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Is the Boddhisattva Path Necesary?
The Buddha said that all Buddhas who attain Nibbana through self awakening awake to the dhamma of the four noble truths. The whole point of taking up the Boddhisattva vow is to spend billions upon billions of lifetimes traveling from one samsaric birth to the next (which includes hell realms. Sounds like a grand time, right?) with the aspiration that at some point you will awaken to the dhamma of the four noble truths, and thus liberate all beings from suffering. My question is, why would you want to spend such a long, horrible time suffering only to awaken to the Dhamma that is right here for you to practice in this very lifetime.
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In mahayana we practice to directly realize emptiness. From the point of interconnectivity anothers suffering is my suffering. When another is hungry i am hungry. But the end goal is nirvana nonetheless.
Whatever works for you.
Disciple: "Where will you go after one hundred years?"
Zen Master: "I will change into a horse or a donkey."
Disciple: "And then?"
Zen Master: "I'll go to hell."
Disciple: "But you are a man of great goodness and wisdom! Why would you go to hell?"
Zen Master: "If I don't go to hell to teach you, who will?"
Alan
@Tikal2010 -- Because it is NOT here for you in this very lifetime.
If it were, you'd be laughing.
To those who wonder why we take on such a task, I always reply, would you have one moment's happiness in Heaven if you could hear the screams of the tortured in Hell?
Nobody gets left behind.
This is like a person trapped in a burning building but the left hand spies a small area where it can escape, separates itself from the rest of the body in order to save its "self."
Alan
Dude: Oh, really? What's in it for me?
Buddha: :orange:
Dude: Oh really what's in it for me?
Buddha: Freedom from suffering.
The jewel ornament of liberation says that the buddhist path consist of three practices. Impermanence to release attachment to this life. Suffering (contemplate) to release attachment to pleasure. Love to release attachment to peace.
I mean, where did you get this "Me first above all others, because I matter more than them" from.....?
It is all too human to only see the differences. I've seen boh paths transform people to have better lives and open hearts.
One path may work for you and another may not.
The path of the Arahant requires but one life time, and results in supreme security from bondage.
If the path of arhat makes sense for you then go 100%. Don't get caught on making better or worse. Practice and free yourself from suffering.
After you realize no self you'll have a pleaant surprise. An open heart and clear seeing. The natural functioning of a buddha is a bodhisattva.
To immitate the buddha is to be a buddha. But enough of this. Practice. Engage. That is real buddhism.
Don't make divisions because you do not see clearly.
An Arahant is one who is no longer subject to birth and death. Enlightenment is seeing the arising and passing away of the four noble truths. Nirvana is a state of being which is not subject to birth or death.
The natural function of a Buddha is not a Boddhisattva, the natural function of a Buddha is after having seen correctly with wisdom, to pass away into Nibbana.
We can talk and bark bout this or that. Free yourself then. Tell us all how it goes.
Prove us mahayana wrong.
Though i see no difference.
As to why someone would want to follow that path. Its simply out of compassion for others suffering. As one progresses along the path and their mind becomes more refined and karma becomes more purified I doubt the suffering is all that bad. I don't know, maybe, there are plenty of threads on mahayana vs. theravada if you want to try to sort that one out.
Becoming will never end. The skandas are empty.
Does a buddha feel pain? Sure, but it is seen as not self, impermanent, not satisfying. Then the buddha just accepts what is. By accepting what is all that arises is accepted.
Lol
A buddha can *be* in hell with a hell being, but for the buddha it is nirvana.
But to the extent that my understanding is OK, then I wonder what sort of Buddhism you are practicing. A Buddhism of words? A Dharma of words? This is a peculiar sort of Buddhism or Dharma to me, the kind of thing that creates heart-felt believers, perhaps, but misses the joy and juice Gautama was pointing out. That joy and juice, that realization and actualization, is entirely dependent on your own intimate efforts and clear and compassionate mind. It is not something to make up and believe in. It is something to actualize in your own life.
All of us may be grateful indeed to a variety of written or spoken teachings. But to imagine that such teachings could somehow compass or define the Dharma ... well, this is a heretic's Buddhism and a heretic's Dharma, I'd say.
No criticism is intended here ... just an encouragement to keep up a determined and focused practice.
Such practice is the transformation of mind.
If you want to awaken all of humanity, awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation. Lao-Tzu
As a means of instruction, the Vedanta teacher Sri Ramakrishna (some called him "avatar") once invited a student to take his favorite text and place it in a room. After locking the doors and windows, the student was instructed to go way for a couple of days and then come back ... and see if anything had changed in that room.
Later in life, one of Ramakrishna's disciples, Swami Vivekananda, would write, "The mind (he meant intellect) is a good servant and a poor master." This was not an invitation to posit some god or ethereal and ineffably-perfect emperor; but it was a suggestion to acknowledge and actualize the 'master.'
Nibbana is the result of an experiential based understanding. Such as when you look up at the sky and see that the sky is blue. From that point onward you know that the sky is blue.