As soon as the Buddha passed away,
his disciples began to argue.
A teacher taught for forty-five years,
without writing down a single word,
and then left forever.
Leaving behind a room full of disciples,
each remembered different things,
and each understood them differently.
Now the question arises:
who has the final say?
Hello,
everyone.
I am Wang Lijie.
In today's episode,
we will talk about the first and most critical
organizational action in Buddhist history:
The First Council at Rajgir.
This event took place during the first rainy season retreat after the Buddha's passing,
about 2,500 years ago.
On the surface,
it was a "conference for organizing the teachings."
Five hundred Arhats gathered
to collectively recite, verify, and confirm the Buddha's words,
forming the original Sutra Pitaka and Vinaya Pitaka.
But if you only see it that way,
you'll miss the most fascinating part of the whole event.
Because behind this council,
lies a fundamental dilemma that has persisted for 2,500 years.
How do you judge what are the Buddha's true teachings?
By the depth of one's realization,
or by the breadth of one's memory?
By how much you have enlightened,
or by how much you have heard?
This problem
was ignited by the conflict between two people.
One is Mahakasyapa,
the foremost in ascetic practices,
the person with the deepest spiritual realization.
He meditated alone in the forest for many years
and did not often follow the Buddha closely.
But the depth of his practice was personally recognized by the Buddha,
and there's even a legend of the Buddha "sharing half his seat" with him.
The Buddha literally gave up half of his seat for him to sit.
Within the entire Sangha,
Mahakasyapa's prestige came from one word:
Realization.
He had attained it;
he had personally reached that state.
The other is Ananda,
the foremost in hearing,
the Buddha's personal attendant for twenty-five years.
For every word of Dharma the Buddha spoke,
Ananda was almost always present.
And his memory was recognized as the strongest in the Sangha.
How strong was it?
When he recited the content later at the council,
the five hundred Arhats checked it line by line
and had basically no objections.
Ananda's authority came from another word:
Hearing.
He heard it all,
and he recorded those sounds perfectly.
The person with the deepest realization
and the person with the most complete memory—
regarding what the Buddha actually said,
a huge tension arose between them.
The starting point of this story
begins around the time the Buddha passed away.
After news spread that the Buddha passed away in Kushinagar,
Mahakasyapa was on his way there from another region.
According to the Vinaya,
he met an ascetic on the road
and learned from him that the Buddha had passed.
Mahakasyapa's first reaction was not grief,
but a sense of urgency.
Because he immediately thought of one thing:
The Dharma the Buddha spoke
at this moment only exists in the disciples' memories.
If it isn't organized quickly,
these memories will distort, be lost, or be altered over time.
But Mahakasyapa was particularly alerted by one detail.
He heard while on the road
that an elderly monk named Subhadda,
upon hearing the news of the Buddha's passing,
not only felt no sorrow,
but actually said this:
"Do not be sad.
When that Great Shramana was around,
he was always saying we can't do this or that.
Now that he is gone,
we are finally free.
We can do whatever we want."
These words were like a needle
piercing Mahakasyapa's heart.
He realized that
as soon as the Buddha left,
there were already people celebrating their freedom.
If he didn't act now,
while the Buddha's teachings were still clear in the memories of the core disciples,
to fix them in record,
it wouldn't be long before
the Dharma was adapted by various people to suit their own preferences,
distorted, and diluted.
So, Mahakasyapa made a decision.
During the first rainy season retreat after the Buddha's death,
he would convene a massive council.
The location chosen was Rajgir,
modern-day Rajgir in Bihar, India,
at the Saptaparni Cave near Mount Vebhara.
The patron was King Ajatashatru of Magadha,
the one I mentioned before who killed his father to take the throne,
and later became one of the Buddha's most important protectors.
Mahakasyapa gathered 500 monks who had achieved Arhatship.
Note this threshold:
only Arhats could participate.
This wasn't an open academic conference;
it was a closed committee of practitioners with the highest level of realization.
Mahakasyapa's logic was clear:
only those who had reached the goal themselves
were qualified to judge if the Buddha's words had been remembered correctly.
However, this threshold
excluded the most crucial person.
Ananda.
He was the Buddha's attendant;
he had heard more teachings than anyone else
and had the most amazing memory.
But he had a fatal flaw in Mahakasyapa's eyes.
At the moment of the Buddha's passing,
Ananda had not yet achieved Arhatship.
He was only a Sotapanna,
a "Stream-enterer."
He was still some distance from final liberation.
This created a very delicate situation.
The council needed Ananda
because no one remembered more of the teachings than him.
But Mahakasyapa would not allow Ananda to attend
because his level of realization was insufficient.
Can someone without full realization
be a "qualified messenger" of the Buddha's teachings?
No matter how good your memory is,
if you haven't fully seen through the truth,
how can you guarantee you aren't remembering your own interpretation
rather than the Buddha's original intent?
Conversely,
if you have realization but didn't hear the teachings,
can you fill in the gaps for the lessons you weren't present for?
This contradiction seemed unsolvable.
But Mahakasyapa handled it in a very resolute way.
He publicly listed several of Ananda's faults.
The records of these faults vary across different Vinaya texts.
Some say four,
some say six,
some even say nine.
But the core points are common.
The first fault:
Ananda failed to ask the Buddha to remain in the world before his death.
The Buddha had hinted three times
that one who masters the Four Bases of Power could live for an eon.
But Ananda failed to respond all three times,
never asking the Buddha to stay.
Second,
before passing away, the Buddha said,
the Sangha could abolish the "minor precepts" after he was gone.
But Ananda failed to follow up and ask,
exactly which ones were the minor precepts.
This vague final instruction
later became a time bomb that led to the division of Buddhism.
What were the minor precepts?
No one knows,
because Ananda didn't ask.
Third,
Ananda once pleaded with the Buddha to allow women to ordain,
establishing the order of Bhikkhunis (nuns).
Mahakasyapa believed this led to the decline of the True Dharma.
Of course,
from today's perspective,
this point feels limited by the era's context,
but in that historical context,
it was treated as a genuine "fault" to be reckoned with.
Fourth,
while attending to the Buddha's daily life,
Ananda made some minor oversights,
such as stepping on a robe while tidying the Buddha's clothes.
Mahakasyapa announced these faults publicly
and demanded Ananda repent before the Sangha.
You might ask,
was Mahakasyapa suppressing Ananda?
Was this a power struggle?
This question
has been debated for 2,500 years.
From one perspective,
Mahakasyapa was indeed using his prestige to suppress Ananda,
and the "faults" he chose
seemed clearly intended to be harsh.
But from another perspective,
Mahakasyapa might have had a deeper intention.
He was using extreme pressure
to force Ananda into a breakthrough in his realization.
Because what happened next
was one of the most dramatic scenes in Buddhist history.
On the night before the Council,
Ananda knew he had to participate the next day,
but he had not yet attained Arhatship.
That night,
he practiced desperately,
switching between walking and sitting meditation,
pushing his effort to the absolute limit.
But he still couldn't break through.
He was just one step away.
The harder he tried,
the further he felt from that door.
Finally, he grew tired
and decided to lie down and rest.
At that very moment—
just as his body was reclining,
in the gap before his head could touch the pillow—
he attained enlightenment.
This detail is recorded in many Vinaya texts.
He didn't attain it while sitting,
nor while walking,
but at the exact instant he let go.
The moment the thought "I must attain realization" was fully released,
he became an Arhat.
Doesn't this sound like some of your own experiences?
The more you want to sleep, the more you stay awake.
The more you try to relax, the more tense you become.
The more you chase something, the more it eludes you.
Then, the second you truly let go,
it comes to you on its own.
Ananda used a lifetime of learning as the foundation
and a night of effort as the final sprint.
But the force that finally allowed him to break through
came from letting go.
Herein lies the paradox of spiritual practice:
you must give it your all,
but what finally brings you there
is the moment you open your hand.
The next day,
Ananda entered the Saptaparni Cave,
and the Council officially began.
Mahakasyapa presided over the assembly.
Ananda was responsible for reciting the Buddha's teachings,
which later became the Sutra Pitaka.
Upali,
the foremost disciple in upholding the precepts,
was responsible for reciting the rules set by the Buddha,
which became the Vinaya Pitaka.
The five hundred Arhats checked each word;
once confirmed to be error-free,
the teachings were established.
This is the source of the first line
of all Buddhist scriptures we read today:
"Thus have I heard."
Four simple words.
"I" is Ananda;
"heard" is what he listened to;
"thus" means in this way.
He was saying,
"This is how I heard it."
Not "The Buddha said,"
nor "The truth is,"
but "This is what reached my ears."
Do you feel the weight of these words?
It isn't claiming an absolute truth;
it's marking the starting point of a messenger.
It acknowledges upfront
that these words passed through a human's memory,
and there might be deviations.
This is a seed of intellectual humility planted 2,500 years ago.
A viewer left a comment
that I found particularly insightful.
They said:
Ananda memorized every word of the Buddha's decades of teaching.
From the perspective of the Alaya-vijnana,
this was a lack of wisdom caused by information overload.
Others only encountered a single facet of the teachings,
but because of their focus,
they attained enlightenment faster.
This is a very sharp observation.
Ananda's learning was his greatest asset,
but also his heaviest burden.
He knew so much
that the knowledge itself became a wall
separating him from direct realization.
Other disciples,
like Mahakasyapa,
may not have known as much as Ananda,
but they applied what they knew to their very core,
and reached the finish line first.
This is the fundamental difference between "hearing" and "witnessing."
Knowing
is not the same as doing.
Memorizing
is not the same as digesting.
Reading a recipe and cooking a good meal
are two completely different things.
Ananda's enlightenment on the eve of the council
happened exactly when he set down the burden of his "great learning."
But the story doesn't end here.
The council itself
had a darker side that is rarely mentioned.
Inside the Saptaparni Cave, five hundred Arhats were meeting.
But outside the cave,
there was another group of people.
According to the Vinaya records,
Venerable Purna led thousands of monks
in a separate council outside the cave,
later known as the "extramural council."
Why?
Because they were dissatisfied with Mahakasyapa's decisions,
especially regarding the precepts.
Mahakasyapa insisted on strict conservatism,
changing nothing.
But Purna believed that
since the Buddha said minor precepts could be abolished,
and since the Buddha himself had spoken,
why couldn't they be adjusted flexibly?
Mahakasyapa's reply was very blunt.
He said:
Since no one knows for sure which are the "minor precepts,"
rather than risking a mistake by changing them,
it is better not to change any at all.
His point was essentially that
if we abolish precepts that shouldn't be abolished,
outsiders would mock us, saying,
"The Buddha had rules when he was alive,
but as soon as he was gone,
the rules disappeared."
You see,
the underlying logic here is different.
Mahakasyapa's logic was safety first—
better to be conservative than to make a mistake.
Purna's logic was loyalty to the spirit.
Since the Buddha spoke those words,
his final wishes should be respected.
Both sides had a point,
and both were imperfect.
And this disagreement
was like a seed.
A hundred years later, it grew into Buddhism's first major schism—
the split between the Sthavira and Mahasanghika schools.
The roots lie right here.
But that's a story for the next episode.
Now,
let's take a step back
and look at the deeper legacy left by the First Council.
What did the First Council actually accomplish?
It turned the oral teachings of a living person
into a collectively certified textual system.
Before this,
the Dharma existed in the memory of each disciple.
Everyone remembered things differently,
and understood them differently.
But that didn't matter,
because the Buddha was still there.
If there was a dispute, they could confirm with him directly.
But the Buddha was gone.
The "final arbiter" had vanished.
From then on,
to the question of "What did the Buddha say?"
there was no longer a single correct answer,
only a "collectively certified" version.
This version was voted on and passed by five hundred Arhats.
It was a "consensus truth,"
not an "absolute truth."
Does this scenario seem familiar to you?
After a founder leaves a company,
the executives sit down for a meeting
to define the core values, rules, and codes of conduct.
Some insist on staying true to the founder's exact words;
others argue for flexible adjustments based on new situations.
One person pulls out recordings and notes, saying, "Look, this is what he said."
Another says, "You remember his words, but you don't understand his meaning at all."
This is the inevitable fate of all human organizations.
While the founder is there,
everything revolves around them as the center.
When the founder leaves,
those remaining must reach a consensus.
And consensus always implies compromise, filtering, and trade-offs.
Some things are preserved,
some are forgotten,
and some are altered, intentionally or not.
The First Council preserved the core of the Buddha's teachings,
but it also established a pattern.
Henceforth,
the authority of the Dharma no longer came from a living Awakened One,
but from a set of collectively certified texts and traditions.
The significance of this shift cannot be overstated.
It meant the Dharma shifted from "one person's enlightenment"
to "a group of people's memory."
And memory
decays, transforms, and is reinterpreted by those who come later.
But precisely because it became a transmissible system,
it was possible for the Dharma to span 2,500 years
and reach your ears and mine today.
If the Buddha's Dharma only existed in his own enlightenment,
it would have vanished with his passing.
Not even a single line of "Thus have I heard" would remain.
So,
The First Council was a paradox.
It preserved through solidification,
but any solidification implies a degree of distortion.
It is like making a specimen of a living fish;
the fish's shape is preserved,
but its vitality is lost.
Whether the Dharma can survive "alive"
depends on every subsequent generation's ability
to look at that specimen
and see the direction in which the live fish once swam.
The "calibration anchor" concept I’ve used in previous episodes
becomes exceptionally clear at this First Council.
Whenever new scriptures, theories, or schools appear,
we must return and ask one question:
is this new thing
closer to or farther from what the Buddha saw under the Bodhi tree?
closer or farther?
We can ask this question today
because of a rainy season 2,500 years ago,
where 500 people sat in a cave
and turned one man's voice into everyone's memory.
The story of Mahakashyapa and Ananda
is on the surface a conflict between two people,
but essentially an eternal tug-of-war between "depth of practice" and "preservation of teachings."
You need Mahakashyapa to hold the standard,
otherwise anyone could claim, "The Buddha said this."
But you also need Ananda to preserve the content,
otherwise the highest standard cannot function
because you have no raw material to review.
Realization and hearing,
wisdom and memory,
intuition and data,
philosophy and history—
these two threads
were twisted together during the First Council
and have never been separated since.
All Buddhist history over the next 2,500 years
is essentially a recipe using different proportions of these two threads.
Some eras leaned toward "realization."
Zen, for instance, says "not established on words, pointing directly to the heart."
Other eras leaned toward "hearing."
As when Xuanzang went to India and brought back truckloads of scriptures.
But neither side can stand alone.
If you have realization without hearing,
your enlightenment won't leave that cave.
If you have hearing without realization,
the words you memorize are just a pile of dead symbols.
The Dharma has lived for 2,500 years
not because of the victory of one side,
but because of the dynamic balance between both in every generation.
Well,
that's the story of the First Council.
But I want to leave you with one final question.
Mahakashyapa insisted on "not changing a single precept."
His goal was to protect the purity of the Dharma.
But have you ever wondered,
had he followed the Buddha's last words to "abolish minor precepts,"
and allowed a degree of flexible adjustment,
would the subsequent history of Buddhism have been completely different?
Was the Great Schism a hundred years later
already sown as a seed
by this decision at the First Council?
What do you think?
What is the best way to be loyal to a teacher?
Is it to repeat every word they said without change?
Or is it to understand what they meant to express,
and then move forward in your own way?
This question
is not just a Buddhist one.
It is a question every tradition must face.
Think about yourself.
What have you inherited from your teachers, parents, or seniors?
Are you copying their answers,
or are you continuing their questions?
What are your thoughts on today's story of the First Council?
Regarding the tension between Mahakashyapa and Ananda,
whose position do you understand more?
When you study anything,
are you more like the "narrow but deep" path of Mahakashyapa,
or the "broad and vast" path of Ananda?
Let me know in the comments.
I'm Wang Lijie.
See you next time.