Interesting posting from e-sangha
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Frankly, your question seems a bit too simple for me. I mean, it is easily answered, at least from a Buddhist perspective. Just check out the famous Diamond Sutra, chapter 17, "Subhûti, if a bodhisattva holds the notion of a self, the notion of person, the notion of sentient being, and the notion of life span, then she is not a bodhisattva." Read the entire chapter and also chapters 21 and 22 at least. Also the Avatamsaka Sutra in Book 26 (Ten Stages) there's a nice summary on the ten levels of bodhisattvas but even the first level is very high class.
Bodhisattvas don't go into the Parinirvana but that does not mean they're not enlightened -
Bodhisattva Archetypes: Classic Buddhist Guides to Awakening and their Modern Expression" By Taigen Daniel Leighton, Penquin Arkana. It discusses the Bodhisattva ideals in quite a bit of detail.
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"Attachment" should not be understood as intense desire or craving to an object or idea where there is no notion of suffering and pain. If we use attachment to mean in the literal sense, the the Buddhas who have gone into parinirvana are all guilty of attachment to nirvana.
Bodhisattvas vowed to remain in samsara to alleviate the afflictions of sentient beings are acts manifested out of the great compassion an inherent function of the Buddha-nature within us. The first factor in the Four Bases of Power, is in fact the attribute "Desire," and it is not attachment which you spoke of.
For examples of such manifestation, we can read and feel the conducts of Dharmakara, the Amitabha Buddha-to-be, in the Infinite Life Sutra. For immeasurable eons, he incarnated among sentient beings living amidt them and feeling and experiencing their voes and needs just so that he knew of all the countless afflictions and desires of living beings. Amassing these vast and extensive experiences of sentient feelings, he was able then to concentrate and fashion a Pureland where all may be reborn to eventually realize their True-Self and attain Supreme Buddhahood.
Of course, there is also the many examples of Bodhisattvas' conducts in the Lotus Sutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra.
All these thousand conducts of the Bodhisattvas are done in great compassion for the sake of suffering beings in Samsara. If only we could do a faction of what they could do, our world will be a better existence and a Pureland with its own rights.
Amitofo. -
may i ask what was the question?
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Ya lor, the posting so disconnected leh. Should at least have a link to the URL mah.. otherwise how we know what is going on and what is this all about?Originally posted by Hello Kitty:may i ask what was the question?
This topic like catch no balls leh, whats the message? -
All these are pass down from generations and writtings in sutras
Why don't do this experiment?
Sit down and pray for food to drop from the sky?
Will it happened at all? Why there are still people dying from hunger?
Buddhism is actually teachings from Buddha and NOT a religion that answers prayers
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the topic is from newbuddhist
so sorry , been busy with work ,forget to apply the Standard OPerating procedure
if your cant see the forum ...info me
http://www.newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1578 -
I like this post by balder on newbuddhist.com
On the one hand, I see the bodhisattva vow as a pedagogical device, as skillful means for helping to inspire a boundless spirit of compassion. It works skillfully and playfully with paradox to crack open the heart and mind. There are ultimately "no" sentient beings to be saved, and yet the universe is filled with suffering beings. Sentient beings are numberless (none? inexhaustible?), and yet you vow to save them all.
The aim of the vow is, in part, to counter the rather insulated, individualist approach to salvation, where everyone is responsible for and ultimately concerned with his or her own salvation -- with getting off the wheel and getting the heck outta here. This is the Mahayana critique of the arhat ideal, at least. It appears to commit you forever to samsara for the sake of love; and yet paradoxically, it shows you that nirvana really is nowhere else.
Whether or not you believe there are really bodhisattvas, as enlightened living entities at work in the cosmos, depends in part on whether or not you believe in reincarnation and the continuation of the stream of consciousness after the death of the individual body. Not all schools of Buddhism believe that bodhisattvas put off enlightenment altogether; they are as enlightened as Shakyamuni was, in this view, but they consciously elect to keep reentering karmically generated realms of suffering for the benefit of others. According to the Tibetan Buddhist perspective, while there is no abiding, singular, atomic self that continues from moment to moment, there is a continuous stream of individual consciousness that continues, and has continued, from beginningless time. The Dalai Lama talks about this in a little book called Buddha Nature, and it is also discussed in Reginald Ray's Secret of the Vajra World.
Best wishes,
Balder -
wow, wise words....Originally posted by maggot:All these are pass down from generations and writtings in sutras
Why don't do this experiment?
Sit down and pray for food to drop from the sky?
Will it happened at all? Why there are still people dying from hunger?
Buddhism is actually teachings from Buddha and NOT a religion that answers prayers -
So you are writing an answer to a writer at newbuddhist here. Y not post it on that forum as well?Originally posted by bohiruci:the topic is from newbuddhist
so sorry , been busy with work ,forget to apply the Standard OPerating procedure
if your cant see the forum ...info me
http://www.newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1578 -
Totally Agree.Originally posted by maggot:All these are pass down from generations and writtings in sutras
Why don't do this experiment?
Sit down and pray for food to drop from the sky?
Will it happened at all? Why there are still people dying from hunger?
Buddhism is actually teachings from Buddha and NOT a religion that answers prayers -
bz lah. me oso dun like creatin a/cs to post. bt me is plus lazy. haha.Originally posted by coolbluewater:So you are writing an answer to a writer at newbuddhist here. Y not post it on that forum as well?
jerbear is still learning just as he has admitted humbly. it cannot be emphasised more that only when you question, then you will seek and find. he has grasped this concept well; i personally feel that he deserves credit for it. =D
For that, i shall, unabashedly, offer my two cents' worth. (however, others may characterise it as *ahem* philosophical.)
jerbear has, in fact, answered himself by creating the topic - should everyone be entirely responsible for their own path and no one else's, there would be no where and no one for him to turn to. -
huh? like that also can ah? then you post something here to reply somone's thread elsewhere.Originally posted by Hello Kitty:bz lah. me oso dun like creatin a/cs to post. bt me is plus lazy. haha.
jerbear is still learning just as he has admitted humbly. it cannot be emphasised more that only when you question, then you will seek and find. he has grasped this concept well; i personally feel that he deserves credit for it. =D
For that, i shall, unabashedly, offer my two cents' worth. (however, others may characterise it as *ahem* philosophical.)
jerbear has, in fact, answered himself by creating the topic - should everyone be entirely responsible for their own path and no one else's, there would be no where and no one for him to turn to.