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A Finger Pointing to the Moon

One who is enlightened must use conceptual thought and language to teach others about the way to Awakening as the Buddha did. In teaching the Four Noble Truths, language is necessary to converse rationally with others and to make important decisions, as the Buddha did regarding the Buddhist
sangha and giving advice to kings and leaders, but the Truth cannot be known rationally.

Or as story about the nun Wu Jincang said to Hui-neng (638-713 CE), the Sixth Patriarch of the Chan School (better known as the Zen Buddhist School), “I have studied the Mahaparinirvana sutra for many years, yet there are many areas I do not quite understand. Please enlighten me.” His reply puzzled her greatly. “I am illiterate,” he answered; “please read out the characters to me and perhaps I will be able to explain the meaning.” When she said to him, “You cannot even recognize the characters. How are you able then to understand the meaning?” he responded that the truth had nothing to do with words. “The truth and the words are unrelated. The truth can be compared to the bright moon in the sky, and words can be compared to a finger. I can use my finger to point out the moon, but my finger is not the moon, and you don’t need my finger to see the moon, do you?”

Tags: buddha's teachings, Knowledge, life, reality, Spirituality, truth

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Categories buddha, buddhism, Enlightenment, ignorance, Illusion, Transendence, zen

One doesn’t become a Buddha

22 Mar

I saw this statement: All Humans can become a Buddha. If the definition of to become is, ‘to come into existence’ my personal understanding is different as written below.

Or every human being have a Buddha-nature and by following the Eightfold Path they can realize it fully. For example, if you have a gift that is well wrapped in coverings, once you unwrap the gift completely, you finally realize what the gift is, which, in fact, is the same as when it was wrapped. It is the same about the Buddha. We are all intrinsically a Buddha, it is just that we have veils that hide our realization of that. The veils are lifted with the Path of ethical conduct (Sila), mental discipline (Samadhi) and wisdom (Panna). One doesn’t ‘gain’ Buddhahood but instead removes the veils or obstructions that prevent one from knowing that their nature is already Awakened.

Tags: buddha's teachings, Happiness, Knowledge, meditation, Spirituality