The Buddha & His Message Past, Present, and Future

　　Lecture on Vesak Day by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

　　United Nations, 15 May 2000.

　　Prologue

　　To begin, I would like to express my pleasure to be here today, on this auspicious occasion of the first international recognition and celebration of Vesak at the United Nations.

　　Though I wear the robe of a Theravada Buddhist monk, I am not an Asian Buddhist but a native of New York City, born and raised in Brooklyn. I knew nothing about Buddhism during the first twenty years of my life. In my early twenties I developed an interest in Buddhism as a meaningful alternative to modern materialism, an interest which grew over the following years. After finishing my graduate studies in Western philosophy, I traveled to Sri Lanka, where I entered the Buddhist monastic order. I have lived in Sri Lanka for most of my adult life, and thus I feel particularly happy to return to my home city to address this august assembly.

　　Vesak is the day marking the birth, enlightenment, and passing away of the Buddha, which according to traditional accounts all occurred on the full-moon day of May. Ever since the fifth century B.C., the Buddha has been the Light of Asia, a spiritual teacher whose teaching has shed its radiance over an area that once extended from the Kabul Valley in the west to Japan in the east, from Sri Lanka in the south to Siberia in the north. The Buddha”s sublime personality has given birth to a whole civilization guided by lofty ethical and humanitarian ideals, to a vibrant spiritual tradition that has ennobled the lives of millions with a vision of man”s highest potentials. His graceful figure is the centerpiece of magnificent achievements in all the arts — in literature,

　　painting, sculpture, and architecture. His gentle, inscrutable smile has blossomed into vast libraries of scriptures and treatises attempting to fathom his profound wisdom. Today, as Buddhism becomes better known all over the globe, it is attracting an ever-expanding circle of followers and has already started to make an impact on Western culture. Hence it is most fitting that the United Nations should reserve one day each year to pay tribute to this man of mighty intellect and boundless heart, whom millions of people in many countries look upon as their master and guide.

　　The Birth of the Buddha

　　The first event in the life of the Buddha commemorated by Vesak is his birth. In this part of my talk I want to consider the birth of the Buddha, not in bare historical terms, but through the lens of Buddhist tradition — an approach that will reveal more clearly what this event means for Buddhists themselves.

　　To view the Buddha”s birth through the lens of Buddhist tradition, we must first consider the question, "What is a Buddha

　　" As is widely known, the word "Buddha" is not a proper name but an honorific title meaning "the Enlightened One" or "the Awakened One." The title is bestowed on the Indian sage Siddhartha Gautama, who lived and taught in northeast India in the fifth century B.C. From the historical point of view, Gautama is the Buddha, the founder of the spiritual tradition known as Buddhism.

　　However, from the standpoint of classical Buddhist doctrine, the word "Buddha" has a wider significance than the title of one historical figure. The word denotes, not just a single religious teacher who lived in a particular epoch, but a type of person — an exemplar — of which there have been many instances in the course of cosmic time. Just as the title "American President" refers not just to Bill Clinton, but to everyone who has ever held the office of the American presidency, so the title "Buddha" is in a sense a "spiritual office," applying to all who have attained the state of Buddhahood. The Buddha Gautama, then, is simply …

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