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Curious About Past Buddhas
ajani_mgo
Veteran
Just curious, and perfectly aware that this is useless to the Dharma...
Other than Matreiya, did the Gautama Buddha tell anything about the past Buddhas before him? And the future of Matreiya? Other than the Silent Buddhas, did he mention any worthy beings during his lifetime?
Other than Matreiya, did the Gautama Buddha tell anything about the past Buddhas before him? And the future of Matreiya? Other than the Silent Buddhas, did he mention any worthy beings during his lifetime?
0
Comments
Not worthless at all.
He did mention, if I recall rightly, that in a previous life he met Dipankara Buddha, who predicted Gautama's future buddhahood. There is a list of 24? previous Buddhas in the Pali canon. In the Northern Tripitaka there are many more given and Buddha talks of visiting them and vice versa.
Now, you have to differentiate what is meant by the word "Buddha" in this meaning. Buddha on the one hand simply means "awake" or "awakened one", so that is a term that can apply to any sentient being who attains enlightenment. In this sense, however, "Buddha" has a slightly different meaning. Here it is more in the sense of a "Cosmic Buddha", i.e., a Buddha who brings the Dharma into a world where it does not exist. Although there were previous Buddhas, the Dharma had died out in this world before Shakyamuni Buddha manifested his enlightenment for the benefit of us all. The same will be true of the next Buddha, Maitreya, and all subsequent Buddhas, i.e., they will only appear when the Dharma has disappeared from the world and sentient beings are in dire need of it. So that's a very good reason to discount all the garden variety bogus Maitreyas running around because obviously they don't meet the criteria for the next Buddha as the Dharma still exists in this world.
We have included relics of the previous Buddha (whose name I forget at the moment) in several of the stupas we have built in Maryland and Arizona. These particular relics were ringsel, spontaneously manifesting nodules, usually pearly white, which appear, in this case anyway, on stupas containing relics of this Buddha.
Palzang
Could you do me a favor and post in the MediDEATH thread about your meditation practices? Just what you do in a typical day and what you actually do during meditation, buddy?
-bf