On the Buddha Before Enlightenment

Despite where I live and my daily interactions, it is not often that I have thoughts on Buddhism that I think are related to my blog. However, today I do have some thoughts.

The image above is an image of the “Buddha before Enlightenment”. It is an uncommon theme in Thai Buddhist art. I have only seen it twice: at one temple in Bangkok and at another temple in Chiang Mai.

The image is conveying the idea that, before his Enlightenment, Siddhartha Gautama tried everything, including extreme fasting. It didn’t work. Just compare the frail, tortured image from before Enlightenment to any image after  Enlightenment. He is a “different person”, so to speak. He is healthy and alive after he understand, instead of frail and wasting away, as he was before.

There are two ways to take this story.

• The first way is the way that says, “The Buddha didn’t fast. Or, more accurately, when he did, he found it was the wrong way.”
• The second way is the way that says, “When the Buddha put his confidence in fasting, he was attached to it. When he let go of his attachment to fasting and really became detached from, not only food, but also his desire to fast from food, then he achieved Enlightenment.”

It is not my place to say much more about the inside-view of Buddhism. But I’ve certainly encountered both opinions in Thailand. The two views co-exist.

For the Christian, for the friend of Jesus Christ, fasting is a legitimate activity, for Jesus himself did it. Fasting is a proclamation that, although created things are good in themselves, this goodness can be betrayed in use. Thus, we practise detachment so that, step by step, all our use of created things become illuminated by faith, hope, love, and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. It has both an ascetic effect on us, as well as acts as a visible proclamation of the Kingdom of Love itself.

Although Buddhism, of course, does not say anything about the proclamation of the Kingdom and of Jesus, the Gospel, himself, there certainly does exist the Buddhist voice that also says, “You must not be attached to fasting. But if you are attached to food also, by not practising any fasting or denial of your appetites, then all you’ve done is fall to the opposite extreme. The rule of virtue is detachment.”