Each statue that you see of The Buddha represents a timeframe during his lifetime. If you understand the life story of The Buddha, you can understand each individual statue and glean information that will assist you in your journey to Enlightenment.
Whether each of these stories are true or false, is not entirely known, because none of us were there during the lifetime of The Buddha. However, whether these stories are true or false, does not actually matter because, each of these stories have underlying wisdom that will help you to progress in your journey to Enlightenment.
So, I will describe the story of this Buddha statue to you, then help you to extrapolate lessons to learn that will help you in your journey to Enlightenment and your journey in this life.
It is said, that during the lifetime of Siddhartha Gotama, as he was training the mind to attain Enlightenment, he was deep in the forest meditating. And, while in deep meditation, it started to rain. The forest began to flood yet, Siddhartha Gotama had no idea this was occurring because he was deep in meditation.
The water started rising up higher and higher on his body, getting up towards his chest where he would have potentially died.
So, a large snake, realizing that Siddhartha Gotama was going to become a Buddha, chose to coil itself under the meditating Siddhartha Gotama to rise him up out of the water, and then shielded him with the hood of his body, like an umbrella, to protect him from the rain.
Now, whether this story is true or false, I do not know. As part of this life, I was not there during the lifetime of The Buddha. I have never seen a snake with that level of intelligence to be able to accomplish something of this nature. However, whether this story is true or false does not actually matter because, there is an embedded lesson in this story that will actually help you in your journey to Enlightenment.
It is helpful for you to develop a meditation practice that is so deep that, the mind is unaffected by what is transpiring around you. So, if you are meditating at home, and your neighbors baby is crying, or their dog is barking, etc. be so deep in meditation, that the mind is unaffected by this impermanent situation. You will not be able to meditate in complete silence as, that would be permanence, and you live in an impermanent world.
Everything you see, hear, smell, taste, that comes in contact with the body, or any thoughts or ideas that go through the mind, is impermanent. These are temporary, they are not permanent. But, the unEnlightened mind craves/desires permanence.
To attain Enlightenment, you will need to train the mind, getting to a point where, it is unaffected by the impermanent nature of the world around you, and it no longer craves/desires permanence. So, train the mind during meditation, that you are so deep in meditation, you are unaffected by the world around you.
This is the type of lesson you can learn from these sorts of stories. So, whether this story is true or false, does not matter. What is important is, to train the mind to be unaffected by the impermanent nature of the world around you, as the unEnlightened mind craves/desires permanence. That is how you can use a story like this to help you in your journey to Enlightenment.
