Shakyamuni as the Eternal Buddha

[Caoimhghín]

The idea that Buddha first attained awakening under the Bodhitree is a Hinayāna idea. It is not shared by any Mahāyāna school. All Mahāyāna schools understand the Buddha attained buddhahood infinite eons ego.

If the "Buddhahood" that the Buddha is speaking about in the Lifespan chapter is his Buddha-nature, that is to say, "Big Picture Buddhahood", then he never acquired Buddhahood. I suspect that it why the 16th chapter 'technically' states that the Buddha attained enlightenment 'forever ago' or 'an unknowable time' ago. Because he was always the Buddha, from a certain way of looking at things. From that same certain way, no one has ever "been enlightened", how could the Buddha have been? Just like we are currently the Buddha, from a certain way of looking at things.

the time described in the Lotus sutra is finite...mind boggling long...but if you read it through and through you can come to a point in time....for me it is but two blinks of the eye and a long sneeze in time ....

It actually goes out of its way to say that the number cannot be measured or defined. Perhaps this is me being a pedant, but if anything, the number that Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī bodhisattva, et al., failed to produce is transfinite, rather than finite.

[Caoimhghín]

we are the Buddha for we are made from the same stuff...awakened is a whole other ball game though...

I think it depends on the perspective. Is there not a discourse of Buddhas "seeing" other Buddhas when they look upon sentient beings?

[Minobu]

we are the Buddha for we are made from the same stuff...awakened is a whole other ball game though...

I think it depends on the perspective. Is there not a discourse of Buddhas "seeing" other Buddhas when they look upon sentient beings?

if so then they see what is there..does not mean the sentients are awakened to it...but shows something is there ...

[Caoimhghín]

we are the Buddha for we are made from the same stuff...awakened is a whole other ball game though...

I think it depends on the perspective. Is there not a discourse of Buddhas "seeing" other Buddhas when they look upon sentient beings?

if so then they see what is there..does not mean the sentients are awakened to it...but shows something is there ...

Well, the lines in question deal with Śākyamuni Buddha speaking from his own perspective. We don't have to worry about whether or not it would be inappropriate to identify ourselves in a similar way, because it is not us that is identifying as such. It seems to me, at least.

[Minobu]

If the "Buddhahood" that the Buddha is speaking about in the Lifespan chapter is his Buddha-nature, that is to say, "Big Picture Buddhahood", then he never acquired Buddhahood. I suspect that it why the 16th chapter 'technically' states that the Buddha attained enlightenment 'forever ago' or 'an unknowable time' ago. Because he was always the Buddha, from a certain way of looking at things. From that same certain way, no one has ever "been enlightened", how could the Buddha have been? Just like we are currently the Buddha, from a certain way of looking at things.

the time described in the Lotus sutra is finite...mind boggling long...but if you read it through and through you can come to a point in time....for me it is but two blinks of the eye and a long sneeze in time ....

It actually goes out of its way to say that the number cannot be measured or defined. Perhaps this is me being a pedant, but if anything, the number that Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī bodhisattva, et al., failed to produce is transfinite, rather than finite.

i think i am the one being pedant .

of course you can not grasp it's true time..a kalpa , is as they use things like a nymph fluttering a silk over a stone to wear it down every hundred years...how accurate is that...but the effect.. i think a lot of Buddha's teachings are like this...they cause an effect...no pun intended..

it is finite...nowhere does it say it is in beginningless time...or the beginning of the beginning or any other wording that would describe something not a point in time.
it's much like a dream i had with Kushi grass under me bed after a Yamantaka initiation...i saw a pipe like an oil pipeline with a hole in it and all this rushing black oily water...real black real oily tons of it forever...it was the karma i need to expiate...i awoke with the feeling of just giving up for there was too much...

[Caoimhghín]

the time described in the Lotus sutra is finite...mind boggling long...but if you read it through and through you can come to a point in time....for me it is but two blinks of the eye and a long sneeze in time ....

It actually goes out of its way to say that the number cannot be measured or defined. Perhaps this is me being a pedant, but if anything, the number that Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī bodhisattva, et al., failed to produce is transfinite, rather than finite.

i think i am the one being pedant .

of course you can not grasp it's true time..a kalpa , is as they use things like a nymph fluttering a silk over a stone to wear it down every hundred years...how accurate is that...but the effect.. i think a lot of Buddha's teachings are like this...they cause an effect...no pun intended..

it is finite...nowhere does it say it is in beginningless time...or the beginning of the beginning or any other wording that would describe something not a point in time.
[...]

But is this not also understood to be Śākyamuni-speaking-as-dharmakāya?

[Minobu]

It actually goes out of its way to say that the number cannot be measured or defined. Perhaps this is me being a pedant, but if anything, the number that Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī bodhisattva, et al., failed to produce is transfinite, rather than finite.

i think i am the one being pedant .

of course you can not grasp it's true time..a kalpa , is as they use things like a nymph fluttering a silk over a stone to wear it down every hundred years...how accurate is that...but the effect.. i think a lot of Buddha's teachings are like this...they cause an effect...no pun intended..

it is finite...nowhere does it say it is in beginningless time...or the beginning of the beginning or any other wording that would describe something not a point in time.
[...]

But is this not also understood to be Śākyamuni-speaking-as-dharmakāya?

i don't get what you mean...

[Minobu]

i think i am the one being pedant .

of course you can not grasp it's true time..a kalpa , is as they use things like a nymph fluttering a silk over a stone to wear it down every hundred years...how accurate is that...but the effect.. i think a lot of Buddha's teachings are like this...they cause an effect...no pun intended..

it is finite...nowhere does it say it is in beginningless time...or the beginning of the beginning or any other wording that would describe something not a point in time.
[...]

But is this not also understood to be Śākyamuni-speaking-as-dharmakāya?

i don't get what you mean...

ahhhhh...the whole concept of when this was transcribed..or put to pen so to speak...
????

if so...
i talked about this awhile ago..
When they wrote thus i heard...these were people of the Harvest putting it together.
Lord Sakyamuni's disciples...close ones...it was only two hundred years after His entering Nirvana.
these were bodhisattvas of the near highest or highest order...They could well have been there on Eagle Peak and were fortunate enough to be at a level where they would have seen and heard it all...so to speak..

[DGA]

i think i am the one being pedant .

of course you can not grasp it's true time..a kalpa , is as they use things like a nymph fluttering a silk over a stone to wear it down every hundred years...how accurate is that...but the effect.. i think a lot of Buddha's teachings are like this...they cause an effect...no pun intended..

it is finite...nowhere does it say it is in beginningless time...or the beginning of the beginning or any other wording that would describe something not a point in time.
[...]

But is this not also understood to be Śākyamuni-speaking-as-dharmakāya?

i don't get what you mean...

I suspect that our friend C is referring to the discussion already had in this thread on the topic of the trikaya. Or in this recent topic in the Mahayana forum:

viewtopic.php?f=39&t=26758

I don't see what the trikaya has to do with this:

ahhhhh...the whole concept of when this was transcribed..or put to pen so to speak...
????

if so...
i talked about this awhile ago..
When they wrote thus i heard...these were people of the Harvest putting it together.
Lord Sakyamuni's disciples...close ones...it was only two hundred years after His entering Nirvana.
these were bodhisattvas of the near highest or highest order...They could well have been there on Eagle Peak and were fortunate enough to be at a level where they would have seen and heard it all...so to speak..

[Minobu]

But is this not also understood to be Śākyamuni-speaking-as-dharmakāya?

i don't get what you mean...

I suspect that our friend C is referring to the discussion already had in this thread on the topic of the trikaya. Or in this recent topic in the Mahayana forum:

viewtopic.php?f=39&t=26758

thanks for this DGA , it helps with my Eternal Buddha thing...

Is there such a time as when a Buddha does not have dharmakāya?

No. The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha. The other kāyas are provisional, or conditional.

I don't see what the trikaya has to do with this:

ahhhhh...the whole concept of when this was transcribed..or put to pen so to speak...
????

if so...
i talked about this awhile ago..
When they wrote thus i heard...these were people of the Harvest putting it together.
Lord Sakyamuni's disciples...close ones...it was only two hundred years after His entering Nirvana.
these were bodhisattvas of the near highest or highest order...They could well have been there on Eagle Peak and were fortunate enough to be at a level where they would have seen and heard it all...so to speak..

well i was answering my own question to "C".
People wonder if the Lotus Sutra is even true.
so when he said;

But is this not also understood to be Śākyamuni-speaking-as-dharmakāya?

i thought he was talking about the very validity of the Lotus Sutra. hence my response.

but hey thanks for the link and to what Malcom said.

No. The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha. The other kāyas are provisional, or conditional.

could be what i am trying to understand..
how can there be a buddha without first being a common mortal.?
thats the problem i have with Primordial Buddha..

but if the Primordial Buddha is strictly dharmakāya , then thats what i see The Eternal Primordial Buddha as.

does that make any sense at all to you?
if it doesn't it's because it is a minobu post.

[Malcolm]

No. The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha. The other kāyas are provisional, or conditional.

could be what i am trying to understand..
how can there be a buddha without first being a common mortal.?

There cannot be. All buddhas started out as ordinary sentient beings. Śākyamuni's career began in the hell realms, in fact.

The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha because dharmakāya is a buddha's realization of the dharmadhātu.

Buddhahood, in other word, is the realization that produces the qualities we associated with Buddhas.

[Caoimhghín]

No. The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha. The other kāyas are provisional, or conditional.

could be what i am trying to understand..
how can there be a buddha without first being a common mortal.?

There cannot be. All buddhas started out as ordinary sentient beings. Śākyamuni's career began in the hell realms, in fact.

The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha because dharmakāya is a buddha's realization of the dharmadhātu.

Buddhahood, in other word, is the realization that produces the qualities we associated with Buddhas.

Would you say that the constancy of the dharmakāya is more Theseus's Ship than Platonic Form then, if close to either at all?

[For those who do not know, Theseus's Ship is a thought experiment that is quicker explained as the lesser known "Grandfather's Axe". The story goes something like this:

"This is my grandfather's axe, I tell you, handed down to me through my father's line. I got this axe when my father died when I was 21. I used it all my life to make a living. Over time, the head had to be replaced, of course. And at one point, the handle got a chip in it, and that had to get replaced to, but this is my grandfather's axe I tell you."

The analogy would be predicated on the replacement parts being identical.]

[Caoimhghín]

well i was answering my own question to "C".
People wonder if the Lotus Sutra is even true.
so when he said;

But is this not also understood to be Śākyamuni-speaking-as-dharmakāya?

i thought he was talking about the very validity of the Lotus Sutra. hence my response.

Its kind of interesting, in as much as that I have heard some of the terms used before, perhaps by you though ,is this "people of the harvest" a traditional history of the transmission of the LS?

[Caoimhghín]

could be what i am trying to understand..
how can there be a buddha without first being a common mortal.?

There cannot be. All buddhas started out as ordinary sentient beings. Śākyamuni's career began in the hell realms, in fact.

The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha because dharmakāya is a buddha's realization of the dharmadhātu.

Buddhahood, in other word, is the realization that produces the qualities we associated with Buddhas.

Would you say that the constancy of the dharmakāya is more Theseus's Ship than Platonic Form then, if close to either at all?

[For those who do not know, Theseus's Ship is a thought experiment that is quicker explained as the lesser known "Grandfather's Axe". The story goes something like this:

"This is my grandfather's axe, I tell you, handed down to me through my father's line. I got this axe when my father died when I was 21. I used it all my life to make a living. Over time, the head had to be replaced, of course. And at one point, the handle got a chip in it, and that had to get replaced to, but this is my grandfather's axe I tell you."

The analogy would be predicated on the replacement parts being identical.]

If indeed Theseus's Ship/the Grandfather's Axe is the case, I would say that the sūtra is identifying 'Śākyamuni' with that very realization referred to in the above quote, dharmakāya in short, which has been stated elsewhere here and there. From that perspective, it could be argued that this identification of 'Śākyamuni', this one from the Lifespan chapter, did not start his career in hell realms, since this identification of 'Śākyamuni' is not a normal identification of 'Śākyamuni'.

Thats how I understand this whole 'Primordial Buddha' business to work anyways: "Primordial Buddha = dharmakāya = Buddha-nature (to which the Lotus Sūtra adds '=Śākyamuni Buddha')" in a vague and unsatisfactory soup. It does strike me as something of a cosmological game when it gets to a certain point though.

If any other Buddha, lets pick Akṣobhya Buddha as a random choice, had delivered this sūtra, and said the exact same things, or said them differently, it wouldn't have made Śākyamuni Buddha any less the 'True Buddha'/dharmakāya and it wouldn't make Akṣobhya Buddha any more the 'True Buddha'/dharmakāya. That's how I see it at least.

[Minobu]

No. The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha. The other kāyas are provisional, or conditional.

could be what i am trying to understand..
how can there be a buddha without first being a common mortal.?

There cannot be. All buddhas started out as ordinary sentient beings. Śākyamuni's career began in the hell realms, in fact.

The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha because dharmakāya is a buddha's realization of the dharmadhātu.

Buddhahood, in other word, is the realization that produces the qualities we associated with Buddhas.

well this is what i've saying all along

There cannot be. All buddhas started out as ordinary sentient beings. Ś

so this primordial buddha is different in a way it is not really a Buddha as we have come to know them... but(pure) Dharmadhatu from beginningless time.

[Minobu]

duplicate

[Caoimhghín]

[...]
how can there be a buddha without first being a common mortal.?

[...]
The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha because dharmakāya is a buddha's realization of the dharmadhātu.

[...]

[...]
so this primordial buddha is different in a way it is not really a Buddha as we have come to know them... but(pure) Dharmadhatu from beginningless time.

Here is a pedantic and overly cosmologically oriented question that I am sure will get no one anywhere.

Is dharmadhātu sufficient for dharmakāya or is 'contact' with a Buddha's realization required?

Oh the scholasticism.

I also think it might be a redundant and self-answering question, but this could suddenly turn interesting. Or not.

[Minobu]

[...]
The dharmakāya is the definitive buddha because dharmakāya is a buddha's realization of the dharmadhātu.

[...]

[...]
so this primordial buddha is different in a way it is not really a Buddha as we have come to know them... but(pure) Dharmadhatu from beginningless time.

Here is a pedantic and overly cosmologically oriented question that I am sure will get no one anywhere.

Is dharmadhātu sufficient for dharmakāya or is 'contact' with a Buddha's realization required?

Oh the scholasticism.

I also think it might be a redundant and self-answering question, but this could suddenly turn interesting. Or not.

i think the dharmakaya body is won when one is awakened to the DharmaDhatu...or it just happens when one awakens.
i'm starting to think all comes from dharmadhatu ???

[Malcolm]

pick Akṣobhya Buddha as a random choice, had delivered this sūtra, and said the exact same things, or said them differently, it wouldn't have made Śākyamuni Buddha any less the 'True Buddha'/dharmakāya and it wouldn't make Akṣobhya Buddha any more the 'True Buddha'/dharmakāya. That's how I see it at least.

Correct. There is only one teacher since the dharmakāya of all buddhas is the same. And it does not matter if you name that buddha Samantabhadra, Vajradhara, Śākyamuni, Amitabha, Mañjuśrī, Vajrasattva, Mahāvairocana, Akshobhya, Tāra, Vajravārāhī, etc.

[Malcolm]

Is dharmadhātu sufficient for dharmakāya or is 'contact' with a Buddha's realization required?

Dharmakāya is the omniscience that comprehends the emptinesss of all phenomena (dharmadhātu).