Читать книгу The Buddha Book: Buddhas, blessings, prayers, and rituals to grant you love, wisdom, and healing - Lillian Too - Страница 17

In this present age, when we are living through the excellent eon of the 1,000 buddhas, the path to total enlightenment is founded on the teachings of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha and the fourth of the 1,000 buddhas who will appear in our world. Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of the future, will be the fifth Buddha (see Chapter 9).

A buddha is a fully enlightened divine being who has awakened from the sleep of ignorance, so that he has expanded all his awareness and all his senses. His body, speech, and mind are completely pure. His wisdom-mind is perfect wisdom, and his compassion is limitless compassion. The enlightened state of a buddha transcends all suffering and death. His is the omniscient mind that knows all things.

A buddha is not a Creator God. Evil and suffering, goodness and happiness are all part of the order of things produced by karma (see here, and here) since beginningless time. The root of suffering lies in ignorance, which leads to misconceptions about the true nature of existence. Ignorance views the self as absolute, as separated from others. Ignorance leads to attachment, which in turn leads to desire and greed. Ignorance also leads to cravings that result in jealousy and anger. These in turn lead to stealing, killing, war, and many other negative events that create suffering. Suffering leads to bad karma, which in turn leads to the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth – referred to as samsara (see here, and here).

Buddha’s teaching is to eliminate ignorance. While Buddha cannot change our karma, he can teach us how to purify it, thereby reducing its severity. Buddha also teaches us the wisdom that totally understands the true nature of reality – the wisdom of “dependent arising,” of knowing that the existence of self is dependent on and related to others. Understanding the nature of self leads to love and compassion. So the state of buddhahood is described as the greatest good, the highest happiness, the most supreme compassion, the most powerful love – it is a state of superlative being to which every living being can aspire.

A standing Shakyamuni Buddha with prayer wheel at Boudhanath stupa, Kathmandu, Nepal. Buddhas and Bodhisattvas manifest as prayer wheels to purify negative karma on the path to enlightenment.