The Sleeping Buddha

Our visit to Old Bangkok should start and end at Wat Phra Chetuphon, or Temple of the Reclining Buddha. It is here that the cycle begins and ends, only to begin and end again. The Thai Buddhists prefer to call this temple simply as Wat Pho. Most westerners know the Sleeping Buddha as the Reclining Buddha.

We may approach the Sleeping Buddha in two ways. Sleeping is a state of serenity and an attainment of spiritual emancipation. Besides, one also has to sleep first in order to wake up to become the Awakened One, like the Buddha.

The Sleeping Buddha thus represents equanimity or Upekkha, which is the final virtue of the Four Brahmaviharas. With Upekkha, we learn to accept gain and loss, praise and blame and success and failure with detachment. Detachment is a neutral state of the mind, which is not holding onto anything, big or small, significant or trivial.



We sleep in order to prepare for the awakening.



A state of absolute tranquility


After sitting, standing and walking all day, we have to sleep. Sleeping allows us to develop a tranquil state of mind. These four postures of Buddha image encompass our daily activity, which should all be governed by mindfulness. To be mindful is to become the master of oneself. To pay homage to the Sleeping Buddha at Wat Pho is to realise the virtue of Upekkha. What is more sublime or divine than to realise with our direct experience all the virtues of Metta, Karuna, Mudita and Upekkha as represented by the Sitting Buddha, the Standing Budda, the Walking Buddha and the Sleeping Buddha?

Inside the chapel, the Sleeping Buddha stretches his long golden body to 46 metres in length and 15 metres in height. The craftsmanship of this Buddha image reflects the height of artistic excellence of the Rattanakosin period. The face turns northward to the Grand Palace, which locates across the Thai Wang Street. At Wat Pho, you arrived at one of the inner-most areas of the Bangkok Heaven. The image of the Sleeping Buddha was made of brick and cement and decorated with gold leaves and gum as adhesive.

King Nangklao commissioned the construction of the Sleeping Buddha at Wat Pho. Then there was not any significant Buddha image in a sleeping posture in Bangkok. The Sleeping Buddha would be created to culminate his reign of nation building when Siam began to enjoy peace and prosperity. During that time, the Burmese were tied up to their domestic turmoil. At first, the Sleeping Buddha was built in the open air within Wat Pho's compound before the chapel was constructed to cover the whole statue.



Wat Pho, Siam's first open university.

You are immediately awe-struck by the immense size of the Sleeping Buddha. So spectacular of the golden sight of the Reclining Buddha that your heart almost stops beating once you set your foot inside the chapel. You suddenly feel a sense of absolute serenity. The air inside the chapel is calm. In the Sleeping Buddha, you can witness once again a blending of the Thai art and the Buddhist ideal. The face of the Buddha image shows a serene state, fulfilled and detached from any worldly concerns.


The Reclining Buddha images are normally built with a large size. This can be traced back to a story of the life of the Buddha. The giant Asurindarahu would like to see the Buddha but hesitated to bow before him. While still lying down, the Buddha transformed himself to a larger size than the giant. He then proceeded to show the giants the realm of Heaven with heavenly figures all larger than the giant. After all this, Asurindarahu was subdued. And he paid due respect to the Buddha and left, hence the creation of posture of the Reclining Buddha image.


In the Sukhothai period, the Buddha image postures of sitting, standing, walking and sleeping were created with an aura of equanimity, perfection and holiness. They also served to highlight the height of Buddhism and the Golden Age of Suvarnabhumi. Sukhothai embraced Buddhism from Sri Lanka and also its arts. It also took in the artistic influence from the Khmer and Mon civilisations. The Buddha images from the ancient Sukhothai are most beautiful, as judged by the flames on top of the hair, the curled hair, the oval-shaped faces, the curved eyebrows, the downward gazes and gentle smiles, the broad shoulders and the small waists. The Buddha images of Sukhothai represent an ideal perception of a superman.

The Buddha image at Wat Pho, called Phra Phutthasaiyat, sleeps on his right side, similar to the way lions sleep. According to the Pali context, there are four postures of sleeping. If you lay down on your left side to sleep, this posture reflects your obsession with sexual and other worldly desires. If you sleep normally with your whole back on the bed and your face up, you'll sleep like a peta, or a ghost, which dwells in the realm of Hell. This posture reflects your state of anxiety, with your unending desire for material wealth and assets. Your desires are never fulfilled. If you sleep on your right side, you sleep like a lion. This is the healthiest posture as you sleep with mindfulness. A lion normally sleeps in this posture with its right foot overlapping with the left foot. When it wakes up, it can look into the front or turn around to look at the back to watch out for any danger. Whenever the Buddha went to sleep, he would mediate and enter into the fourth level of the trance state. His body would sleep but his mind was always awake, like a candle that always burns.

The best spot to watch the Reclining Buddha is at the image's feet. There you can see the image's body stretching out in full length, with the flame of the hair pointing to the roof. The footprints of the Reclining Buddha reflect many Buddhist symbols and riddles. They are adorned with 108 mother-of-pearl inlaid auspicious signs. The Lord's body had the 32 marks of a superman, and was endowed with the eighty subsidiary characteristics.

It is most likely that the Reclining Buddha does not signify a normal sleeping posture but represents the Buddha's attaining nirvana. The story of the last day of the Buddha is very touching. When the Buddha, with his followers, arrived at the Kusinara, his final destination, he told the venerable Ananda, his assistant, to set up a bed for him. He laid down with his head pointing to the east. Then he laid down like a lion with full conscience, and mindful of his consciousness. The Buddha did not want to wake up again. He would be entering into the realm of nirvana.


Then the Buddha uttered his final words to his followers. He said: "Everything comes to an end, though it may last for an aeon. The hour of parting is bound to come in the end. Now I have done what I could do, both for myself and for others. To stay here would from now on be without any purpose. I have disciplined, in heaven and on earth, all those whom I have disciplined, and I have set them in the stream. Hereafter, this my Dharma, O monks, shall abide for generations and generations among living beings. Therefore, recognise the true nature of the living world, and do not be anxious; for separation cannot possibly be avoided. Recognise that all that lives is subject to this law; and strive from today-onwards that it shall be thus no more! When the light of gnosis has dispelled the darkness of ignorance, when all existence has been seen as without substance, peace ensures when life draws to an end, which seems to cure a long sickness at last. Everything, whether stationary or movable, is bound to perish in the end. Be ye therefore mindfull and vigilant! The time for my entry into Nirvana has now arrived! These are my last words!" (Edward Conze's Buddhist Scriptures: Page 62-63).

In his last words to the community of monks, the Buddha emphasised mindfulness as his ultimate teaching before parting forever into the realm of absolute tranquillity. The Buddhist Scriptures from the Pali Nikayas (see Rupert Gethin," Saying of the Buddha, Oxford World's Classics) describes the process of the Buddha's arriving at parinirvana quite dramatically in transic term. After his last words, "the Blessed One entered the first absorption (trance). Emerging from that, he entered the second absorption. Emerging from that, he entered the third absorption. Emerging from that, he entered the fourth absorption. Emerging from that, he entered the sphere of infinity of space. Emerging from that, he entered the sphere of infinity of consciousness. Emerging from that, he entered the sphere of nothingness. Emerging from that, he entered the sphere of neither consciousness or unconsciousness. Emerging from that, he entered the cessation of conception and feeling."

At that point, Phra Ananda announced to the community of monks that the Buddha had attained the final nirvana.

But the Buddha reversed the process of his trance state again. "Then emerging from the cessation of conception and feeling, the Blessed One entered the sphere of neither consciousness nor unconsciousness. Emerging from that, he entered the sphere of nothingness. Emerging from that, he entered the sphere of infinity of consciousness. Emerging from that, he entered the sphere of infinity of space. Emerging from that, he entered the fourth absorption. Emerging from that, he entered the third absorption. Emerging from that, he entered the second absorption. Emerging from that, he entered the first absorption. Emerging from that, he entered the second absorption. Emerging from that, he entered the third absorption. Emerging from that, he entered the fourth absorption. Emerging from the fourth absorption, the Blessed One directly attained the final nibbana (nirvana)."

When the Buddha, through meditation, achieved enlightenment at the age of 35, he could recollected his previous lives and his future lives. He then arrived at the ultimate understanding about the impermanence of this transient world, which formed the basis of his teaching of the Fourth Noble Truths. During his meditation, he arrived at the first level of trance state or absorption and discovered the first truth as consisting of suffering. At the second level of his trance state, the Buddha realised attachment as the origin of suffering, followed by the attainable cessation of suffering in the third level of trance state, and the path to the cessation of suffering in the fourth level of the trance state. The path to the cession of the suffering is exemplified in the Eightfold Path (right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfullness and right concentration.) Right view and right intention form the basis of our wisdom, while right speech, right action and right livelihood represent our good conduct and right effort, right mindfullness and right concentration are part of our concentration. Therein lies in the unity of the Buddhist teachings.

Thereupon the Buddha had no wish to continue to go through the cycle of birth and death again. But before entering nirvana, he would preach his Dharma to the fellow human beings so that they, like him, might achieve the final salvation.

Wat Pho is the second most important temple after the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is situated within the compound of the Grand Palace. It was an ancient temple built during the Ayutthaya period. King Yodfa had the temple renovated. Later on, Wat Pho would further assume a more important role when it became Siam's first open university, where the Thais could learn different kinds of discipline from medicine, traditional massage, astrology, Buddhism, literacy to arts.

As King Yodfa had moved more than 1,248 Buddha images from all over the country to the new capital for preservation. Hundreds of these Buddha images, which witnessed the glory past of Suvarnabhumi, were placed inside Wat Pho. It is at Wat Pho that much of the legacy of old Suvarnabhumi has been well protected and preserved.

Apart from the Reclining Buddha, the Four Great Pagodas of the four kings of the Rattanakosin period also bear witness to the grandeur of Old Bangkok. King Yodfa had the Phra Maha Chedi Srisanpetchadayarn built to install a standing Buddha image of Phra Srisanpetch. This Buddha image, which stands 16 metres, with a face of two metres in length and 1.5 metre in width. The Buddha image's breast is 5.5 metres in width. Cast more than 500 years ago, Phra Srisanpetch was almost burnt to the ground by the Burmese when they ransacked Ayutthaya in 1767. The Buddha image was established inside Wat Phra Srisanpet in Ayutthaya.




The Four Great Pagodas of the Four Reigns of the
Rattanakosin Period.


The Burmese pealed off some 3.432 metric tonnes of gold from Phra Srisanpet, leaving the Buddha image with a battered structure. King Yodfa would like this Buddha image to be re-cast, but the senior monks voiced their objection because they did not want to have the Buddha image burnt again. It would be quite inauspicious to do so. The King concurred and had Phra Srisanpetch, together with the Buddha's holy teeth, installed inside a new pagoda at Wat Pho instead.

King Nangklao, the grandson of King Yodfa, had two pagodas erected beside the Srisanpetchadayarn pagoda. The pagoda, adorned with dark blue tiles on the right side of the founder's pagoda, was dedicated to his father King Lertla, while the pagoda decorated with yeallow glazed tiles was for the Third Reign himself. In the back of three pagoda stands Phra Chedi Sri Suriyothai, built by King Mongkut and modelled after the great pagoda at Suan Luang Sobsawan Temple in Ayutthaya. Having erected this pagoda, King Mongkut suggested that he and his three predecessors all saw each other. But he added: "In the future, all kings should not follow us in erecting a pagoda for each reign in the Chetuphon Temple."


The Four Great Pagodas of King Yodfa, King Lertla, King Nangklao and King Mongkut mark the early period of Old Bangkok, which forms an unbroken line of continuity from the ancient Suvarnabhumi. Paying homage to the Four Great Pagodas amounts to honouring and seeking blessing from the founding fathers of Bangkok, without whom Suvarnabhumi would not have been restored or would have been lost.

The cycle completes with your paying homage to the Sitting Buddha at Wat Suthat, the Standing Buddha at Wat Intharaviharn, the Walking Buddha at Phutthamonthon and the Sleeping Buddha at Wat Pho. By doing so, you have realised with equal weight the four virtues of Brahamaviharas, which then allow you to wholly enter the realm of Brahma. This is the path of a perfect man, one who is blessed with loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. A perfect man, fully equipped with the Fourth Brahmaviharas, is also blessed with good conduct, concentration and wisdom, which represent the core of the Buddhist principles. And only in Old Bangkok, the capital of Suvarnabhumi, can you detect the Buddhist riddles and realise your own potential as a perfect man.

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