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Originally Posted by 5thDimension
There is a problem with Buddhism that is rarely mentioned. The Buddha grew up in a very privileged position and always knew that he could have whatever he wanted - his certainty in his own power of creating reality and manifestation was never destroyed in childhood as it is with 99.99% of people.
Therefore, he had already achieved stage one of spirituality before he renounced material things. The problem is that people who have never found their own power of creating reality and manifesting anything (and becoming sick of having anything you want) follow his teaching and go directly to stage 2 - which should be not wanting the things you CAN have.
It's only when you have lived some time being able to have anything that you want and have found that nothing brings lasting satisfaction that stage 2 makes any sense or has any real benefit. Ask yourself the question 'what do I want' and only if the answer is genuinely 'nothing' can you really follow the Buddha...
You need to be able to say with complete sincerity, 'Most people spend their lives wanting the things they cannot have but I spend mine not wanting the things I can have'.
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Surely, you can see that this stage 2 is rather imprecisely expressed here. I totally get where you're coming from, and I've thought about it a lot, and I think the rationale for playing down Buddha's importance because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, is just an emotional, negative response sort of like envy (can't think of the word I want to use here).
I think it's amazing how things played out because if his life had not been so protected by his station, no one would pay it much mind -- the fact of his high intelligence, proven out by his record of his high achievement in his schooling, his 'awakening' would be downplayed up through the ages because he'd be seen as just another eccentric holy man.
If you read the book about his life by Thich Naht Than - Old Path White Clouds, you will see what kind of a man he really was. I'm starting to read it for the second time.
Sea Turtle
The Buddha used a sea turtle to illustrate the precious rarity of opportunity afforded by our human birth. The turtle example appears in the scripture called in Pali, the Chiggala Sutta that is classified as LVI.48 of the Samyutta Nikaya.
It is a metaphor known in English as The Hole:
"Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there.
A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north.
And suppose a blind turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years.
Now what do you think - Would that blind turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?"
"It would be a sheer coincidence, Lord, that the blind turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole."
"It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state.
It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy and rightly self-awakened, arises in the world.
It's likewise a sheer coincidence that doctrine and discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.
Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy and rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine and discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.
"Therefore your duty is the contemplation: `This is stress . . . . This is the origination of stress . . . . This is the cessation of stress . . . . This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress."
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