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What actually made Prince Siddhartha become Buddha/Enlightened??
zenmyste
Veteran
Buddhism is primarily based around the 4 noble truths and 8 fold path;
But was that basically it?? that made him buddha??
Was it just the case that the 4 noble truths and 8 fold path was something that people back then had never understood until Siddhartha taught it, making him the new awakened Teacher of their time - hence becoming the Buddha???
Also, Another question;
So what is the major difference between "Buddha" and YOU!!
But was that basically it?? that made him buddha??
Was it just the case that the 4 noble truths and 8 fold path was something that people back then had never understood until Siddhartha taught it, making him the new awakened Teacher of their time - hence becoming the Buddha???
Also, Another question;
So what is the major difference between "Buddha" and YOU!!
0
Comments
As for the differences . . . I believe the Buddha has more in common with Mary Poppins
I have more in common with Crusty the Clown . . .
[Mary Poppins measures herself with her tape measure and reads what it says]. Mary Poppins: As I expected. "Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.".
. . . and now back to the real world . . .
Now lets say a child asked the question?
what exactly made buddha enlightend and what is the difference between "buddha" and everyone else
How would you explain it simply??
As I see it, the Buddha realized the 4NT as he was Enlightened. The 8FP came a bit later, but wasn't necessarily part and parcel to his path to Enlightenment. I don't think we can say he took the 8FP, but it's a certainty that after he became enlightened, he embodied that path. He had Right View, etc.
It has give me pause to consider just what the 8FP means to me as a practitioner and what I should do about it. If we we take Refuge in the Buddha as an example of Enlightened Being and he didn't take the 8FP to enlightenment then what are we really supposed to be doing about it. Is it a process of enlightenment of a product of it?
I don't know but choose to take the latter.
For a Buddha to arise, the Dharma of the previous Buddha must have been forgotten. Following that, it wasn't a matter of people not understanding the 4NT the 8FP and everything else of the Dharma. By the Buddha's time it had been completely forgotten. If you follow the teachings of the 2nd and 3rd Turnings there is NO difference, except in realization. You have Buddha Nature I have Buddha Nature, and as much as it pains me, even Lobster has Buddha Nature ;-)
But these days with all the technology i cant see buddhism (or anything else for that matter) ever getting lost or forgotten about! Even if one day nobody took an interest in buddhism, you would still be able to get info on it. Because the tech would be so amazing that they will have 'every' bit of history for EVER now!!!
But then your saying that means no more buddhas will arise, just because we now live in a time where the teachings wont ever get lost??
Not sure i can believe that but each to their own...
And also, how could the 8 fold path become 'after' the 4 noble truths when the 4th truth 'is' the 8 fold path, isnt it?
So they should come hand in hand! ?
The 4NT and 8FP is enlightenment. The rest of the Buddha Dharma is just different facets of this jewel.
Caring about the Buddha's enlightenment is just taking time and attention away from your own enlightenment, your own manifestation of the 4NT & 8FP.
Categorizing the Buddha as separate from you or vise-versa just contributes to ones own sense of separation and heads away from the path to sufferings cessation.
As for the difference between the Buddha and myself, I'd say it's the nonexistence of craving in the former and the overabundance of craving in the latter.
The way I see it, craving (tahna, literally 'thirst') is a very subtle but powerful aspect of our psychology that's directly tied to suffering. It's there, latent in the mind, waiting to exert its influence through mental fabrications by directing or at the very least encouraging the mind to feed upon sensory experiences via the five clinging-aggregates in an unhealthy way (e.g., see SN 12.52).
In this, I think it's distinct from biological wants or needs. When we're hungry, for example, our mind has a tendency to attach itself to the desire for food and create an identity around it, which can then create suffering in a number of ways, e.g., if we don't get what we want; if it doesn't live up to our expectations that we create around the attainment of our goal; if, in our greed, we eat too much and feel sick and lament our physical discomfort; etc.
Craving, then, isn't simply our desire to or for X; it's the beginning of a mental chain of events that turns our desires for things into the potential for suffering. That's one way of looking at it, at any rate.
The Buddha, or any other awakened individual for that matter, is free of/freed from this psychological phenomenon, whereas someone like myself isn't.
Not "awake" as distinct from anything else -- sleep, for example -- just awake.
That's fine. You don't have to believe me.
What he realized was that the basic structure of reality was luminous clarity bundled into confusion of a subjective entity relating to an objective world. Through his development of concentration he investigated and found interdependence/shunyata.
The major difference between a Buddha and myself is rather simple. A Buddha is one who has total omniscience and total freedom from both emotional and intellectual afflictions. My ego has quite the strong hold on my life, regardless of what non dual jargon is said by this body/mind.
It's gleaned from readings here and there in what is mostly Mahayana literature. It's tradition that the next Buddha, Maitreya, won't manifest until after Shakyamuni's Dharma is forgotten and this is how the Buddha arising thing works.
When we talk about a Buddha here, I mean a Buddha who turns the Wheel of Dharma.
But like I said, you don't have to believe that, or me. Do what the Buddha taught the Kalamas - figure it out for yourself.
Of course it can't be proved. There is no historical evidence for it because it hasn't happened yet.
It's a religious belief. Like Jesus returning to reign over his kingdom.
It has a kind of appeal I suppose. Not so much for me.
only better . . .
(Prepare to answer child about being better so she can grow up to be a Buddha)
What made the Buddha a Buddha after that was he'd observed how students of other teachers tore each other to pieces for not remembering what the teacher had said. So the Buddha made sure Ananda and the other disciples did bulk memorization (hence the 4 of this and 8 of that and so on). And the Buddha got corporate and state sponsors- Pasenandi, Bimbisara and eventually Ashoka. This was when stable states had just appeared. (City states had appeared earlier in India, but collapsed, taking any possible Buddhas with them)
The other Buddhas kept their thoughts to themselves, didn't get disciples to do bulk memorization and didn't get stable government handouts.
And for the non-historical Buddha(s), in many, many later Sutras, there are references to other Buddhas, past, present, future, and in sci-fi like parallel dimensions. This was the first time in mankind's history that people could dedicate large chunks of their time to speculating about why there is anything, why we are unhappy and so on. The Buddha appears to have gone to Taxila university, in a time when schools and universities were very much a new idea. The Buddha and his contemporaries were trying to come up with explanations that went beyond just entertaining stories (myths). The historical Buddha was in a world where a wandering, begging, teacher of philosophy was a respectable thing to do. I think in my community that's called soliciting, vagrancy and panhandling and would result in jail time in short order. The Buddha did it because it was the only (the few?) ways to find enough free time to think big thoughts. I have some leisure time and everything has been summarized in cliff notes format.
Bibliography
I'm drawing on "Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist", which I recommend for everyone, even if you aren't a materialist because it has such a great personal story of the Buddha's life, very different from the most common one. And it is a light read, not turgid like Buddhism Without Beliefs.
Look, there's historical evidence for Siddhartha/Buddha. But no historical evidence for any Buddha before that.
I don't really care about how "scientific" Buddhism is. I don't need a lab rat in a white coat telling me what to believe. I don't need proof outside of my own experience. Histories are written by those who can gain the most from it. Science is for money and not understanding. Time and Space is an illusion.
Lobster is not a ........ errrrr......... Lobster. I guess.
It's perfectly okay to have faith in such teachings, as long as one recognizes it as faith.
The only thing that really stands in Buddhism are the teaching we can each test. They affect our practice.
It is likely he was prodigious, but not unique. I don't believe Buddhism is the only path to enlightenment. Members of other religions may well have achieved enlightenment and remained anonymous. It really doesn't matter what we call it, so long as we get there.
And what he found was the 4 noble truths and 8 fold path???
Is that correct??
How nice!
How nice!
...
When I say it's okay to have faith in teachings...you argue.
If I said it's not okay to have faith in teachings...you'd argue.
I was taking issue with and poking a little fun at what I percieved to be your permission to think the way I want to.
Specifically the part where you say that it's ok, so long as I meet certain conditions.
That, my friend, is hilarious!
:thumbsup:
He followed many different yogis for a while but they didn't have what he was looking for. He had abundance and it was no good and so he practiced self denial but that was no good either. In a nihilistic state of mind he decided to sit under the famous tree and either figure it all out or rot away.
However, it isn't all just black and white and the unexpected happened. An altruistic act of kindness. A maiden tending nearby fields happened upon Sidhartha as he was surely close to death and fed him some rice. This act humbled Sidhartha and challenged his views. She had nothing to gain from this and yet she came back the same time every day to feed him some more. It never fully filled his belly but it was enough to sustain him and bring him back to health. Compassion, that was it, but why?
As he sat there he found the middle way between all extremes and woke up to our true nature. His visions and insights into suffering and the cessation of suffering were made into his dharma. The first people he came upon were ones he practiced self denial with and they saw he was healthy again and scoffed at him but he just smiled and radiated such a feeling that they listened to what he had to say. Then they followed him as Buddha after he told them about the four noble truths.
Many of us have our moments of mindfulness and awakening but when Buddha awoke in Sid, he lived in an awakened state and taught the dharma in numerous ways for about fifty years before that particular vessel went kaput.
Not really in even the most hard line Theravadin schools.
The Buddha awakened and decided to espouse an aspect of the awakening that was the most direct route to awakening, this was the dharma. The dharma codification came from the oral remembering of the Arahats around the Buddha. So the dharma historically is more to do with their perception of the teaching.
That is the tradition.
The dharma is an expedient or skilful means. In other circumstances, times and schools the importance of other components are stressed. People, needs and the way to the dharma may be direct, circulatory or largely by passed.
For example, people these days examine the teachings, try the methods, adopt the teaching that works for them. Sometimes this becomes more focussed and intense, as do the results . . .
Thanks to you for explaining it pure and simple!
:eek2:
No awake Christians? No awake Sufis? All Rabbis snoozing? Every shaman unrealized? No Buddha dharma for those awakening paths? Perhaps . . . Col. Jessep (Jack Nicholson) 'A Few Good Men'
Not sure what u mean?
Are those two not the same thing?
The word Dharma can mean many things in the ancient language. The Buddha used the word to point to his teachings as in "This is my dharma" but also as a reference to the reality of how things are. Or in the language you could even use the word to just point to "things" in general, like "All things (dharma) are without a self" is a famous example of this.
See also:
If it is unknowable then awakening happens without understanding... That doesn't seem right somehow.
One of the problems I see in all religions -- including Buddhism -- is that part of the faith seems to almost always center around the leader (whether historical or present-day) having some secret knowledge that no lay person, or even ordained person, is quite able to understand. And, the exalted leader -- exalted to a large extent because -- even he finds it impossible to explain that secret knowledge to a lay person.
The Buddha realised nature as it is
the laws of nature
how to work with reality
the way to awakening.
There is a huge difference between this definition and the rigid almost legal language often used to define Dhamma.
So when I previously said no, I clearly meant yes. Must have been a limited Dhamma know.
as far as that knowledge is concerned which is known by Buddha and not to laymen, i think there is such kind of knowledge - i think even Buddha's teachings say there is a higher kind of knowledge, which is accessible only after attaining deep concentration stages - which leads to supernatural powers - these things though not really helpful, but these things as per Buddha's teachings at least these things exist conventionally.
One problem is we can't explain the unconceptable without using concepts and another is a blessing in disguise... All the good teachers point to within the student. That's why I believe Jesus was awakened to our true nature but think Paul was a fraud. The teacher can not understand for the student... The student must understand for themself but the truth is there to see.
That's why (I think) Buddha said not to have faith in the truth of the dharma but to use it to see the truth. He didn't offer us the truth but he did offer us the dharma. I can't have faith in supernatural powers because if things happen, they happen naturally. This, to me, is putting up a wall between Buddha and the rest of us... Putting the Buddha on such a high pedestal that it cannot be reached.
Faith is something I can only put on things that I can perceive. Like our ability to foster a more compassionate society or even wake up from our delusion of seperateness.