The tradition of concluding an annual Summer Festival with a Festival Play continued this year with a moving performance of The Life of Buddha.
The main messages in the play conveyed a condensation of Buddha’s entire path to enlightenment, permanent inner peace. Every scene was meaningful and illustrated Buddha’s perfect instructions.
It was predicted before Buddha’s birth that he would lead an extraordinary life: he would either become a Chakravatin King or a fully enlightened being.
Buddha was born into a royal family and named Prince Siddharta. As a young boy he mastered all the traditional arts and science without instruction and encouraged people to follow spiritual paths.
Prince Siddharta liked to visit the capital city of his father’s kingdom to see how people lived. Once whilst visiting the city the Prince witnessed vivid examples of sickness, aging and death and this made a deep impression on his mind.
When Prince Siddharta was 29 years old he had a vision where all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the ten directions appeared to him. These enlightened beings told him, ‘now is the time to fulfil your promise to free all living beings from their suffering’. Upon this he renounced his kingdom and embarked on his spiritual journey; finally to attain enlightenment at Bodh Gaya under the Bodhi tree.
Forty-nine days after Buddha attained enlightenment the gods Brahma and Indra requested Buddha to teach. They beseeched him, ‘Please rise from meditative equipoise and turn the Wheel of Dharma’.
Buddha taught the first Wheel of Dharma at Deer Park. He taught the Four Noble Truths – You should know suffering, You should abandon origin, You should attain cessation and you should practise the Path.
Later at Mass Vulture Mountain, Buddha turned the second Wheel of Dharma giving a teaching on the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras – emptiness, the true nature of our reality.
Buddha taught Dharma according to the ability, understanding and capacity of people. And Buddha promised that he would continue to emanate in this world to help all living beings by guiding them along the liberating path.
With a mostly professional cast and crew, the play perfectly captured the meaningful life of Buddha Shakyamuni and inspired and encouraged many Kadampas to accomplish the real meaning of their human life.
The pure teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni are still practised today and are kept alive by Kadampas from all over the world.
Ageing is like an immovable mountain,
Decay is like an immovable mountain,
Sickness is like an immovable mountain and
Death is like an immovable mountain’.
Buddha Shakyamuni
© 2011 The New Kadampa Tradition - International Kadampa Buddhist Union. All rights reserved worldwide.