Buddha

Category: Three Jewels

From Buddhist Encyclopedia

• Chinese :  佛   fo
• Sanskrit :  बुद्ध buddha
• Vienamese :  Phật

A Buddha is any being that has fully awakened to the ultimate truth. The term "the Buddha" is also commonly used to refer to the historical founder of Buddhism - Siddhartha Gautama also known as Sakyamuni, or Gautama Buddha.

Buddhists do not consider Siddhartha Gautama to have been the only Buddha. The word Buddha is simply a title that means The Awakened One. Hence, Gautama Buddha is only one of the many Buddhas who have existed in the past, and will continue to exist in the future.

In a vernacular sense, it is important to note the difference between the specific name Buddha and the connoted meaning awakened. For many Buddhist, the specific term Buddha generally evokes a unique connection to Gautama Buddha. Although it is widely accepted that anyone can become awakened to be a Buddha, those awakened are not generally referred to as Buddha by secular people.

Depictions of the Buddha in art

Buddhas are frequently represented in the form of statues. Commonly seen designs include:

• Seated Buddha
• Reclining Buddha
• Standing Buddha
• Hotei, the obese, Laughing Buddha, usually seen in China. This figure is believed to be a representation of a medieval Chinese monk who is associated with Maitreya, the future Buddha, and it is therefore not technically a Buddha image.

Most depictions of Buddha contain a certain number of markings, which are considered the signs of his enlightenment. These signs vary regionally, but three are common:

• A protuberance on the top of the head (denoting superb mental accuity)
• Long earlobes (denoting superb perception, and the fact that he may have worn heavy earrings)
• A third eye (also denoting superb perception)

The poses and hand-gestures of these statues, known respectively as asanas and mudras, are significant to their overall meaning. The popularity of any particular mudra or asana tends to be region-specific, such as the Vajra (or Chi Ken-in) mudra, which is popular in Japan and Korea but rarely seen in India. Others are more universally common, for example, the Varada (Wish Granting) mudra is common among standing statues of the Buddha, particularly when coupled with the Abhaya (Fearlessness and Protection) mudra.

The Buddha statue shown calling for rain is a pose rarely found outside of Laos. Another very rare Buddha statue is the so-called 'Emaciated Buddha' which shows Siddartha Gautama during the ascetic phase of his life, starving himself in meditation.

Eternal Buddha

The Lotus Sutra has the Buddha indicating that he became awakened countless, immeasurable, inconceivable myriads of trillions of aeons ago and that his lifetime is forever existing and immortal. From the human perspective, it seems as though the Buddha has always existed. The sutra itself, however, does not directly employ the phrase "eternal Buddha"; yet similar notions are found in other Mahayana scriptures, notably the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which presents the Buddha as the ultimately real, eternal ("nitya"/ "sasvata"), unchanging, blissful, pure Self (Atman) who, as the Dharmakaya, knows of no beginning or end. The All-Creating King Tantra additionally contains a panentheistic vision of Samantabhadra as the eternal, primordial Buddha, the Awakened Mind of Bodhi, who declares: "From the primordial, I am the Buddhas of the three times [i.e. past, present and future]." The notion of an eternal Buddha perhaps finds resonance with the earlier idea of eternal Dharma and Nirvana, of which the Buddha is said to be an embodiment.

The doctrine of an eternal Buddha is not, however, a feature of Theravada Buddhism. Theravada claims to preserve the original teachings of the Buddha from the First Council of Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism places great value on the Master's words that 'none is eternal', and believes that even the life of an enlightened one does indeed have an end. Interestingly, The Buddha described Nirvana as neither existing, nor not-existing, so what does occur after a Buddha passes away is something known only to the Buddhas.

Also appearing in Theravada is the notion of anatta as one of the Trilakshana (the three characteristics of reality). This embodies the idea that there is no definite, fixed, unchanging entity constituting a "person" that passes from one life to the next; Theravadin interpretation (along with that of most, if not all, Buddhist schools) of "anatta" also denies the existence of a fixed, unchanging, ever-enduring personal soul. The concept in place of the soul is the 'Bhava' ("becoming"), which is an ongoing flow of karmically projected energies that derive from, and give rise to, volitional thoughts and emotion.

Some expressions of Mahayana Buddhism, however, regard such teaching as incomplete, and offer in the Tathagatagarbha sutras the complementary and allegedly culminational doctrine of a pure Selfhood (the eternal yet ungraspable hypostasis of the Buddha) which no longer generates karma and which subsists eternally in the realm of Nirvana, from which sphere help to suffering worldly beings can be sent forth in the forms of various transitory physical Buddhas ("nirmanakayas"). While the bodies of these corporeal Buddhas are subject to disease, decline and death - like all impermanent things - the salvational Tathagata or Dharmakaya behind them is forever free from impairment, impermanence or mortality. It is this transcendent yet immanent Dharmakaya-Buddha which is taught in certain major Mahayana sutras to be immutable and eternal and is intimately linked with Dharma itself. According to the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, worldly beings fail to see this eternality of the Buddha and his Truth (Dharma). The Buddha comments there: "I say that those who do not know that the Tathagata [Buddha] is eternal are the foremost of the congenitally blind." This view, it should be noted, is typically not found in mainstream Theravada Buddhism.

Etymology

Buddha literally means "awakened" or "that which has become aware". It is the past participle of the Sanskrit root budh, i.e. "to awaken", "to know", or "to become aware".

See also

• Siddhartha Gautama (Shakyamuni Buddha)
• Three Types of Buddha
• Trikaya
• Tathagatagarbha
• Tathagatagarbha Sutra
• Buddha-nature
• Nirvana Sutra
• List of the 28 Buddhas
• List of Buddha claimants
• Thirty-two marks of the Buddha