita why he was crying, the hermit answered that he was sad because he was an old man and he knew that he would not live to hear the young prince teach. The king and the queen were very moved by the hermit's prophecy, and they vowed to do all they could to encourage their son to be a king rather than a religious teacher. King Suddhodana ordered that his son never leave the palace grounds so that he would not be exposed to the suffering outside the gates.

[03:21]

When the prince was sixteen years old, he married his cousin, Yasodhara, and soon a baby was born to them. However, the prince Siddhartha was never content to lead a sheltered life, and one day he persuaded his servant, Channa, to take him by chariot beyond the palace gates. It was this journey which changed the course of Siddhartha's life, causing him to realize that he could never be a king when there was so much suffering in the world. Upon leaving the palace, Prince Siddhartha and Channa passed a very, very old man bent over and supported by a stick. The prince had never seen an old person before, and he was very affected. Questioning Channa, he learned that no matter how powerful or kind a person might be, everyone must grow old. Farther along the road, they passed a woman who was extremely sick, crying out and gasping

[04:33]

for breath. Again, Channa explained to Siddhartha that sickness can come to anyone, no matter how rich or friendly they may be, and the prince was still warm-hearted. See, he'd never seen these things before, because he was supposed to have been kept inside the palace for his whole life, because his father didn't want him to know about the way things were. Again, they continued until they came upon a group of people carrying a dead person. Because he had never seen anyone die, the prince was overpowered by sadness. His eyes were now open to the great suffering of life. Returning to the palace, the prince was lost in thought.

[05:38]

He could find no answers for the questions he asked himself. Why was anyone born, if old age, sickness, and death were the only reward? Was there no end to this chain of suffering? Looking up, Siddhartha saw a man sitting alone, dressed in the simple robe of a hermit sage. The expression on the sage's face was calm and full of light. Instantly, the prince understood what he must do. See, here's this hermit or monk sitting there in his asana. Here's the prince. Chana doesn't look too happy, does he? The chariot. His friend, the chariot driver. Okay, that's all I'm going to read today. I'll read more of it next time. I'll leave it here. The rest of you can read it. Can we keep it here somewhere? It's fantasy. Maybe have it put away during times when children aren't here, so it's kept safe.

[06:40]

So, do all of you know what a legend is? Yeah. A legend is a story that's not exactly true, but it's sort of true. The story of the Buddha is really a legend. No one knows if it's strictly true. That's like the Lone Ranger. Sleepy Hollow? No, the Lone Ranger. Well, it's sort of like that, yeah. But no, the Lone Ranger is actually a made-up story. But a legend is partly true and partly made-up. So the legend of the Buddha is... No one knows if it's true, but a certain part of it's true. About the legend of Robin Hood? Yeah, that's a legend. Because Robin Hood really lived, but a lot of the stories that are told about him aren't exactly true. But the point about the Buddha is he was somebody who decided to live differently than the way other people lived, for a particular reason. And it was because the things that most people thought were important, he no longer thought were important.

[07:43]

Just a minute, Robin, I'm going to ask you a question. So, the Buddha was a prince, right? He had all the money in the world, and he was very powerful. Princes are people that later become kings. They're boys or men who are the sons of kings. And when their fathers die, they become kings. So, it looked like Siddhartha, or Gautama, those were his names, had a really nice life all laid out for him, because he could be the most powerful and richest person in that part of the world. But for some reason, he didn't feel that was so great, after he saw some of these other things that he didn't see before, like sick people and old people and dying people. So, you might say that what was valuable to him changed as he learned about the world. So that's why I want to talk about this word value, or valuable, again. Because different people value different things.

[08:44]

Some people value money a lot. Some people value their family. Some people value being very powerful. Some people value being famous. Being famous is something that lots of people really value. You want to be famous so that lots of people know who you are. You think of famous people. What are some examples of famous people? Hank Williams. President of the United States. President of the United States. He's famous because he's on the newspaper all the time. George Washington. George Washington. Tim Sand, but also, Carter. Carter. Lincoln. Yeah, President Lincoln. Yeah, President Lincoln is famous. How about some people who were alive were famous? Well, a lot of baseball players and basketball players and sports players were famous. There's a candy bar named after a famous person.

[09:45]

People in the newspaper are famous. People on TV are famous. Right. Han Solo, that guy who played Han Solo. Yeah. He also plays baseball a lot. Did you know that he's a friend of Baker Oshin's? Harrison Ford. He also buys tools from him. Did he really? Would you guys like him to visit here sometime? Yeah. I bet you guys would all like to have him because he's real famous now. He was also the guy who played in Raiders of the Lost Ark. His name was Harrison Ford. Okay, well some people... Ford? Ford, yeah. For some people, being famous is the most important thing, and they think that's really valuable. It's a mouse. No, it's a bird moving around in a...

[10:48]

It's something like that because I can see it. I like how it's moving. It has a tail. It's a bird. It's a bird. I can't see it. I can't see it. Okay, well let's get back to business here, children. What I want you to think about is that the way that we live here, we live a certain way because certain things are valuable to us and certain other things aren't so valuable to us. And the things that we think are valuable may not be the things that other people think are so valuable. And one of the things you find out as you grow older and you grow up in the world is that a lot of people value different things. And that that's part of the reason why people fight. Even grown-ups, as you know, fight. It isn't only children that fight. Grown-ups fight too. And sometimes grown-ups have a great big fight called a war, right? Or a battle. There's little battles inside wars.

[11:53]

Yeah. So even grown-ups can get very angry at one another. Whole countries can fight against each other mostly because of differences in values. Sometimes people have wars because they have their own different religions. There are lots of wars in history. When you get older you'll study in school about how in ancient times there were great big wars fought in various parts of the world because people followed different religions. For instance, in India, about 1,000 years or 1,500 years after the Buddha, there was a new religion in the world called Islam or Mohammedanism. And the people that followed Mohammedanism invaded India with big armies and they killed all the Buddhists because they didn't like the Buddhists. They thought the Buddhists were bad because they were a different religion. And many, many, many Buddhists, Buddhist priests and Buddhist libraries and universities were all destroyed because of that war. And Buddhism was pretty much wiped out in India at that time. This was about 900 years ago in India.

[12:58]

And even today, you all know Melody's husband, Paul? Yeah. What's his last name? He's the director of Tassajara. But Buddha didn't get killed. No, Buddha didn't get killed. But Paul comes from a country called Northern Ireland. Do you all know where Ireland is? No. Do you have a globe here? What Paul? What Paul? Paul Alexander. No, he lives at Tassajara. Yeah, Melody's husband. And he used to live here in Greenbelch. Anyway, he comes from Ireland. And in Ireland, there's a big war going on now between people who live in Northern Ireland who are Protestant Christians and people who live in Southern Ireland who are Catholics. Right now. Yeah, right now. People are being killed all the time there. It's really terrible. In fact, there was a man who was a guest student here in Greenbelch. He was also from Northern Ireland.

[13:59]

He was telling me how bad things are here. Well, they tried to do that. They sent... Do you know about it, Ben? Do you know what they're trying to do? Ben is trying to explain. What they've done, Dionne, is they've... Just a minute, Robert. I want to explain it to Dionne. I don't know. That's right. For instance, the last big war that the United States was involved in was in a country called Vietnam. And we sent hundreds of thousands of troops there. But we weren't able to really help. And all that happened was that we caused a lot of things to go even worse.

[15:01]

And about 50,000 Americans were killed and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. Yes, Rob? Right. And then... They were fighting over the border. But where are the borders? Where's North America? Oh, yeah. Here's California. Here's the United States to New York. And you go across the Atlantic Ocean and over here. And there's Ireland. And is that where the big war is going on? Well, it's not such a big war. And I'm going to try to explain it to Dionne. Part of the reason why... See, they already have about 10,000 or 15,000 English soldiers in Ireland.

[16:05]

But they're not really helping because it's a guerrilla war. It's not like a guerrilla in a zoo. It's a different kind of guerrilla. But it means that people... No, it means that people... It isn't like a regular war where you have soldiers. It's a war where people are sneaky. And they set off bombs in stores. And they blow up cars and things like that. And you can't ever find... What do you mean? You mean like they put a time bomb in the house? Sometimes. They just swarm in and then pretend like nothing happened? Yeah, sometimes. So anyway, the main point I'm making, children, is that people can get very angry with one another because they have different systems of values. Even though we live a little differently than a lot of people, we don't fight with people. Because Buddhists aren't supposed to fight. They're supposed to live in a way so that they don't have to fight. So I wanted to talk with you about

[17:06]

some of the ways in which our life is a little different or our values are a little different than the values of other people. And also the way in which our values are the same as other people too. So I think that one thing that's very important to us is that we all get along. That's really important. And I think that the Green Gulch is a place where grown-ups and children all live together and try to get along together. We all know that getting along means that you don't have fights and you don't tell lies to people and you don't do things that hurt other people. And most other people, probably that you know, don't live in a whole group all together like that and all getting along. Usually people just live in their own families and their own families try to get along but they don't necessarily live with other families.

[18:09]

So that's the first big difference, right? Green Gulch is a place where lots of families and also people that aren't families live together and they all try to get along. And the word for that is the community. You know that word? So Green Gulch is like a little community and it's a Buddhist community. And what that means is that we're trying to live according to the teachings of the Buddha. So I wanted to, in the next few weeks, start talking about some of the teachings of the Buddha because the Buddha's way of life has been followed probably by more people in more countries all over the world than any other way of life. It's been followed by millions and millions and millions of people in many different countries and maybe next time we can make a list of all the countries in the world over the last 2,500 years where Buddhism has been the way of life because there are lots of different countries. And America is one of the new countries where Buddhism is a way of life.

[19:09]

It hasn't been the way of life for people in America until very recently. It's only started to be the way of life in America in the last 15 or 20 years. So it's very new in our country. But in other countries in the world, like Japan, for instance, Buddhism is a very old way of life and everybody in Japan is very familiar with and knows about the way of life of the Buddha. So our way of life for America is kind of an experiment. You all know what an experiment is, right? It is to say we're not sure exactly how it's going to work. We haven't got it all figured out but we're experimenting and trying to see if we can make it work in America. And you children all live in that experiment which is called Green Belgium Zen Center. And there are also other Zen centers in the United States, not just ours. Maybe we can sometimes talk about where those other Zen centers are. It might be interesting to make a map of where all the other Zen centers are in America because there are quite a few of them. And there are also children in those other Zen centers who are living like you guys live.

[20:11]

In Southern California, in Los Angeles, in New York, in Colorado, and other places in Japan. OK, well that's all I wanted to say today. I have to go back to the staff meeting. Do you guys have a few questions you'd like to ask? Yes? They said that Buddha went through a whole bunch of forms. Was that before he was born or after he was born? Well, in Indian legend, they have an idea that you live many different lives over and over again. One of the parts of the legend of the Buddha, that's right, is that he lived many different lifetimes in various different forms as an animal, in various different kinds of animals, as different kinds of people, learning about how to live. And then finally he was born in his last lifetime as the Buddha. And there are stories, really nice stories, many, many hundreds of stories called Jataka tales, which are the stories of all of Buddha's previous lives.

[21:15]

And almost all those stories have a moral. You know about stories with a moral, like Aesop's Fables? Well, a moral is like a story that teaches you a lesson about things. Like, do you know the story of the lion and the mouse? Aesop's Fables, the lion and the mouse, where the mouse is very afraid of... Yeah, I have it. Do you? And the mouse is very afraid of the lion, but because the mouse helps the lion... He went across the snow. That's how it happened. Anyway, those kinds of stories have a moral. And the mouse helps the lion by chewing his neck. Right. Well, that's a story with a moral. It shows you a lesson that if you help your friends, your friends will help you. And so the Jataka tales, which I could bring some and read some sometime, are stories that show various lessons about how to live and how to learn things. This is a cartoon. I read it in one of my colleagues. The bulldog catches Sylvester and Sylvester saves him. And then, because Sylvester's running after Tweety Bird,

[22:17]

and then right after he saves Sylvester, he goes and runs after Sylvester and tries to save Tweety Bird. So it's really weird. Uh-huh. Did that story have a moral? Sort of. Sort of? Okay. Anyway, Ben is right. There are lots of stories like that. And they're actually various legends from Indian culture. They're not originally Buddhist. But they're interesting stories, and we could read some of them. They're kind of fun to read. And they're all about various animals, Buddha in the form of a tiger, and the Buddha in the form of a rabbit, and things like that. The Buddha in the form of a monkey? Yeah, he was a monkey at one time. Yeah, I've read some of those stories. Was he a giraffe? Well, he was a monkey. He was the king of the monkeys at one time. I remember he was just a little monkey. Yeah. And a bunny rabbit. He was a peacock. Right. One of the things about Buddhism that's different from other ways of life

[23:18]

is that Buddhists have a lot of respect for all different kinds of living things, not just people. And so Buddhists are very concerned with not just human beings, but also birds, and animals, and plants, and things like that. He was a sage. He was a sage. So maybe next time we can... He was a sage. A sage is a wise person, a person who knows a lot about life, how to do things. As for the ones that weren't, one, a sage was a sage. And the other was a sage. And the sage was a sage.

[23:47]

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