Was _____ a Bodhisattva?

vinlyn

And the mystery guest is -- Ebeneezer Scrooge.

He apparently had no soul (at least in his first birth).
His heart was empty.
And after saying "Humbug" he goes on to say, "What is Christmas except a time for buying things!" (with a snarling emphasis on "things").

For those of you with no sense of humor, this is tongue in cheek after me having sit though queries about everyone from Englebert Humperdinck to Tinkerbell being declared Bodhisattvas!

oceancaldera207

Well, he clearly had a moment of genuine self analysis which I believe is quite rare.

Jeffrey

Does a dog have Buddha nature? Mu (not a thing). So then what is a Bodhisattva?? See below:

Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, meditating deeply on Perfection of Wisdom, saw clearly that the five aspects of human existence are empty*, and so released himself from suffering. Answering the monk Sariputra, he said this:

Body is nothing more than emptiness,
emptiness is nothing more than body.
The body is exactly empty,
and emptiness is exactly body.

The other four aspects of human existence --
feeling, thought, will, and consciousness --
are likewise nothing more than emptiness,
and emptiness nothing more than they.

All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.

So, in emptiness, there is no body,
no feeling, no thought,
no will, no consciousness.
There are no eyes, no ears,
no nose, no tongue,
no body, no mind.
There is no seeing, no hearing,
no smelling, no tasting,
no touching, no imagining.
There is nothing seen, nor heard,
nor smelled, nor tasted,
nor touched, nor imagined.

There is no ignorance,
and no end to ignorance.
There is no old age and death,
and no end to old age and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no end to suffering, no path to follow.
There is no attainment of wisdom,
and no wisdom to attain.

The Bodhisattvas rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and so with no delusions,
they feel no fear,
and have Nirvana here and now.

All the Buddhas,
past, present, and future,
rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and live in full enlightenment.

The Perfection of Wisdom is the greatest mantra.
It is the clearest mantra,
the highest mantra,
the mantra that removes all suffering.

This is truth that cannot be doubted.
Say it so:

Gaté,
gaté,
paragaté,
parasamgaté.
Bodhi!
Svaha!

Which means...

Gone,
gone,
gone over,
gone fully over.
Awakened!
So be it!

vinlyn

Jeffrey, it was a joke.

Jeffrey

I have a tendency to be serious,
@vinlyn

I can be silly though too. Nice post.

lobster

vinlyn said:

Jeffrey, it was a joke.

Humbug!

There are no jokes. :nyah:

I bow to Tinkerbell, saviour of Never Neverland


:bowdown:

DairyLama

vinlyn said:

And the mystery guest is -- Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Bah humbug!

riverflow

@lobster ... I am NEVER going to play any more videos that you post ever again! :hair:

lobster

@riverflow, my humble apologies.
I believe Bodhisattvah Humperdinck was illustrating NT1

Here is part of an Opera composed by Englebert, illustrating NT2
'The cause of dukkha is too much gingerbread eating'

federica

vinlyn said:

For those of you with no sense of humor, this is tongue in cheek after me having sit though queries about everyone from Englebert Humperdinck to Tinkerbell being declared Bodhisattvas!

I believe we missed out Hitler, Ghengis Khan, Pol Pot and Idi Amin, too....

Jainarayan

If there were any bodhisattvas in A Christmas Carol, it was the ghosts. After all, they brought Scrooge to enlightenment.

Hamsaka

If all it took for someone to qualify as a bodhisattva was to bring a person(s) to a wakened state, then without exception are history's evil despots and dictators bodhisattvas. After all, we moderns (the ones who pay attention to history, that is) are benefited and further wakened by their example of what not do do or be.

I'm no Pali or sutra scholar by far, and my understanding of scriptural bodhisattva requirements and capacities is mush. I have been lifted to a more wakened state by a goose named Delilah, and by several other non-canonical entities and circumstances.

Therefore (ahem) I must admit it is not the despot, or the goose who 'caused' my greater wakened state. They merely were there when the mechanism within ratcheted up a notch, and got their picture taken by my hippocampus in it's efforts (often mislaid) to file my life.

Gassho

lobster

@Hamsaka makes a positive distinction. A despot, rogue teacher, unenlightened platitude espousing monk or parrot may be a source of wisdom despite not because of their motivation/role/unskillfulness . . .
It is, as always, up to us . . .

As I said to Mr Cushion only this morning,
'Nothing to say for yourself again? You don't fool me . . . '
. . . and I sat on him . . .