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Shakymuni and Maitreya

shanyinshanyin Novice YoginSault Ontario Veteran
edited August 2010 in Buddhism Basics
Hello.

I have been taking a world religions course to finish highschool. Today I was doing Buddhism. In the booklet I was assigned it stated that Buddha Shakyamuni is the reincarnation of Maitreya.

??

Comments

  • SherabDorjeSherabDorje
    edited May 2010
    I can't find it on Google, and there's no mention of it in the Wikipedia article.

    Nor have I ever heard of it.
  • ValtielValtiel Veteran
    edited May 2010
    It's a high school course. Don't expect anything to be accurate. Maitreya refers to the future Buddha. Maitreya is not the name of a person.
  • shanyinshanyin Novice Yogin Sault Ontario Veteran
    edited May 2010
    Yeah it was just like "Buddha Shakyamuni is the reincarnation of Maitreya." and I was like boom whoa never heard that one before. If noone here has heard of this I'm gunna keep believing it's an error.
  • mugzymugzy Veteran
    edited August 2010
    It's so disappointing to see that someone has taken the name Maitreya and is using it to try and gain notoriety. If you do a search on Yahoo! Answers for Maitreya, you'll find a variety of questions relating to this. (Creepily enough, there's a "question" - and by question I mean putting a question mark at the end of a statement - by a person using the avatar of our very own buddhafoot! Blasphemy!) At least there's a few people on there who have pointed out that Maitreya is prophesied to arrive in the world after all remnants of our current Buddha's teachings have been forgotten - a very dark time indeed - and since we haven't gotten there yet anyone claiming to be the Buddha Maitreya is a fraud. It still saddens me that people like this cause confusion and difficulties for those who don't know much about Buddhism.
  • GeckoGecko
    edited August 2010
    I'm not very smart when it comes to the book-stuff regarding Buddhism, but try checking out buddhanet.net - it has quite a few resources that might help. It can get a bit overwhelming to sort through it if you don't have a question framed :S
  • cazcaz Veteran United Kingdom Veteran
    edited August 2010
    shanyin wrote: »
    Hello.

    I have been taking a world religions course to finish highschool. Today I was doing Buddhism. In the booklet I was assigned it stated that Buddha Shakyamuni is the reincarnation of Maitreya.

    ??

    No this is not true from a conventional aspect.
    Besides how could Shakyamuni be a reincarnation of Maitreya ? Maitreya is the Buddha yet to come.
    Very simple stuff...:o
  • SimonthepilgrimSimonthepilgrim Veteran
    edited August 2010
    caz namyaw wrote: »
    No this is not true from a conventional aspect.
    Besides how could Shakyamuni be a reincarnation of Maitreya ? Maitreya is the Buddha yet to come.
    Very simple stuff...:o


    This is only a problem if you cling to the delusion of time as a one-way, linear dimension.
  • cazcaz Veteran United Kingdom Veteran
    edited August 2010
    Simonthepilgrim wrote: »


    This is only a problem if you cling to the delusion of time as a one-way, linear dimension.

    This is why i spoke of Convensional view Dear Simon :)
    The Conventional view being that Buddha's appear in different aspects to suit practitoners and that they have different mind streams.
    The ultimate view being that once self-grasping is eliminated and enlightenment perfected there is actually no difference between any enlightened being.

    In this instance it would be unwise to make a conventional view out of an ultimate as this will lead to confusion for people. :)
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