Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Is Buddha God?
lobster
Crusty Veteran
Is Buddha Almighty COD? ... or is that too fishy for Darwinism Dharmaism?
Here are some of my favourite Buddha Gawd forms:
- Amitabha - primal Buddha with her own Pureland. Used in Pureland and Zen π
- Buddha as metaphor 4 The Ultimate human-god interfacing π
- No thing is not Nihilism. It is All. π΄
- Many gods, one teacher ... yep Buddha Supreme π
- Emptiness is God Form and the Form is unfilled ... π€
What say you? π
6
Comments
Oooooo good question @lobster
I'd say in the Theravadan tradition Shakyamuni Buddha is seen more as simply a man who gained enlightenment. It's my understanding the Sri Lankans particularly take umbrage to the story of Siddhartha taking steps when he was first born and proclaiming that this was his last birth.
Whereas in some of the Mahayana traditions they talk more about him ascending from the Tusita heaven to be reborn in the saha world. He's treated more as a god-like figure.
I always thought that Buddha was the symbol of the completed man, the promise that all men had Buddha nature and could do what he did. So not a god, but something beyond the gods, who also have their lifespans.
But I think the idea of gods is a little outmoded... people would hear thunder, and come up with a thunder god in the sky, whereas nowadays we know that thunder comes from a natural process. All the things that used to have people grabbing for the god-invention shtick are now shown to be natural processes.
I'd say 'you need to get out more'... but you know... Covid... π€
Try to not think.
Just do.
π€«
It little matters how the Buddha manifests in your life.
What matters is how YOU manifest Buddha, in your life.
Hurry! You have no idea of time left...! πΊ
Great insight from @federica.
I like the idea of manifesting or expressing Buddha as God, Un-God or just Awake. Completed is another good term.
I tend towards the impossible in which not only is Buddha God but also an atheist. That may sound impossible ... it may also be true ...
God (in the Abrahamic religious sense) is the original Atheist...
Buddha from what I gather is just a Wake....nothing more nothing less..
Well said Shoshin1
A Wake (celebration/remembrance of the Dead) and God as Unbeliever of Her Existence are more suited to Sufi interpretation.
The meaning however is the same.
We are the creators of God, frequently in our own image. Mind creations can be used as tools, or they can use us. For the most part, I haven't found gods to be very useful in my own practice, though there are a few exceptions. Sometimes, desperate and at wit's end, I pray to god, but do not presume to give it a specific form. Oddly enough, such prayers seem always to be answered, one way or another.
Buddha is not God (or a god)
Buddha is not a saint
Buddha is not an "other being"
Buddha is an Awakened One
Now shake that fairy dust out of your eyes and go fetch us some tea, if you would...
Call me by my True Names
That poem says it all for me. Not sure how to copy and paste on my phone but for those unfamiliar, it's a great poem by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Here it is...
Please Call Me by My True Names β Thich Nhat Hanh
Donβt say that I will depart tomorrow β
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his βdebt of bloodβ to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Ah ha! I am praying to good and in Tantra she has a form. Of course personification is odd ... but skilful. Praying with intention outside of end-wit and desperation is an acquired Way.
In the words of Bodhi Rabia:
"Your prayers are your light;
Your devotion is your strength;
Sleep is the enemy of both.
Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you.
If you ignore it, if you waste it,
You will only turn to dust."
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/6696841.Rabia_al_Basri
We may clash with the cymbal of God-Buddha but noise is no substitute for dead silence.
[lobster goes off to worship a cup of tea]