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10 EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS

Theravada and Mahayana scriptures, that offer a consciousness into an examination of the future.
bodhisattva—a buddha-to-be—a detailed blueprint of Returning to the present moment, he reports on what
their future. he has just seen: in a specific future Sumedha would
become the Buddha Shakyamuni. The prediction
The most famous story in Theravada literature of a includes a great many details of the future life when
bodhisattva’s prediction of future buddhahood is made he would live as that buddha, including the names of
by the buddha Dipamkara to our Buddha, Siddhartha his family members and the circumstances of his birth,
Gautama. renunciation, and awakening to buddhahood.

Once upon an unimaginably long time ago, the Dipamkara’s abilities to know the future are accepted
bodhisattva who would become Shakyamuni Buddha by all as a fact of a buddha’s omniscience. So much
was a young man named Sumedha, who in adulthood so that everyone who hears it that day shares in the
renounced his life as a householder after the death of reassurance that this was not just a possible future, but
his wealthy parents. Seeing the meaninglessness of a future that they could be sure of.
wealth in the face of their death, he gives it all away and
retreats to a solitary, ascetic life in the mountains. Moreover, it was a future they could be a part of; those
members of the sangha who lacked the confidence
One day, news reaches him that a buddha, Dipamkara, that they could attain liberation in that life vowed that
was on his way to the village far below him. Dressed they would do so during the lifetime of Shakyamuni.
only in a bark cloth, Sumedha descends by means of his Dipamkara’s prediction gave them certainty of their
power of flight (attained through his advancement) and future, too.
joins the crowds preparing the roadways for the arrival
of the buddha and his monastic community, or sangha. I have long been fascinated by the Sumedha story, years
Their aim is to make the road perfectly smooth and before cancer became a condition of my life. I lived with
beautiful as an act of veneration. it intimately for months as I wrote about it as the central
narrative for my doctoral dissertation. I came to know
Sumedha finds a spot of the road still muddy and it in a halting, disrupted way as I attempted to find
unprepared for Dipamkara, who is quickly approaching, the best forms of expression in English and translate
and lies down in that mud, making his matted hair and it from the canonical Pali Buddhavamsa and also from
body into a bridge for the buddha and his seemingly medieval Pali commentary. As was appropriate for
infinite line of monks to walk across. Coming to the task of writing an academic thesis, I was focused
Sumedha’s prone form, now prostrate in a posture of on my analytical interpretations of the story for my
worship, the buddha Dipamkara halts his procession, arguments on relational ethics in Theravada literature.
his feet directly pointing at Sumedha’s head. In this I focused particularly on the relationships of buddhas
most auspicious moment of opportunity, Sumedha and bodhisattvas still on the path to awakening. That
makes an aspiration for his future: he vows that, in a goal cannot be achieved by an individual alone, I argued,
lifetime so many years away in the future they couldn’t but only through the supporting relationships of many
be counted, he too would become a buddha, just like the others. In spite of my practiced academic critical
buddha Dipamkara, who then stood upon his hair. distance, the story did become a part of me. I thought
All buddhas are said to embark on the bodhisattva path of it constantly as I walked around Manhattan, where I
in this manner: with a vow, made before a buddha, then lived. Phrases and words echoed in the background
to attain complete and perfect enlightenment for the of my mind. Scenes played out for me, on a block ahead
benefit of all. Upon receiving Sumedha’s aspiration, of me, on the busy streets of the city, floating above
the buddha Dipamkara then fulfilled his role in the the crowds of people at an intersection waiting on a
story by confirming the vow and providing a prediction sidewalk above a muddy gutter.
of its fulfilment. He closes his eyes and sends his