Why Buddha did not return to Household life?

rohit

Isn't it shows that people having household life have danger of being trapped in rebirth.
It means if household person has progeny then he/she will always worry about them, The condition in India is even more adverse. Parents are always worried about their son or daughters no matter at what age they rich. They are supposed to live together even after marriage.

General problem in India is about marriage of daughters, They are neither modern nor traditional to cope with the responsibilities of their progeny. Many of them parents remain tense up to death about issues of their son and daughters.

I can't able to see possibility of liberation from rebirth to married people in India.

federica

Fortunately, India is not the only country on the planet.

Chaz

Marpa was married, had, children and managed a farm, while teaching students such as Milarepa. The Kagyu tradition holds that he became enlighted as a householder.

The Buddha didn't return to household life because he was turning the wheel of Dharma for the benefit of beings. It was, it would seem, a full-time job for him.

Buddhadragon

Besides, his whole family had joined the sangha, so why would he?

Cinorjer

@rohit‌

Fear and worry exist in your mind, not your situation. A monk becomes as attached to his fellow monks and temple and life as a monk as the father does to his family and children. Once you rise in rank a bit, you worry as much about the temple, the finances and people under you, as any father would running a farm or household.

Put another way, the 8-fold path does not say "You must become a monk" but instead "Practice right livelihood." Do you think this helps you contemplate the question you asked?

Hamsaka

Supposedly there are no conditions of life that truly prevent Awakening from happening to a devoted practitioner. That's how I understand it.

One is not doomed to gnash their teeth about their children's lives. Perhaps reaching a place of complete equanimity toward one's family, be it children, parents or whoever, is simply another path up the mountain. Imagine life without family relationships. Imagine the loneliness the monks and nuns experience, the complete loss. Getting past THAT seems just as difficult as having family bonds and surpassing them dharmically.

I agree the fear and worry are not inherent in the situations. They are inherent to the monkey mind. That's good news because you already know what needs doing about the monkey mind .

Buddhadragon

In the Sutta Nipata (F. L. Woodward translation), the Buddha is quoted as saying:
"He that hath sons must sorrow have because of sons, and he that owneth kine owns trouble. Ownership is woe to man. Happy the man that owneth naught to bind him to rebirth."
The end of the same passage in Fausböll's translation reads something like:
"...for upadhi is the cause of people's cares, but he who has no upadhi has no care."

"Upadhi" refers to the bonds that bind one to continued existence in Samsara, usually the aggregates (skandhas) and afflictions (kleshas), and can also be narrowed down to the ties that bind one to the world, namely family ties and material possessions.

Renunciants, on the other hand, have also been described all over the pitakas as not being defined by their vows, but rather, as in verse 272 of the Dhammapada, it is "he who has obtained the extinction of desires."

In Asvaghosha's "A Life of Buddha," the Buddha is quoted as saying:
"There is no distinction between the layman and the hermit, if but both have banished the thought of self."

This is what the Buddha said to a wealthy man called Anathapindika when he had misgivings about giving up his possessions and follow a hermit's path:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/btg/btg24.htm

"The Dharma of the Tathagata does not require a man to go into homelessness or to resign the world, unless he feels called upon to do so; but the Dharma of the Tathagata requires every man to free himself from the illusion of self, to cleanse his heart, to give up his thirst for pleasure, and lead a life of righteousness. And whatever men do, whether they remain in the world as artisans, merchants, and officers of the king, or retire from the world and devote themselves to a life of religious meditation, let them put their whole heart into their task; let them be diligent and energetic, and, if they are like the lotus, which, although it grows in the water, yet remains untouched by the water, if they struggle in life without cherishing envy or hatred, if they live in the world not a life of self but a life of truth, then surely joy, peace, and bliss will dwell in their minds."

There are more attachments involved in choosing the layman path, but not everyone has the renunciant's calling.

genkaku

I guess everyone has a stash of favorite lines and one of mine comes from the Dalai Lama, who once observed, "It can't be helped." This is not some dreary resignation, in my mind, but simply a statement of clear-eyed fact ... Gautama was a Buddha, the Dalai Lama is the Dalai Lama, and the rest of us are similarly wearing the clothes we chose to wear.