The Buddhist Catechism |
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| Author:
| Olcott, Henry Steel |
| ISBN: | 979-8-4196-6273-5 |
| Publication Date: | Feb 2022 |
| Publisher: | Independently Published
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $7.79 |
Book Description:
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... 106. Q. What is the meaning of the word Buddha?
A. The enlightened, or he who has the perfect wisdom.
107. Q. You have said that there were other Buddhas before this one?
A. Yes; our belief is that, under the operation of eternal causation, a Buddha takes birth at intervals, when mankind have become plunged into misery through ignorance, and need the wisdom which it is the function of a Buddha to teach. (See also...
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... 106. Q. What is the meaning of the word Buddha?
A. The enlightened, or he who has the perfect wisdom.
107. Q. You have said that there were other Buddhas before this one?
A. Yes; our belief is that, under the operation of eternal causation, a Buddha takes birth at intervals, when mankind have become plunged into misery through ignorance, and need the wisdom which it is the function of a Buddha to teach. (See also Q. 11.)
108. Q. How is a Buddha developed?
A. A person, hearing and seeing one of the Buddhas on earth, becomes seized with the determination so to live that at some future time, when he shall become fitted for it, he also will be a Buddha for the guiding of mankind out of the cycle of rebirth.
109. Q. How does he proceed?
A. Throughout that birth and every succeeding one, he strives to subdue his passions, to gain wisdom by experience, and to develop his higher faculties. He thus grows by degrees wiser, nobler in character, and stronger in virtue, until, finally, after numberless re-births he reaches the state when he can become Perfected, Enlightened, All-wise, the ideal Teacher of the human race.
110. Q. While this gradual development is going on throughout all these births, by what name do we call him?
A. Bōdhisat, or Bōdhisattva. Thus the Prince Siddhartha Gautama was a Bōdhisattva up to the moment when, under the blessed Bōdhi tree at Gayā, he became Buddha.
111. Q. Have we any account of his various rebirths as a Bodhisattva?
A. In the Jātakatthakathā, a book containing stories of the Bōdhisattva's reincarnations, there are several hundred tales of that kind.
112. Q. What lesson do these stories teach?
A. That a man can carry, throughout a long series of reincarnations, one great, good purpose which enables him to conquer bad tendencies and develop virtuous ones.
113. Q. Can we fix the number of reincarnations through which a Bōdhisattva must pass before he can become a Buddha?
A. Of course not: that depends upon his natural character, the state of development to which he has arrived when he forms the resolution to become a Buddha, and other things.
114. Q. Have we a way of classifying Bōdhisattvas? If so, explain it.
A. Bōdhisattvas--the future Buddhas--are divided into three classes.
115. Q. Proceed. How are these three kinds of Bōdhisats named?
A. Pannādhika, or Udghatitajña--"he who attains least quickly"; Saddhādhika, or Vipachitajña--"he who attains less quickly"; and Viryādhika, or Gneyya--"he who attains quickly". The Pannādhika Bōdhisats take the course of Intelligence; the Saddhādhika take the course of Faith; the Viryaāhika take the course of energetic Action. The first is guided by Intelligence and does not hasten; the second is full of Faith, and does not care to take the guidance of Wisdom; and the third never delays to do what is good. Regardless of the consequences to himself, he does it when he sees that it is best that it should be done.
116. Q. When our Bōdhisattva became Buddha, what did he see was the cause of human misery? Tell me in one word.
A. Ignorance (Avidyā). ...