The Cloud of Witnesses

Buddhist

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

~563–483 BC, the Ganges plain

Born to the Shakya clan in Lumbini. Husband of Yashodhara, father of Rahula. Left the palace at twenty-nine after the four sights — old age, sickness, death, and the wandering ascetic. Six years of austerity in the forest, then awakening under the bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya on the full moon of Vaisakha. Taught for forty-five years. Died at Kushinagar between two sal trees.

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Buddhist

Ananda

~5th century BC, the Ganges plain

Cousin of the Buddha and his attendant for the last twenty-five years of his life. The one with the perfect memory; he heard every sutta. Recited the Buddha's teachings at the First Council at Rajagriha after the Parinirvana — "Thus have I heard." Pressed for the women's ordination on Mahapajapati's behalf.

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Buddhist

Milarepa

~1052–1135, Tibet

Tibetan yogi of the Kagyu lineage. As a young man, learned black magic at his mother's command and killed thirty-five at his cousin's wedding feast. Walked to Marpa the Translator and was broken by the master — three towers built and torn down — before receiving the Mahamudra teachings and the Six Yogas of Naropa. Lived in caves on nettles. Sang the Hundred Thousand Songs.

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Buddhist

Nagarjuna

~150–250 CE, South India

Founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism. His Mulamadhyamakakarika demonstrated through relentless logical analysis that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence — sunyata. This is not nihilism but the groundlessness that opens into liberation. He is revered as a second Buddha in many traditions.

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Buddhist

Bodhidharma

~5th–6th century CE, India and China

Indian monk credited with transmitting Chan (Zen) Buddhism to China. He sat facing a wall at Shaolin for nine years. When Emperor Wu of Liang asked what merit his Buddhist patronage had earned, Bodhidharma said: none. When asked what the highest truth was: vast emptiness, nothing holy. He is the First Patriarch of Chan.

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Buddhist

Dogen

1200–1253 CE, Japan

Dogen Zenji, Japanese Zen master and founder of Soto Zen in Japan. He wrote the Shobogenzo — the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye — a vast collection of fascicles on the nature of time, being, practice, and awakening. "To study the self is to forget the self." Zazen is not a means to enlightenment but is itself the expression of it.

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