Martin - Before Buddha was Buddha: learning from the Jataka tales

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Before Buddha Was Buddha

Rafe Martins illuminating, thoughtful, and inspiring book reveals how the core ideas of Buddhism actually play out in the realities of our lives. This is just the book my students need to put flesh on the Buddhist bones. I recommend it enthusiastically!

Prof. Abigail Levin, Niagara University

When we meet the Buddha in these stories, we meet our self in our life.

Ron Hogen Green, Zen Center of New York City

A most wonderful commentary on the jatakas, intimately connecting us with the rich history and heritage of the Buddhas own path. Highly recommended!

Taigen Henderson, Toronto Zen Center

An excellent and most useful book!

Danan Henry, founding teacher of Zen Center of Denver

A great gift wise and down-to-earth.

Barbara Bonner, author of Inspiring Generosity and Inspiring Courage

Before Buddha Was Buddha is an alarm clock for the soul. Its words wake you up and lead you out into bright daylight. Its clarity and maturity brings Buddhism down from the realm of the gods and makes the profundity of this Path an actual lived reality.

Richard Wehrman, author of Light Was Everywhere

An important book for anyone doing spiritual training!

Mitra Bishop, founding teacher of Mountain GateSanmonji

Rafe Martin draws upon his insight, his knowledge of the jatakas, and his long immersion in the Dharma to create, through these stories and commentaries, vivid constellations we can use to navigate our own dark times.

Bodhin Kjolhede, abbot and spiritual director, Rochester Zen Center

In the lifetimes before he was Siddhartha Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha was many things: a gardener, a robber, a monkey and even an ogre.

Yet even then, amid struggles and shortcomings, he was also just like us as we see in this enchanting book from Buddhist teacher and master storyteller Rafe Martin. Martin starts with brisk retellings of jatakas the ancient stories the Buddhas past lives then uses them to reveal what it means to be truly human.

Buddha himself had difficult moments in former lives. He felt anger, loss of faith in himself, fear, lust; he made errors and lacked courage but he also had tremendous resilience and a determination to keep practicing through whatever hardship and pain might come his way. Whether you are a Buddhist or not, this is an uplifting, important book deeply affirming of our own humanity.

SUNYANA GRAEF, abbot of Vermont Zen Center

What amazing stories these are!

PAT ENKYO OHARA, author of Most Intimate

A delightful book. Rafe Martin reveals a way of play as well as fully exploring the deepest corners of our human hearts.

JAMES ISHMAEL FORD, author of If Youre Lucky, Your Heart Will Break

Compelling, charming, and often surprising. A valuable resource for anyone seeking deeper understanding.

DINTY W. MOORE, author of The Mindful Writer

Clearly the result of decades of practice and insight, written by a very mature teacher.

HOGEN BAYS, co-abbot of Great Vow Zen Monastery

A useful and encouraging companion on the path of personal growth.

DALE GOLDSTEIN, author Heartwork

RAFE MARTIN is a lay teacher in the Harada-Yasutani koan line. He is founding teacher of Endless Path Zendo, Rochester, New York, and is also an award-winning author and storyteller whose work has been cited in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, and USA Today.

Wisdom Publications

199 Elm Street

Somerville, MA 02144 USA

wisdompubs.org

2017 Rafe Martin

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system or technologies now known or later developed, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Martin, Rafe, 1946 author.

Title: Before Buddha was Buddha: learning from the Jataka tales / Rafe Martin.

Description: Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017018211 (print) | LCCN 2017034144 (ebook) | ISBN 9781614293729 (ebook) | ISBN 1614293724 (ebook) | ISBN 9781614293545 (pbk.: alk. paper) | ISBN 1614293546 (pbk.: alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Tipiaka. Suttapiaka. Khuddakanikya. Jtaka Paraphrases, English. | Jataka stories, English.

Classification: LCC BQ1462.E5 (ebook) | LCC BQ1462.E5 M3568 2018 (print) | DDC 294.3/82325 dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017018211

ISBN 978-1-61429-354-5 ebook ISBN 978-1-61429-372-9

21 20 19 18

4 3 2 1

Cover design by Gopa&Ted2, Inc. Interior design by Kristin Goble.

To Danan Henry Roshi for his teaching
and Sunyana Graef Roshi for opportunities to teach

Embody in yourself the dedication of a boy spreading his hair on muddy ground for the Buddha to walk on.

Zen master Dogen, referencing a jataka tale

Youll be bothered from time to time by storms, fog, snow. When you are, think of those who went through it before you and say to yourself, What they could do, I can do.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Preface : Just Like Us, the Buddha Had Difficulties

T he jataka tales are ancient stories found in both the Pali Canon and Sanskrit traditions, recounting the many past lives and ongoing spiritual work of Shakyamuni Buddha on his way to his final birth as the prince Siddhartha Gautama. I have lived with and been moved as well as encouraged and inspired by the jataka tales for many years. I first encountered them well before I ever began Buddhist practice (in my case, Zen practice), back in college in the mid-1960s when I first read Joseph Campbells Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Jataka tales, as well as the life of Buddha, were included in that groundbreaking book, and they touched me deeply. In 1970, when I began formal Zen practice, I already had an infant son a daughter followed four years later so I was on the lookout as I set out on the Buddhist path, for stories a family could grow on. I recall some odd circumstances around that time, of old books of jatakas falling off shelves (literally) into my hands. We seemed drawn to each other.

I began telling jatakas as part of my work as a storyteller and later wrote several books of jatakas as well. I find that I keep returning to them. For me, they made Zen and Buddhism human. Instead of philosophy or the austere loneliness of early meditation retreats (called sesshin in the Zen tradition), I found at the heart of these tales a person who tried hard and had a great aspiration to live a life of wisdom and compassion, yet simultaneously found he had a long way to go.

The Buddha became a person to me, someone with a history, someone I could take as a guide. I found this vision of commitment and unfolding depth encouraging. The tales helped me to continue my own practice despite difficulties and challenges. As a Zen teacher myself now, I lead several unique retreats each year with jatakas at their core. In these jataka sesshin, Ive discovered that these old tales, looked at from the perspective of ongoing Zen practice-realization, can offer inspiration and encouragement today. In them we find the Buddha facing issues, dealing with difficulties, making tough choices, doing his work, falling down and getting back up nothing special or fancy, just the continuing effort of spiritual practice.

This book focuses on a selection of particular jataka tales in which the Buddha in past lives faces temptations and even struggles with self-doubt as well as other issues and shortcomings. In these tales hes not beyond lifes messes its challenges and disasters but is down in the mix, trudging through the mud with the rest of us. The stories make it clear that any issue you or I are working on today the Buddha also, in some past life, worked on as well. Nothing were dealing with is outside the Path.