“Storyteller and Zen teacher, Rafe Martin, offers a fresh set of stories to contemplate – and what stories they are! These amazing old tales enter the heart directly and prepare our minds for the wisdom of the author’s contemporary commentary. His deeply felt connection to these ancient Buddhist tales enhances his message to all of us, and integrates traditional teachings with our lives today. Before Buddha Was Buddha is a pleasure to read. Plus a close reading reveals not only wise teachings but also valuable insights into ancient metaphors and symbols.”
Description
Discover how ordinary beings—a deer, a robber, a monkey, a parrot, and more—make up the past lives of the Buddha before he was Buddha.
The jataka tales are ancient Buddhist stories found in both the Pali Canon and Sanskrit tradition, recounting the many past lives and ongoing spiritual work of Shakyamuni Buddha on his way to his final birth as Siddhartha Gautama. In them we find the Buddha facing difficulties, making tough choices, doing hard work, falling down and getting back up—the kind of continuing effort of spiritual practice that all beings face.
Before Buddha was Buddha focuses on a selection of particular jataka tales in which the Buddha in past lives faces temptations and struggles with self-doubt as well as his own shortcomings. In these tales he’s not beyond life’s messes—its challenges and disasters—but is down in the mix, trudging through the mud with the rest of us. Each story, presented in brief, is followed by a commentary pointing to its relevance to our lives and practice-realization today.
Reviews
“Before Buddha Was Buddha is a most welcome addition to contemporary Zen Tradition – Zen in the Art of the Jatakas! It offers us a source of inspiration and courage when we must face the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” seeing them not as interruptions or obstacles, but as the Way itself. With this book, Rafe Martin has made it possible for us to go directly to the Big Boss, (the Buddha himself), before his supreme awakening, and learn how he, too, struggled to find his way when he was swamped by the “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” An excellent and most useful book!"
"Before Buddha Was Buddha is clearly the result of decades of practice and insight. Written by a very mature teacher, it can help spiritual practitioners deepen their understanding of the nature of Mind. As a lifelong student of Zen Buddhism, I am personally impressed and inspired by it!"
“As a teacher of Eastern philosophy to diverse students, I’ve struggled with how to present the abstract, challenging, and sometimes counter-intuitive concepts that Buddhism presents in a way that brings them to life in a classroom. Karma, impermanence, dependent co-arising and the rest, can feel colorless without narratives to ground them. Rafe Martin’s illuminating, thoughtful, and inspiring new book on the wisdom of the ancient Jataka tales does just that: 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!”