What does "Buddha" mean?
Buddha is not a name, but a title. It is a Sanskrit word that means “a person who is awake.” What a buddha is awake to is the true nature of reality.
Simply put, Buddhism teaches that we all live in a fog of illusions created by mistaken perceptions and “impurities” — hate, greed, ignorance. A buddha is one who is freed from the fog. It is said that when a buddha dies he or she is not reborn but passes into the peace of Nirvana, which is not a “heaven” but a transformed state of existence.
Most of the time, when someone says the Buddha, it’s in reference to the historical person who founded Buddhism. This was a man originally named Siddhartha Gautama who lived in what is now northern India and Nepal about twenty-five centuries ago.
The Universe according to Buddhism...
According to Buddhist doctrine, the universe is the product of karma, the law of the cause and effect of actions, according to which virtuous actions create pleasure in the future and nonvirtuous actions create pain. The beings of the universe are reborn without beginning in six realms: as gods, demigods, humans, animals, ghosts, and hell beings. The actions of these beings create not only their individual experiences but the domains in which they dwell. The cycle of rebirth, called samsara (literally “wandering”), is regarded as a domain of suffering, and the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is to escape from that suffering. The means of escape remains unknown until, over the course of millions of lifetimes, a person perfects himself, ultimately gaining the power to discover the path out of samsara and then compassionately revealing that path to the world.
Who exactly "Buddha" is?
A person who has set out on the long journey to discover the path to freedom from suffering, and then to teach it to others, is called a bodhisattva. A person who has discovered that path, followed it to its end, and taught it to the world is called a buddha. Buddhas are not reborn after they die but enter a state beyond suffering called nirvana (literally “passing away”). Because buddhas appear so rarely over the course of time and because only they reveal the path to liberation (moksha) from suffering (dukkha), the appearance of a buddha in the world is considered a momentous event in the history of the universe.
The story of a particular buddha begins before his birth and extends beyond his death. It encompasses the millions of lives spent on the bodhisattva path before the achievement of buddhahood and the persistence of the buddha, in the form of both his teachings and his relics, after he has passed into nirvana. The historical Buddha is regarded as neither the first nor the last buddha to appear in the world. According to some traditions he is the 7th buddha; according to another he is the 25th; according to yet another he is the 4th. The next buddha, named Maitreya, will appear after Shakyamuni’s teachings and relics have disappeared from the world.
Have there been other Buddhas?
In Theravada Buddhism ― the dominant school of southeast Asia ― it is thought there is only one buddha per age of humankind; each age is an unimaginably long time. The buddha of the current age is our historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. Another person who realizes enlightenment within this age is not called buddha. Instead, he or she is an arhat (Sanskrit) or arahant (Pali) — “worthy one” or “perfected one.” The principal difference between an arhat and a buddha is that only a buddha is a world teacher, the one who opens the door for all others.
Early scriptures name other buddhas who lived in the unimaginably long-ago earlier ages. There is also Maitreya, the future Buddha who will appear when all memory of our Buddha’s teachings has been lost.
There are other major traditions of Buddhism, called Mahayana and Vajrayana, and these traditions put no limits on the number of buddhas there can be. However, for practitioners of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism the ideal is to be a bodhisattva, one who vows to remain in the world until all beings are enlightened.
Gautama Buddha and Sanchi Stupa...
The Great Stupa at Sanchi, also known as Stupa No.1, was commissioned by none other than the Mauryan Emperor, Ashoka, in the 3rd century BCE and is believed to house ashes of the Buddha, and as a result, the stupa began to be associated with the body of the Buddha. Adding the Buddha's ashes to the mound of dirt activated it with the energy of the Buddha himself. It is believed that his intention behind constructing this Stupa was to preserve and spread the Buddhist philosophy and way of life. The Great Stupa is the oldest and largest Stupa at the Sanchi Buddhist Monument Complex.
The stupas and monasteries at Sanchi created a thriving Buddhist community of monks and supporters. As more people came over the centuries, other settlements were founded nearby, and the region became a hub of spiritual activity.
( Photos by : Alok kumar Sahu)
“Conquer anger with non-anger. Conquer badness with goodness. Conquer meanness with generosity. Conquer dishonesty with truth.”
- Gautam Buddha
I konw, this blog was a bit more inclined toward Buddhism and I hope you got something new from this blog and if so, don't hesitate to give me credit. Till then..
Take Care❤
