Was The Buddha A Bad Father?
At about my age, the Buddha left his family to seek enlightenment. Blogger James Altucher said this makes him a bad father, which I guess is true in an immediate sense.
Lord Buddha
The thing about Buddhism is that it is full of seeming opposites like this. People say that Buddhism is about doing nothing, but that appearance of nothing is actually complete awareness. Everything in a sense, but more accurately a point where those dualistic measures do not apply. In the same way, the Buddha had to actually leave his family to help them.
General Digression
Buddhism is not an especially vague religion, if you want to call it a religion at all. Its basic tenets are that there is suffering. Suffering is caused by attachment and suffering ends when you end attachment and that the eightfold path is a way out of suffering. These are the four noble truths, but in my head I have always summarised them as three. There is suffering, there is a way out of suffering, this is a way.
Even these noble truths, however, do not fit into English, or even linguistic concepts. Language is necessarily dicursive (I made that up, meaning this or that). If something is red it is not blue, even though it is really a continuous and arbitrary spectrum. I have found that while Buddhism can be understood as a coherent philosophy, it has to be experienced on a level beyond words to really understand. That is, you have to meditate.
In that sense you can experience that ending attachment is not a point of not caring about stuff, it is actually a point of caring for and being aware of things much more intensely than ever before. It is the knowledge that the feeling of possession is actually a very coarse and actually selfish attachment compared to being simply aware of it and yourself.
On Fatherhood
Everybody with a child has wondered, ‘how could I bring you into this world, to suffer?’ This is what the Buddha, then Prince Siddhartha, wondered, and what he felt he had to do something about. In a way it could be seen as selfish, but staying to raise his own son would have just continued the cycle. What the Buddha did was actually break it. In that sense perhaps he was a bad father immediately, but he was better in the end.
It is like your whole family having operable cancer and deciding not to do surgery because you do not want to hurt them. Or Luke Skywalker not training with Yoda and just fighting without skill. Throughout life we have to make short-term sacrifices to achieve long-term goals. The Buddha made a hard sacrifice (and made his family sacrifice) to achieve what I think was the most long-term goal possible. The end of the cycle. Actual peace and liberation.
He also returned and his son reached enlightenment as well. That is, his son did not suffer. His entire kingdom was by and large converted and I think lost their lands and line, but they did not suffer. Because that attachment to empire and family did not really lead out, it led further in, with the best of intentions. So in that sense, no I do not think the Buddha was a bad father. Fathers go out to work every day, to provide for their families. The Buddha left entirely to free them, and enrich millions of lives that have followed.
Indi blogs everyday at www.indi.ca.
Ha..ha…ha…you are going to get a lot of flak over this article from the Sinhala Buddhists. (The Buddha’s chosen people)
Makes perfect sense to me. Nice article.
The Buddha left one Rahula and one Yasodara but millions of millions follow him including Rahula and Yasodara without saying bad farther or bad husband .Please listen to Rev. K.Dhammananda Thero of Malaysia.
Vajira Dissanayake Balangoda ,Sri Lanka
Becaus we are blind to our religion and don’t want to know the facts. Don’t misunderstand, I am a Buddhist.
Cyril
With out knowing ”PATICH CHA SAMUPPADA” & Load Buddda’s Teaching this assesment not perfect. Just Indication Only.
hi. you have made a good point here. i think most people have a limited understanding of “father”. the buddha thought of all people as similar and my own son or your son. Also he saw the common suffering of all mankind which made him leave his family to search for a solution. it is important to understand that conventionally he left his family but absolutely, he did not leave anything.
Up to now, nothing has changed. It is the same misery existing in this world.
Cyril
Father or mother or let it may any person there is no problem,the reason is before 13 or 14 years the boy will think he should become a “Buddhist” (knowledge) there will be no problem at all. The other problem is all people think the “Buddha” becomes a “Fully Knowledge and thereafter……??? )
According to me “Buddha becomes God”. My English is not very good,but I read a book and the name is “Changes introduced to some of the religious systems and introducing universal religious system” by “Regi”. If this book is not available,please send me a letter with “Yahoo” addressed to “Book Library” at Colombo so that I will send a book,so that all can use it. (Sri Lanka money will be 1500 or 2000. Thanks. ( I am happy if it is read by all people)
THE PRACTCE OF ALL LIVING BEINGS IS TAKING CARE OF OWN FAMILY. BEING DIFFERENT TO THIS NORMAL PRACTICE THE BUDDHA BECAME THE FATHER TO ALL LIVING BEINGS BY SACRIFISING ALL ROYAL COMFORTS AND FINDING THE PATH OF SELF LIBERATION FOR ALL.
goood
The article tries to very hard to write something new about buddha…hahahahha….really comparing buddha is not correct…prince siddharta left home as a bad father…he never returned.
Buddha returned not siddharta , hence the child can be said never had a father…..
hence buddha was not a bad father, but siddharta the prince was.
Hi buddy,
I am not convinced of your prince Siddhartha or Buddha argument.
When He was prince Siddhartha, he had all comfort of physical life as a prince of of a great king.
Then he relies that comfort of physical life is not the end of suffering and he begins to find the real truth of end of suffering. (still as prince Siddhartha.)
Going away from his family was a part of plan to find end of suffering for all living kinds.
Question is that leaving family behind, for finding such a noble work all living kinds ( including his royal family ) can not be considered as the farther leaving the new born son his personal comfort..
Haha-haha
Was it the appropriate time to leave the family ? Few hours after the first childbirth to what extent yosodara would have mentally sufferred ! If Siddhartha was so keen in the salvation of human beings he would have not got married. According to the information available the marriage was not a forced marriage. He enjoyed fully the marriage bliss.
Hi! Samantha, I think the internal crisis with Channa made Siduhath to leave his home.
This matter puzzled me for years until a friend explained.
In Sidddthartha’s eyes suffering is the bottom line for everyone, therefore a solution to it is the only search worth making. He had to leave his wife and son in order to find a cure for this, just as a man would leave his family to search for medicine for them when they are ill. He intended returning with a cure and he did return with one.
‘Yet, whatsoever fall to thee and me Yasodhara, be sure I loved and love thee. Thou knowest how I muse these many moons seeking to save the sad earth…but if my soul yearns sore for souls unknown, and if I grieve for griefs which are not mine, judge how my thoughts must hover here over these lives…and thine, dearest, gentlest, best. O sad earth I come! For thee I lay aside my throne, my golden days and thine arms sweet Queen..and my son whom if I wait to bless my mind will fail…..since there is only hope for man in man and none hath sought for this as I will seek, who cast away my world to save my world.’