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Stages of the Path: The Origins of the Bodhisattva Bhumis
bookworm
U.S.A. Veteran
This is a fascinating academic talk, I highly recommend listening to the whole video, someone from dharmawheel.net was kind enough to write down and share brief notes, describing what is in the talk, the notes can be found on the link below if you want to know what is in the talk before clicking on the video.
http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=4182#
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There can be only one Buddha per world.
Talking to yourself is not a good sign, you know that don't you?
I'll stop now.
Lovley programme on "essays" on the radio last night. About how they don't "tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, tell 'em it, then tell 'em what you told 'em". Instead they go exploring with various potentially contradictory ideas to discover where they lead. Seems to me @bookworm may have started an essay? If so, don't stop! If you want to do it in private, that's fine but I find it's good discipline for me to expect that others will read.
What is a world? Is each planet a world? Each solar system perhaps? Maybe only the solar systems with life? Is each galaxy is a world? There could be an infinite amount of big bangs in the universe so maybe each expanding big bang is a world.
In light of DO and non-separation, I surmise there is only one world and that multiple buddhas would be connected as to be the Buddha with many views.
If we want to start separating the universe into little worlds then we may as well call each of us a world. Problem solved.
Well said that Maitreya.
The historical study of Bhumi Buddhism development in the video seemed a perfect cure for insomnia.
Any mystical or pragmatic path is like a dance. You either boogie or you stand on the sidelines debating whether the elbow being raised comes after twirling. Academics studies can be applied for their insights, which the purely academic may have no experiential insight into.
The Bhumis, Ox herding progression, the eightfold path are engaged in. Study is always useful to the Buddhist but sometimes thinking you know everything about smiling because you have measured how far the corners of the lips are ideally raised is a sterile endeavour worthy of an ig noble prize
http://www.theguardian.com/science/ig-nobel-prizes
Does anyone see the symbolism here?
I hear the academic arguments! I understand intellectually, the stages of the path.
My understanding is that the boddhisattva knows that they have attained nirvana (be them male or female), but shut up because theres no point discussing the concepts further - because there is no point, that is the point they have come to understand; you cannot convey the non-conceptual in words! And so they learn to walk the path quietly henceforth, and do not continue to make tracks like a wild animal in the snow. You are boddhisattva because you have buddha nature.
Maitreya will be a woman in my world system btw, I bow to her bringing the knowledge to me again!
Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water.
which in modern western translation might be viewed as:
Before buddhism read books, listen to teachers, meditate. After enlightenment, read books, listen to teachers, meditate
The spiritual path is your own to tread, no matter how muddy the path, there is an end. No one will guide you better than yourself, providing you do not decide to tread the path of self-delusion; and only YOU know where you are on that fine line between moral and immoral behaviours.
Of course women can become arhats and buddhas! But only men can be misogynists... what is the female equivalent, I wonder?
...\lol/...
How can I put this kindly?
Rubbish!
You are the one Neo (aka @bookworm). Time you saved the world, instead of listening to historians, hinayanists and audio bookings.
Time you wrote and became your own book.
Too harsh? (Lobster fails again, talks to self and is temporarily disowned by Mr Cushion) Ah well . . . time to dance to a different kind of tuning . . .
Majjhima nikaya sutta 115
Ones, Fully Enlightened Ones, could arise contemporaneously in one world system
there is no such possibility.' And he understands: 'It is possible that one
Accomplished One, a Fully Enlightened One, might arise in one world-system -
http://talks.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/mn-115-sum03.pdf
^^^ Yeah, well if it ain't in the Bible or Koran . . . it must be true.
Wait . . . I think I just became a bodhi fundamentalist - phone Home Security before I declare Dharma Kalachakra . . .
. . . and now back to today's reading and . . . it was worth a try . . .
Could this come down to understanding of "world-system" (individual) as opposed to what Westerners generally understand by "world" (community)?
:grey_question:
http://bhavanasociety.org/resource/the_buddhist_concept_of_world/ says:
Makes sense to me that an internal world can have only one Buddha but does this entail the same in the external world?
The same link goes on to say:
Definitely feeling crazy :cookie:
Indeed
There are no 'two Buddhas' in the reaching of the far shore. Only One arrives.
True . . . And strange as it may seem you can read all the suttras and dharma books you like and still the possibility of Buddhahood remains nowhere on the scene . . .
Now Neo are you on the path or just living in Sutra Matrix?
Yes i'm inevitably on the path, lets just say I no longer have to worry about having to go through low rebirths anymore.
@lobster
Could be so kind as to tell me why you gave me a lol badge for my reply to your question asking me if i'm on the path?
No.
That is not always my kind of kind. Sorry to be unkind, I'll allow you to read into that whatever you are kind enough to find of value . . . No value? Move on.