08.04.2023 Walking the Buddha’s Path When I first started my journey into Buddhist practice, I would often visit the local Wat, a Thai Buddhist monastery. One of my favorite features of the monastery was an outdoor walking meditation path that featured painted depictions of significant scenes from the Buddha’s life. As I mindfully walked along the path, I would stop and admire each of the beautiful Thai style paintings. Each scene gave me a chance to reflect on a significant moment in the Buddha’s own path toward awakening. From the young Prince Siddhartha leaving his sheltered life of luxury, to his profound encounter with the four sights that inspired him to renounce his life of privilege in pursuit of spiritual awakening, culminating in his enlightenment beneath the bodhi tree, each depiction served as a poignant reminder of the Buddha’s transformative journey. At the end of the path was a beautiful meditation area under a bodhi tree. This tree came from a cutting of a tree from Sri Lanka, said to be a tree directly descended from the one in Bodhgaya where the Buddha sat. Talk about interconnectedness!                                                     In those early days of my practice, when I would bring my family and friends to visit the temple for the first time, we would always begin by walking this path. No matter how many times I retold the life story of the Buddha as we walked, I always found fresh inspiration for my practice.   Sometimes, we feel stuck in our practice, the goal of awakening feeling further and further away. When this happens, we can look to the Buddha’s own journey, which reminds us that even as “ordinary” human beings, we each have the potential for profound transformation. After all, the Buddha was a human just like us. Like the young Siddhartha, we too can find our own path to enlightenment and liberation.   As part of my work at Lion’s Roar, I’ve worked to provide Spanish translations of Buddhist teachings for our “Dharma en español” project. Below are three teachings available in both English and Spanish that take a deeper look at the Buddha’s life, his journey, his struggles, and his commitment to the path. As practitioners, we can explore these stories and find in them a source of inspiration and guidance for our own life’s path.   —Mariana Restrepo, Associate Editor, Lion’s Roar The Buddha’s Path to Awakening The Buddha discovered a path to liberation, and more than two thousand years later people are still following in his footsteps. Heather Sanche unpacks his life, legacy, and essential teachings. There are aspects of the Buddha’s biography that highlight his humanness, and for many people it’s these aspects that fuel their devotion to following in his footsteps. After all, if the Buddha was an ordinary human being, that surely means other ordinary humans can attain liberation. Ultimately, the Buddha taught that everyone has the inherent potential to become a buddha, regardless of their race, class, social standing, or gender. The Buddha’s life story and teachings can inspire us to look deep within our own minds and remove the perceptions clouding and distorting how we experience the world. Whether we regard it as a religion, philosophy, or a spiritual tradition, the Buddhist path, which is encapsulated in the Buddha’s biography, can help us find flexibility of mind. His story illuminates the wisdom of willingly accepting change. Para leer este artículo en español: “El camino del Buda hacia el despertar” ADVERTISEMENT This Is the Practice   When the Buddha tended to a dying monk, he demonstrated how to live, how to die, how to care for others. Vanessa Sasson offers her retelling of that poignant story.   As they neared the end of their work, and his body had been wiped clean, Ananda removed his own outer robe and draped it gently over the monk. The Buddha took the monk’s hands away from his face and laid them down by either side of him. The monk had been crying, but they were not tears of anguish anymore. “It is so hard to let go,” the monk admitted. “It is, indeed,” the Buddha replied. “But that is the practice. Nothing more than that.” Para leer este artículo en español: “Ésta es la práctica” Awake In the Now “Buddha” means “the awakened one.” Karen Maezen Miller on what it is the Buddha woke up from—and how you can wake up, too. In a conventional sense, we know what it means to be awake. Simply put, we’re awake when we open our eyes. And we know what dreaming is. We dream when our eyes are closed. But in Buddhism, waking up is more subtle and profound than that. Indeed, it’s called seeing beyond seeing because it transcends the subject–object duality with which we usually perceive our world. Not all of us aspire to attain awakening, or an enlightenment experience. There are many other physical and mental benefits to be found in meditation. But anyone at any stage of practice qualifies as a buddha in the process of waking up. Para leer este artículo en español: “Despiertos en el ahora” LION’S ROAR PROMOTION Subscribe Today!