A life lived under trees

From beginning to end

NOTE: I’m reposting this from last year. Today is Vesak, the most sacred holiday in the Buddhist calendar—a day we honor the life of one of history’s most profound spiritual teachers. Always celebrated on the full moon in May, this is a day dear to my heart.

Some of you know I’m a longtime student of Buddhism.

I had the good fortune to stumble onto this path when I was only 24. Like a lot of young people, I was searching for a new direction. Something radically different from the religion my parents reared me in. I was a rebel and I wanted my spirituality to reflect that.

I consider this incredibly good karma: Of all the directions I could have gone, the multitude of paths I could’ve taken, I discovered the Dharma. It has proven to be a good fit. For 40-plus years the Buddha’s wise and compassionate teachings have sustained me. My gratitude overflows. I could go on about it for days.

But you’re here reading Rx Nature because you care about the natural world, about our beautiful Earth. So let me focus on one specific thing about the Buddha that I think you’ll appreciate:

Each of the signal events of the Buddha’s life took place in the open air, under trees.

That’s not surprising. He lived 550 years before Christ. In that era, in India’s tropical climate, people lived much of their lives outdoors. They were way more connected to the natural world than we are in our mechanized, indoor-centric age. Life in the time of the Buddha was agrarian. Rustic. Pastoral.

Sheltered by trees

Here are the events in the Buddha’s life that illustrate his deep and abiding connection with trees. Like most legends, especially those about the lives of spiritual figures, these stories are full of myth and magic. When we’re talking about things that reportedly happened 2,565 years ago, it helps to be open to the supernatural.

1. After becoming pregnant with her son, who was to be named Prince Siddhartha, Queen Mahamaya traveled to her parents’ home in order to deliver the baby there, as dictated by custom. The royal caravan included elephants and horses and foot soldiers, carrying their queen on a palanquin. Halfway into the journey, Mahamaya’s birth pains came upon her. The procession paused in a shady grove of sal trees and the queen’s maidservants encircled her with a long silken cloth for privacy. She labored standing up, grasping a low-hanging tree limb for support.

   

   Her son, Prince Siddhartha, was born beneath that sal tree—and as the legend goes, he was fully conscious and awake at his birth. He stood and took seven steps, while blessings of sweet rain showered on him from the celestial realms. At each spot where his feet touched the earth, a lotus flower sprang open.

2. When the young prince was nine years old, his father the King took him to see the Ploughing Festival, an annual celebration that marked the start of the growing season. Siddhartha sat in the dappled shade of a rose-apple tree and watched the plows carve furrows in the soil. Soon he noticed how many tiny creatures—worms, insects, lizards—were uprooted or killed in that process. He sank into sadness, which led him to a state of quiet contemplation. This was the boy’s first taste of equanimity, and it planted a seed in his mind.

3. Twenty years later, the adult prince left his life of luxury and went to the forest to live with other spiritual seekers. He couldn’t understand why human life involves so much suffering, and his deep compassion urged him to find a solution to the dilemma. After several years of wandering the forest and practicing austerities, he sat down one night under the great spreading arms of a bodhi tree—Ficus religiosa—and vowed not to stir from that spot until he had solved the universal problem of suffering. As a full moon watched over him and the bodhi’s heart-shaped leaves quivered in anticipation, Siddhartha plunged into deeper and deeper levels of meditation. By the end of that fateful night, he had overcome all mental defilements. His mind had penetrated the veils of delusion. He became “The Awakened One”—a Buddha.

   

4. After his enlightenment, the Buddha delivered his first discourse, “Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dharma.” It happened in a woodland grove called the Deer Park. His audience was small: curious wildlife, plus the five ascetics he had lived with for years. There he laid out what would become the core of his teaching, the Four Noble Truths. For the next forty five years, the Buddha wandered the subcontinent of India, sharing what he had discovered. His sermons were almost always delivered outdoors. The crowds who came to hear him sat on the ground in the cooling shade of trees.

   

5. When the Buddha reached the age of 80, his decades of teaching were coming to a close. He lay down on his right side between two sal trees—the same species under which he was born—and prepared to die. Just as during his birth, a legend tells us what happened next: The trees sheltering the Buddha’s deathbed burst into bloom, even though that was out of season, and showered him with soft flower petals. Then the Buddha gave his last teaching to the grieving disciples gathered around him. He reminded them of impermanence and urged them to continue their spiritual practice. His final words: “You must work out your own salvation.”

As I write this essay, the full moon of May is ripening to fullness. It’s a sacred time for Buddhists worldwide, as we observe the holiday called Vesak. The Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death are all said to have occurred during a full moon in this month, which was known as Vesak in ancient times.

To honor the Awakened One, we light colorful paper lanterns, chant sutras, and go to temples to meditate. Like most Buddhist observances, this is a solemn holiday but also, somehow, a joyous one.

I think I’ll go sit under a tree now, in the white light of the moon.