Sakyamuni Buddha

A Buddha is not a saviour but a teacher. His teachings ("dharma ") show us what to do in order to achieve the same state that he achieved. The dharma is perpetuated through the ages, as a living tradition of enlightened experience and as a philosophy, by those members of the Buddhist community who have themselves already achieved unmistaken insight. These are known as the realised sangha.

Mahayana Buddhism considers that Sakyamuni had already achieved enlightenment before being born as Prince Gautama in Lumbini over 2,500 years ago. They see his life here on Earth as being but one fraction of that enlightenment's consequences—a necessary drama played out in twelve acts, each of which (including his "attaining enlightenment" in the eyes of people here) had a vital role to play in his bringing the timeless message of universal truth to our world.

Every one of the twelve stages helped in the proper establishment of his teaching for millenia to come and each had something to contribute to the envigoration he brought to our planet. The coming of a teaching Buddha coincides with a key moment in the destiny of the world and in the complex cycle of reincarnations of its inhabitants. Enacting the twelve deeds is the way in which each of the one thousand and two teaching buddhas who visit our Earth, before its final burn-up by the sun, will reset in motion the wheel of truth. The noble, exemplary life which they enact at such a time is known as the supreme emanation (supreme nirmanakaya).

The twelve deeds are to:
... leave the heavens and manifest on Earth at the most appropriate time,
... enter the womb of a mother so as to be born in the most appropriate family for what will follow,
... be born miraculously,
... grow up showing unique physical prowess and mental intelligence,
... enjoy consorts and the finest pleasures that worldly life can offer,
... leave worldliness,
... practice asceticism more radically than anyone ever did and then renounce it for its inadequacy,
... go to the place where all the buddhas of this world manifest enlightenment,
... be there to vanquish the negative energies of the world,
... show recognition of the Middle Way and attain enlightenment,
... teach the universal truths and
... enter nirvana.

Had Prince Gautama not been a rich and handsome prince, not had more beautiful wives than all other men, not been a better athlete and scholar and so forth, how could he be credible, later, as Gautama Buddha, declaring that worldly possessions are not everything? Had he just been a poor yogi, many might have accused him of sour grapes about worldly pleasures he had never known. Likewise, how could he have convinced people of the non-necessity of self-mortification had he himself not gone without food, sat in the burning Indian midday sun without drinking and so forth to a degree which surpassed anything anyone else had ever done?

There is great significance in each aspect of a Buddha's life. It is not just the final and perfect life of a being who has been working from purity to purity through hundreds of lives but the perfect teaching drama; a template for an age to come, a reference point by which all else can be measured.

Link to Buddha Sakyamuni's Birthday Celebration in Hong-Kong