Buddhism is one of the four most popular religions in the world today alongside with Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. These four religious organizations make up the majority of the religious faiths in the world today. There are however hundreds of religious sects that branch out from these four main religious organizations and other religious faiths that existed much earlier than the said four. Without exception, all religious teachings guide human beings to the realization of God, and its attainment, oneness with Him, or enlightenment by means of the holy writings, and purification of body and character and meditation. Every religion is founded to help man unites his lower vehicles or the material, emotional, and concrete mind to his true spiritual nature.
THE LIFE OF PRINCE SIDDARTHA GAUTAMA (THE LORD BUDDHA)
The Buddha of the present time is the Lord Gautama has took his last birth in India as Prince Siddharta Gautama about two thousand five hundred years ago, and in that incarnation finished his series of lives as Bodhisattva, and succeeded the previous Buddha Kasyapa as Head of the Second Ray in the Occult Hierarchy of our globe.
Prince Siddharta (which word means every wish fulfilled) Gautama of the Shakya clan, the Lord Gautama Buddha, The Saviour of the World, and also known as Shakyamuni, founded Buddhism after He attained enlightenment at the age of 35 years old about 2,500 years ago. He is also known as Amitabha (Amitofo which means abstract wisdom), the World Honored One, Mahavairocana (Dainichi), Vaisajyaguru (Yakushi), and The Enlightened One. In the Hindu religion, Amitabha is called Shiva; Padmapani is called Vishnu; and Manjushri is called Brama.
Prince Siddharta’s parents King Shuddhodana Gautama and Queen Maya settled in the capital at Kapila where they had great castle and ruled wisely and joyfully the kingdom. Having lost his mother soon after his birth and watching living creatures kill each other created on him spiritual wound that deepened day by day as he grew up. The suffering of human life become more and more deeply ingrained in his mind.
King Shuddhodana Gautama wanted Prince Siddharta to take over his kingdom and even had him married to a beautiful Princes Yashodhara and had a son Rahula when he reached the age of 29 years old, but Prince Siddharta remained resolved to finding solutions to the problems of life. He thought. “Some day we may be sick, we shall become aged, and from death there is no escape.” “Pride of youth, pride of health, pride of existence; - thoughtful people should cast them aside”. He decided to leave the palace and became an ascetic and led a religious life. Many tests and temptations came to him and his practice of asceticism is intense and no ascetic in the past, none in the present, and none in the future ever had practiced or ever will practice more earnestly that he did.
It was an intense and incomparable struggle. His mind was desperate and filled with confusing thoughts, dark shadows overhung his spirit, and he was beleaguered by all lures of the devils. But carefully and patiently he examined them one by one and rejected them all. It, indeed, was a hard struggle, that made his blood run thin, his flesh fall away, and his bones crack. But when the morning star appeared in the eastern sky, the struggle was over and the Prince’s mind was clear and bright as the breaking day. He had at last found the path to Enlightenment. It was December 8 when he was 35 years old that the Prince became a Buddha.
HIS EARLIER INCARNATIONS
In the book “The Masters and the Path” by C. W. Leadbeater, he mentioned that the great sacrifice of the Lord Buddha is spoken of in all sacred books of the Buddhists; but they have not understood the nature of the sacrifice, for many believe it to have been the descent of the Lord Buddha from Nirvanic levels after his illumination to teach his Law. The great sacrifice that he made was this spending of thousands of years in order to qualify himself to be the first of mankind who should help his brother-men by teaching to them the Wisdom which is life eternal*. That work was done, and nobly done. He appeared as Vyasa; he came to ancient Egypt as Hermes, the Thrice-Greatest, who was called the Father of All Wisdom; he was the first of the twenty-nine Zoroasters, the Teachers of the Religion of the Fire; still later he walked amongst the Greeks as Orpheus, and taught them by means of music and of song; and finally he took his last birth in the north of India, and wandered up and down the Ganges valley for five and forty years, preaching his Law, and the drawing round himself all those who in previous lives had been his pupils.
*I. I. Nelson in his book “The Ancient Wisdom in the Modern School” mentioned that Dr. Annie Besant offers a description of the wisdom of eternal life in five statements:
1. One eternal infinite unrecognizable real Existence.
2. From THAT the manifested God, unfolding from unity to duality, from duality to trinity.
3. From the manifested trinity, many spiritual intelligences guiding the cosmic order.
4. Man a reflection of the manifested God and therefore a trinity fundamentally, his inner and real self, being eternal, one the Self of the universe.
5. His evolution by repeated incarnations, into which he is drawn by desire, and from which he is set free by knowledge and sacrifice becoming divine in potency as he had been in latency.
THE VOW OF LORD GAUTAMA BUDDHA
In the book entitled the “Teaching of Buddha” by BDK, it was written that the Lord Gautama Buddha made four great vows: To save all people; to renounce all worldly desires; to learn all the teachings*; and to attain perfect enlightenment. These vows were manifestations of the love and compassion that are fundamental to the nature of Buddhahood.
THE FOURFOLD NOBLE TRUTHS
The world is full of suffering. Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness and death are suffering. A man full of hatred is suffering, to be separated from a beloved one is suffering, to be vainly struggling to satisfy one’s needs is suffering. In fact, life that is not free from desire and passion is always involved with distress. This is the truth of suffering.
The cause of human suffering is undoubtedly found in the thirsts of the physical body and in the illusions of worldly passion. If these thirsts and illusions are traced to their source, the thirsts and illusions are rooted in the intense desires of physical instincts. Thus, desire, having a strong will-to-live at its basis, seeks that which it feels desirable, even if it is sometimes death. This is called the truth of the cause of suffering.
If desire, which lies at the root of all human passion, can be removed, then passion will die out and all human suffering will be ended. This is called the Truth of the Termination of Suffering.
In order to enter into a state where there is no desire and no suffering, one must follow a certain path. This is called the Eightfold Noble Path.
THE EIGHT-FOLD NOBLE PATH
The stages of this Noble Path are: Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Behavior, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. This is called the Truth of the Noble Path to the termination of desire.
TWO MAIN BUDDHISTS TRADITION
There are two main Buddhists tradition, the Mahayana tradition from the Northern group, and the Theravada (Hinayana) tradition from the Southern group.
1. THE THERAVADA (HINAYANA) BUDDHISM
The Southern tradition of Buddhism is represented generally by this appellation. “Thera” means elders. The Hinayana tradition and called also as “The Lower Vehicle” spread to Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, etc. To attain nirvana, we must follow a prescribed path: the true path, or the Four Noble Truths. According to Theravada whose practitioners seek nirvana for their own sake, the mind should be trained to exercise a will strong enough to renounce samsara. The practitioner should pursue religious ethics and simultaneously practice meditative absorption and insight so that delusion and its seeds may be purged, ultimately, never to grow again. Thus we attain nirvana. The paths to be followed are the paths of Preparation, Application, Seeing, Practice, and Fulfillment. This is the school of elders that historically was a group of conservative senior monks who advocated a strict adherence to the precepts as opposed to another group of rather freer progressive monks that is believed to have progressed into the later Mahayana group in the northern tradition. This provoked the split* into Theravada and Mahasamghika which was the fountainhead of later Mahayana tradition.
*In the book “Meeting of Minds” A dialogue on Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism, it was mentioned that on May 1st through the 3rd, 1998 His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Venerable Chan Master Sheng-yen presented In the Spirit of Manjushri: the Wisdom Teachings of Buddhism, at Roseland in New York City, USA. This meeting of the two highly venerated and respected Buddhists leaders was attended by some 2500 delegates from all Buddhist traditions. They agreed that the “sudden” and “gradual” approaches to enlightenment was important issue and was previously discussed and once debated by the Indian master Kamalashila and the Chinese master Hoshang around 792 in Tibet. His Holiness and Venerable Sheng-yen made it clear that there is no real contradiction between the sudden and gradual approaches. The differences lie in the dispositions of the practitioners.
2. THE MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
The Mahayana tradition of Buddhism spread to Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, etc. The term means a “Great Vehicle” which can accept all beings suffering in this world of birth and death, and can lead all without any discrimination to the state of enlightenment. In the third century AD, the Indian Sage Nagarjuna expounded the philosophy of the “Middle Way” that has become central to all schools of Mahayana Buddhism. The Middle Way teaches the “true suffering” derives from samsara, the cycle of birth and rebirth that arises from karma, the retribution for actions stemming from ignorance and delusion. “True cause” means karma and delusion, which are the true causes of suffering. “True cessation” means the complete disappearance of the two preceding conditions. The “True Path” is the one path by which we arrive at true cessation.
The followers of Mahayana tradition aim at attaining the highest stage of nirvana-buddhahood. They do this not only for themselves but also for all sentient beings. Motivated by the aspiration of Enlightenment and by compassion for all sentient beings, they follow almost the same path as the Hinayanists but they also practice other expedient means such as the Six Perfections, the six paramitas, such as charity, harmony, patience, desirelessness(or non-attachment), dauntless energy and meditation. They seek to rid themselves of delusion as well as the defilement of karmic imprints, thereby working to attain “Buddhahood”. Although the five paths are the same for both vehicles – Preparation, Application, Seeing, Practice, and Fulfillment, a qualitative difference is that Mahayana emphasizes the motivation to benefits all beings. It is said that Hinayanists who have achieved nirvana will eventually adopt such methods to attain “Buddhahood”.
CHINESE BUDDHISM
The history of Chinese Buddhism started from their acceptance of the Buddhist scriptures and translation thereof. The oldest work from the ancient time is said to be the “Ssu-shin-er-chang-ching (Sutra in Forty two sections spoken by Buddha)”. The translation was done by Kasyapamatanga and others during the Ying-ping era (58-76 AD). The corroborated opinion now give the credit to An-shih-kao who was engaged in translation at Lo-yang from about 148-171 AD. From that time on to the time of the Northern Sung Dynasty (960-1129 AD) the translation work continued for nearly one thousand years.
In the history of Buddhism in China “The one that came last” was the Zen Sect. Its founder is said to have been Sramana of the foreign country or Bodhidharma (?528AD); but the seed sown by him had seen its glorious flower only after the time of Hui Neng (638-713 AD) the 6th Patriarch of the stream. The Zen Buddhism in China has sent out many priests of talent in succession, bringing about the prosperity of Zen for a period of several centuries. It can be seen that there was a new way of thinking in Buddhism, that was deeply rooted in the nature of the Chinese people. It was nothing other than a Buddhism colored by the Chinese way of thinking.
The history of Buddhism in Japan began in the 6th century. In 538 AD, the King of Pochi (or Kudara, Korea) dispatched his envoy to present a Buddhist image and scroll of sutras to the Imperial Court of Emperor Kinmei and this marked the first introduction of Buddhism in Japan. The history of religion is therefore more than 1400 years old now.
According to Venerable Chan Master Sheng-yen, although Chinese Buddhism did not incorporate translations of late Indian Buddhist scriptures, it nevertheless continued the teachings on emptiness in a dynamic way, which eventually flowered into Chan (Zen) Buddhism. According to historians, Chan also had an important impact on the meditative traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, before Buddhism arrived in Tibet, the Bon religion was widespread. Not an effective religion at first, Bon was greatly enriched by Buddhist belief and practice. Tibetan Buddhism developed independently of the later school of Indian Buddhism although it retained the foundations of the Buddha’s teachings.
QUOTATIONS FROM DIAMOND SUTRAS, SHIN SHAU AND WEI LANG (HUI NENG – 6th Patriarch of China or 33rd of Buddhism)
Quotations from Diamond Sutras
All phenomena are like
A dream, an illusion, a bubble and a shadow,
Like dew and lightning.
Thus should you meditate upon them
The World Honoured One (Buddha) also recited the following:
He who sees me by outward appearance
(And) seeks me in sound,
Treads the heterodox path
(And) cannot perceive the *Tathagata
*Tathagata means the suchness (That) of all Dharmas. The minds of the Tathagata speaks of are not minds, but are expediently called minds.
**Quotations from Wei Lang (Hui Neng) and Shin Shau:
By Shin Shau
Our body is the Bodhi-tree
And our mind a mirror bright.
Carefully we wipe them hour by hour,
And let no dust alight
By Hui Neng
There is no Bodhi-tree
Nor stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is void,
Where can the dust alight?
**Shin Shau has founded the “Gradual Attainment” or the Mahayana or Northern School of Buddhism; while Hui Neng is the 6th Patriarch and was the head of the “Sudden School” of Buddhism or the Southern School, or the Nahayana tradition.
BODHISATTVA MAITREYA (OR AVALOKITESVARA WHICH MEANS MANIFESTED WISDOM -SUCCESSOR TO THE LORD GAUTAMA BUDDHA AS WORLD TEACHER)
In the Book “The Masters and the Path” written by C.W. Leadbeater, it is mentioned that the Lord Maitreya whose name means kindliness and compassion took the office of the Bodhisattva when the Lord Gautama laid it down. One of the first steps on assuming office was to take advantage of the tremendous magnetism generated in the world by the presence of the Buddha, to arrange that great teachers should simultaneously appear in many different parts of the world; so that within a short space of time we find not only the Buddha Himself, Shri Shankaracharya and Mahavira in India, but also Mithra in Persia, Laotze and Confucius in China, and Pythagoras in ancient Greece.
Lord Maitreya, the World Teacher-successor of Lord Gautama Buddha has appeared twice, firstly, as Krishna in the Indian plains; and secondly, as Christ amid the hills of Palestine. In His incarnation as Krishna the great feature was love; the Child Krishna drew round Him people who felt for him the deepest, the most intense affection. Again in his birth in Palestine, love was the central feature of his teaching. He said: “This new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you.” He asked that his disciples might all be one even as he was one with the Father. His closest disciple, St. John, insisted most strongly upon the same idea: “He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.”
What is now called Christianity was undoubtedly a magnificent conception as he originally taught it, sadly as it has fallen away from that high level in the hands of ignorant exponents since. It must not be assumed that the teaching of brotherly and neighbourly love was new in the world. St. Augustine said in his books “De Civitate Dei”: The identical thing that we now call the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and has not been lacking from the beginnings of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, from which moment on the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian.
Readers of the Bhagavad Gita will remember the teaching of love and devotion with which it is filled. The Bodhisattva also occupied occasionally the body of Tsong-ka-pa, the great Tibetan religious reformer ( 1357-1419 Lama teacher of the Gelugpa Sect based its doctrines on the Kadampa school of Tibet established by the great Indian master Atisha 982-1054), and throughout the centuries he has sent forth a stream of his pupils, including Nagarjuna, Aryasanga, Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya, and many others , who founded new sects or threw new light upon the mysteries of religion, and among these was one of his pupils who was sent to found the Muhammadan faith.
The sending out of the teachers is only a part of His work, which is not confined to humanity, but includes the education of all creatures on earth, and among them the Deva evolution. He is thus the head of all the faiths at present existing, and of many other which have died out in the course of time, though he is of course responsible for them only in their original form, and not in the corruption which man has naturally and inevitable introduced into all of them as the ages have rolled by. He varies the type of religion to suit the period of the world’s history at which it is put forth, and the people to whom it is given; but though the form may vary as evolution proceeds, the ethics are ever the same.
SOME FUNDAMENTAL TEACHINGS OF BUDDHISM
While it is necessary for the spiritual man to descend in the lower worlds of matter, emotion and concrete mind to experiment and gain experiences, his descent to the lower worlds will imprisoned him there and will be drawn by desire resulting to suffering.
The causes of evil and suffering inherent in human nature are greed, anger and foolishness and infatuation.
Man should free himself of attachment from the four vipers (earth, water, fire and air), its guards such as the form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness, and the tools of the senses such as the ear, nose, eyes, touch, etc. He should work hard to go to the other shore, the spiritual plane where his permanent abode truly is.
Dharma has two basic meanings. Dharma with an upper case “D” means the Buddhist teaching. Dharma with the lower case “d” simply refers to a thing, an object, and physical or mental phenomenon.
Make of yourself a light. Rely upon yourself: do not depend upon anyone else. Make my teachings your light! Rely upon them; do not depend upon any other teaching.
We can think of the light departing with the sun and the dark coming with the night, but we cannot so think of the mind that perceives lightness and darkness. The mind that is susceptible to lightness and darkness cannot be given back to anybody; it can only revert to a truer nature that is its fundamental nature.
Buddha aiming at his ideal, trained himself to remain free from all deception, and then by this virtuous deed he wished that all people might know the tranquility of mind that would follow in speaking the truth.
There are four truths in this world – first, all living beings rise from ignorance; second, all objects of desire are impermanent, uncertain and suffering; third, all existing things are also impermanent, uncertain, and suffering; fourth, there is nothing that can be called “ego” and there is no such thing as “mine” in all the world.
An unenlightened and bewildered life rises out of a mind that is bewildered by its world of delusion. As we learn that there is no world of delusion outside of the mind, the bewildered mind become clear; and because we cease to create impure surrounds, we attain Enlightenment.
In this way the world of life and death is created by the mind, is in bondage to the mind, is ruled by the mind; the mind is the master of every situation. The world of suffering is brought about by the deluded mind.
It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or his foe, that lures him into evil ways.
The one who protects his mind from greed, anger, foolishness and infatuation, is the one who enjoys real and lasting peace.
To be foolish and to recognize that one is a fool is better than to be foolish and imagine that one is wise.
A man is foolish to cherish desires for privileges, promotion, profits, or honor, for such desires can never bring happiness but will bring suffering instead.
He who is influenced by his likes and dislike cannot rightly understand the significance of circumstances and tends to be overcome by them; he who is free from attachments rightly understands circumstances and to him all things become new and significant.
Do no dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
This conception of universal oneness – that things in their essential nature have no distinguishing marks – is called- “Sunyata.” Sunyata menas non-substantiality, the unborn, has no self-nature, no duality. It is because things in themselves have no form or characteristics that we can speak of them as neither being born not being destroyed. There is nothing about the essential nature of things that can be described in terms of discrimination; that is why things are called non-substantial.
Oh my foolish, foolish mind! Thus you have led me along different paths and I have been obedient to you and docile. But now that I have heard the Buddha’s teaching, do not disturb me any more or cause me to further sufferings, but let us seek Enlightenment together, humbly and patiently.
“He abused me, he laughed at me, he struck me”. Thus one thinks and so long as one cherished such thoughts one’s anger continues. Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.
When they are toiling on an up-hill road, they should think of it as the road to Enlightenment that will carry them beyond the world of delusion. When they are following an easy road, they should take advantage of its easier conditions to make greater progress toward Buddhahood.
BUDDHA’S SUBJUGATION
1. Insight into the four Noble Truth
2. Subjugation of the five senses and the mind
3. Right use of clothes; not to be delighted on
4. Indurance of cold, heat, hunger, and thirst (discipline)
5. Avoidance of danger, improper place and companion
6. Removal of evil thoughts
7. Cultivation of higher wisdom
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