The Birth of the Buddha -- Or -- How Does A Buddha Get Born?

Recorded 04/12/2025."The legend of the Buddha’s birth, uses the language of myth to point beyond the literal. The birth of any child is totally ordinary and, at the same time, a total miracle. How do two cells become a living person? How do gastrula and blastula become a being with talents, interests, features and personality? Where does a child come from? The birth of any one child is a mystery that affects us all, whether we consciously know it or not. Myth gives imaginative space to the uncanny ordinary reality we are actually living.How does a Buddha get born? Zen practice says by attending to this breath and counting from one to ten, by becoming fully aware of the breath, by sitting completely absorbed in the koan, or in the inquiry, or in “thinking not-thinking.” In short, it is by practicing that the self-centered is forgotten. And as that habitual obsessive focus fades, the world of 10,000 unique, individual, and specific things steps in and realizes itself. It is as if we are born anew. We find that we are home. This is how a Buddha is born.Yet the Buddha’s historic/legendary birth is a mystery, and presenting it as miraculous offers its own legitimate truth. Where does a person who is the first to do what’s never been done, someone whose efforts ultimately influence millions of lives for the good, come from?"Excerpt from "A Zen Life of Buddha" by Rafe Martin, Sumeru BooksPhoto of Baby Buddha at Endless Path Zendo by Rafe MartinBooks by Roshi Rafe MartinTalks on YouTubeMore information at endlesspathzen.org