Yasodhara And The Path Of Right Relation
In Buddhist scripture, Yasodhara was the wife of Prince Siddhartha. When at the age of 29, Siddhartha came in contact with illness, old age, and death, he decided he had to leave the palace in search of an understanding of suffering. Years later, age 35, he achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha. In the process, Siddhartha abandoned Yasodhara and left her at home with the couple's newborn son, Rahula.
The Buddha's story has become increasingly familiar in the United States, but little is written about Yasodhara. The Buddhist scriptures do not say a great deal about her or about her experience when Siddhartha left on his search. Buddhist writers are aware of the difficulties surrounding Siddhartha's decision to leave home. Some years ago, I attended a week-long meditation retreat and a well-known scholar-monk offered a Dhamma talk trying to explain the basis for Siddhartha's decision in a sympathetic way. This new book, "The Buddha's Wife: Her Story and Reader's Companion, The Path of Awakening Together, " by Janet Surrey and Samuel Shem offers an imaginative retelling of the story of Yasodhara and its significance from Yasodhara's perspective. The authors, husband and wife, are extraordinarily intelligent and accomplished; in another context, they might be referred to as a "power couple". Shem is a physician who taught at Harvard Medical School for 35 years and who has written successful novels and plays. Surrey, who has also taught at Harvard Medical School, is a renowned clinical psychologist, author and Buddhist meditation leader. She and Shem have coauthored an earlier book, "We have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Women and Men" (1999) .
The book begins with a highly personal introduction about the course of the authors' lives together. The body of the book is in two parts. Part one is an imagined telling of Yasodhara's story after Siddhartha abruptly leaves. She moves between grief and anger. With time Yasodhara and the Buddha's step-mother, Pajapati, form a healing circle with other women in the palace. The circle gradually expands and ultimately includes men as the participants share their experiences and feelings and learn to help one another. Yashodhara becomes known as "she who stays" as opposed to Siddhartha who left home. She develops a path called "right relations" to complement the eight-fold noble path that the Buddha would teach. The path of Right Relations focuses on "learning to live together". It is illustrated in Yasodhara's story.
In the second part of the book, titled "A Reader's Companion", Surrey and Shem offer extended commentary on their telling of Yasodhara's story. In fact, they often quote sections from the story as lead-ins to their discussion. Surrey and Shem draw on their extensive knowledge of Buddhism and psychology to illuminate themes of community, understanding suffering and developing compassion, raising children, facing the old age and death of loved ones, quarrels and misunderstandings between men and women, and more. The discussions include suggestions for reflection, alone or in a group, and meditation. The discussion has a strongly Buddhist perspective but its value is not limited to followers of the Buddha.
The combination of Buddhism and deep learning in medicine and psychology is inspiring in itself and not to be put aside lightly The authors know their scientific material and write in a way personal and intimate. I learned a great deal about relationships from this book and about why they succeed or fail. Most of this book in its spirituality and psychology has a great deal to teach.
Although he is not mentioned, much of the book reminded me of an American philosopher I admire, the idealist thinker Josiah Royce (1855 -- 1916). Royce taught the importance of community as opposed to individualism. He used the concept of a "beloved community" which found its way into the thought of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and into this book. He also taught interconnectedness in a spiritual absolute, together with the problems of individuals in daily life. Surrey and Shem refer to the "particular challenge to spiritual communities, which point to a universal absolute beyond this worldly substrate of human experience" -- language which has an idealistic, Roycean tinge. I learned a great deal from this book in that it encouraged me to tie together the Buddhist studies I have done with my reading of Royce.
I was not happy with the political content of this book, its frequently unqualified criticism of the United States, and its embrace of a particular political agenda on the left. I do not understand Buddhism as having a political agenda, anymore so (and probably less than) than do Western religions. People come to the Dhamma and to spirituality as they are without a political litmus test. In an interesting discussion of the book, the authors describe sessions they held with groups of men and women asking each group what they wanted the other gender most to understand. Both groups replied they wished the other sex to understand that "we are not your enemy". This answer too could be offered by a personified United States in response to some of the strictures in this book: "we are not your enemy". In terms of living within the terms of one's culture, I was also reminded of the following words of Royce:
"That patient loyalty to the actual social order is the great reformer's first duty; that a service of just this erring humanity, with its imperfect and yet beautiful system of highly organized relationships, is the best service that a man can tender to the Ideal; that he is the best idealist who casts away as both unreal and unideal the vain private imaginings of his own weak brain, whenever he catches a glimpse of any higher and wider truth, all this lesson we, like other peoples and generations, have to study and learn."
Although I am uncomfortable with the political emphasis and scope of this book, its merits far outweigh its deficiencies. The story of Yashodhara is thoughtfully and imaginatively told with much room for reflection. The book helped me understand difficult, painful issues and moments in my life as if the authors knew where I had been. The book. brought back to me the Buddhism I have studied, reminded me of the importance of community and daily life, and helped me combine my thinking about Buddhism and philosophy.
Robin Friedman
The quotation from Royce is from an essay, "An Episode of Early California Life: the Squatter" which is part of his 1898 book, "Studies of Good and Evil".
