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The Gospel of Buddha

Preface

  • Preface:
    by Paul Carus


    Introduction
  • Chapter 01:
    Rejoice
  • Chapter 02:
    Samsara and Nirvana
  • Chapter 03:
    Truth the Saviour


    Prince Siddhattha becomes Buddha
  • Chapter 04:
    The Bodhisatta's Birth
  • Chapter 05:
    The Ties of Life
  • Chapter 06:
    The Three Woes
  • Chapter 07:
    The Bodhisatta's Renunciation
  • Chapter 08:
    King Bimbisara
  • Chapter 09:
    The Bodhisatta's Search
  • Chapter 10:
    Uruvela, the Place of Mortification
  • Chapter 11:
    Mara, the Evil One
  • Chapter 12:
    Enlightenment
  • Chapter 13:
    The First Converts
  • Chapter 14:
    Brahma's Request


    The Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness
  • Chapter 15:
    Upaka
  • Chapter 16:
    The Sermon at Benares
  • Chapter 17:
    The Sangha
  • Chapter 18:
    Yasa, the Youth of Benares
  • Chapter 19:
    Kassapa
  • Chapter 20:
    The Sermon at Rajagaha
  • Chapter 21:
    The King's Gift
  • Chapter 22:
    Sariputta and Moggallana
  • Chapter 23:
    Anathapindika
  • Chapter 24:
    The Sermon on Charity
  • Chapter 25:
    Jetavana
  • Chapter 26:
    The Three Characteristics and the Uncreate
  • Chapter 27:
    The Buddha's Father
  • Chapter 28:
    Yasodhara
  • Chapter 29:
    Rahula


    Consolidation of the Buddha's religion
  • Chapter 30:
    Jivaka, the Physician
  • Chapter 31:
    The Buddha's Parents Attain Nirvana
  • Chapter 32:
    Women Admitted to the Sangha
  • Chapter 33:
    The Bhikkhus' Conduct Toward Women
  • Chapter 34:
    Visakha
  • Chapter 35:
    The Uposatha and Patimokkha
  • Chapter 36:
    The Schism
  • Chapter 37:
    The Re-establishment of Concord
  • Chapter 38:
    The Bhikkhus Rebuked
  • Chapter 39:
    Devadatta
  • Chapter 40:
    Name and Form
  • Chapter 41:
    The Goal
  • Chapter 42:
    Miracles Forbidden
  • Chapter 43:
    The Vanity of Worldliness
  • Chapter 44:
    Secrecy and Publicity
  • Chapter 45:
    The Annihilation of Suffering
  • Chapter 46:
    Avoiding the Ten Evils
  • Chapter 47:
    The Preacher's Mission


    The Teacher
  • Chapter 48:
    The Dhammapada
  • Chapter 49:
    The Two Brahmans
  • Chapter 50:
    Guard the Six Quarters
  • Chapter 51:
    Simha's Question Concerning Annihilation
  • Chapter 52:
    All Existence is Spiritual
  • Chapter 53:
    Identity and Non-Identity
  • Chapter 54:
    The Buddha Omnipresent
  • Chapter 55:
    One Essence, One Law, One Aim
  • Chapter 56:
    The Lesson Given to Rahula
  • Chapter 57:
    The Sermon on Abuse
  • Chapter 58:
    The Buddha Replies to the Deva
  • Chapter 59:
    Words of Instruction
  • Chapter 60:
    Amitabha
  • Chapter 61:
    The Teacher Unknown


    Parables and Stories
  • Chapter 62:
    Parables
  • Chapter 63:
    The Widow's Two Mites and the Parable of the Three Merchants
  • Chapter 64:
    The Man Born Blind
  • Chapter 65:
    The Lost Son
  • Chapter 66:
    The Giddy Fish
  • Chapter 67:
    The Cruel Crane Outwitted
  • Chapter 68:
    Four Kinds of Merit
  • Chapter 69:
    The Light of the World
  • Chapter 70:
    Luxurious Living
  • Chapter 71:
    The Communication of Bliss
  • Chapter 72:
    The Listless Fool
  • Chapter 73:
    Rescue in the Desert
  • Chapter 74:
    The Sower
  • Chapter 75:
    The Outcast
  • Chapter 76:
    The Woman at the Well
  • Chapter 77:
    The Peacemaker
  • Chapter 78:
    The Hungry Dog
  • Chapter 79:
    The Despot
  • Chapter 80:
    Vasavadatta
  • Chapter 81:
    The Marriage-Feast in Jambunada
  • Chapter 82:
    A Party in Search of a Thief
  • Chapter 83:
    In the Realm of Yamaraja
  • Chapter 84:
    The Mustard Seed
  • Chapter 85:
    Following the Master Over the Stream
  • Chapter 86:
    The Sick Bhikkhu
  • Chapter 87:
    The Patient Elephant


    The Last Days
  • Chapter 88:
    The Conditions of Welfare
  • Chapter 89:
    Sariputta's Faith
  • Chapter 90:
    Pataliputta
  • Chapter 91:
    The Mirror of Truth
  • Chapter 92:
    Ambapali
  • Chapter 93:
    The Buddha's Farewell Address
  • Chapter 94:
    The Buddha Announces His Death
  • Chapter 95:
    Chunda, the Smith
  • Chapter 96:
    Metteyya
  • Chapter 97:
    The Buddha's Final Entering into Nirvana


    Conclusion
  • Chapter 98:
    The Three Personalities of the Buddha
  • Chapter 99:
    The Purpose of Being
  • Chapter 100:
    The Praise of All the Buddhas


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    The Gospel of Buddha

    Enlightenment

    The Bodhisatta, having put Mara to flight,
    gave himself up to meditation.
    All the miseries of the world, the evils produced by evil deeds
    and the sufferings arising there from,
    passed before his mental eye, and he thought: [1]

    "Surely if living creatures saw the results of all their evil deeds,
    they would turn away from them in disgust.
    But selfhood blinds them, and they cling to their obnoxious desires.
    [2]

    "They crave pleasure for themselves and they cause pain to others;
    when death destroys their individuality, they find no peace;
    their thirst for existence abides
    and their selfhood reappears in new births.
    [3]

    "Thus they continue to move in the coil
    and can find no escape from the hell of their own making.
    And how empty are their pleasures, how vain are their endeavours!
    Hollow like the plantain-tree and without contents like the bubble.
    [4]

    "The world is full of evil and sorrow, because it is full of lust.
    Men go astray because they think that delusion is better than truth.
    Rather than truth they follow error,
    which is pleasant to look at in the beginning
    but in the end causes anxiety, tribulation, and misery."
    [5]

    And the Bodhisatta began to expound the Dharma.
    The Dharma is the truth.
    The Dharma is the sacred law.
    The Dharma is religion.
    The Dharma alone can deliver us from error,
    from wrong and from sorrow. [6]

    Pondering on the origin of birth and death,
    the Enlightened One recognized that ignorance was the root of all evil;
    and these are the links in the development of life,
    called the twelve nidanas: [7]

    In the beginning there is existence blind and without knowledge;
    and in this sea of ignorance there are stirrings, formative and organizing.
    From stirrings, formative and organizing, rises awareness or feelings.
    Feelings beget organisms that live as individual beings.
    These organisms develop the six fields,
    that is, the five senses and the mind.
    The six fields come incontact with things.
    Contact begets sensation.
    Sensation creates the thirst of individualized being.
    The thirst of being creates a cleaving to things.
    The cleaving produces the growth and continuation of selfhood.
    Selfhood continues in renewed births.
    The renewed births of selfhood
    are the cause of suffering, old age, sickness, and death.
    They produce lamentation, anxiety, and dispair. [8]

    The cause of all sorrow lies at the very beginning;
    it is hidden in the ignorance from which life grows.
    Remove ignorance and you will destroy the wrong appetences that rise from ignorance;
    destroy these appetences and you will wipe out the wrong perception that rises from them.
    Destroy wrong perception and there is an end of errors in individualized beings.
    Destroy the error in individualized beings
    and the illusions of the six fields will disappear.
    Destroy illusions and the contact with things will cease to beget misconception.
    Destroy misconception and you do away with thirst.
    Destroy thirst and you will be free of all morbid cleaving.
    Remove the cleaving and you destroy the selfishness of selfhood.
    If the selfishness of selfhood is destroyed
    you will be above birth, old age, disease, and death,
    and you will escape all suffering. [9]

    The enlightened One saw the four noble truths
    which point out the path that leads to Nirvana
    or the extinction of self: [10]

    The first noble truth is the existence of sorrow. [11]

    The second noble truth is the cause of suffering. [12]

    The third noble truth is cessation of sorrow. [13]

    The fourth noble truth is the eightfold path that leads to the cessation of sorrow. [14]

    This is the Dharma.
    This is the truth.
    This is religion.
    And the Enlightened One uttered this stanza: [15]

      "Through many births I sought in vain
      The Builder of this House of Pain.
      Now, Builder, thee I plainly see!
      This is the last abode for me.
      Thy gable's yoke and rafters broke,
      My heart has peace. All lust will cease."
      [16]

    There is self and there is truth.
    Where self is, truth is not.
    Where truth is, self is not.
    Self is the fleeting error of samsara;
    it is individual separateness and that egotism which begets envy and hatred.
    Self is the yearning for pleasure and the lust after vanity.
    Truth is the correct comprehension of things;
    it is the permanent and everlasting,
    the real in all existence,
    the bliss of righteousness. [17]

    The existence of self is an illusion,
    and there is no wrong in this world,
    no vise, no evil,
    except what flows from the assertion of self. [18]

    The attainment of truth is possible only when self is recognized as an illusion.
    Righteousness can be practiced only when we have freed our mind from passions of egotism.
    Perfect peace can dwell only where all vanity has disappeared. [19]

    Blessed is he who has understood the Dharma.
    Blessed is he who does no harm to his fellow-beings.
    Blessed is he who overcomes wrong and is free from passion.
    To the highest bliss has he attained who has conquered all selfishness and vanity.
    He has become the Buddha, the Perfect One, the Blessed One, the Holy One. [20]

    End Chapter 12


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    The Gospel of Buddha
    The Gospel of Buddha
    Compiled from ancient records by Paul Carus, 1894

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