Recent Essays/Post-11

Topic of the Week: The Life of the Buddha

[[ |300px|thumb| ]] The life of the Buddha is told in many sūtras and commentaries, and it is also presented in numerous art forms. Ever since the early days of Buddhism, it was used as one of the most common liberative tools to help inspire people on the path to enlightenment. Buddhists chant many prayers which recount the life of the Buddha. In the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist traditions, the rich life story of the Buddha is often condensed in his twelve deeds (མཛད་པ་བཅུ་གཉིས་). These twelve deeds are also considered to be a defining characteristic of the supreme emanation body, or uttamanirmāṇakāya (མཆོག་གི་སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་). However, there are variations in the enumeration of the twelve deeds.

The Ratnagotravibhāga (Verse II.54-6), which is often cited as source for the enumeration of the twelve deeds, presents the following twelve:
1. Being born in Tuṣita heaven (སྐྱེ་བ་མངོན་པར་སྐྱེ་བ་)
2. Descent from Tuṣita (དགའ་ལྡན་གནས་ནས་འཕོ་བ་)
3. Entering the mother's womb (ཡུམ་གྱི་ལྷུམས་སུ་ཞུགས་པ་)
4. Being born (སྐུ་བལྟམས་པ་)
5. Becoming skilled in various arts (བཟོ་ཡི་གནས་ལ་མཁས་པ་)
6. Enjoying the company of royal consorts (བཙུན་མོའི་འཁོར་གྱིས་དགྱེས་རོལ་བ་)
7. Renouncing the world and going through austerities (ངེས་འབྱུང་དཀའ་བ་སྤྱད་པ་)
8. Proceeding to the heart of bodhi (བྱང་ཆུབ་སྙིང་པོར་གཤེགས་པ་)
9. Overcoming Mara's hosts (བདུད་སྡེ་བཅོམ་པ་)
10. Becoming fully enlightened (རྫོགས་པར་བྱང་ཆུབ་པ་)
11. Turning the wheel of Dharma (ཆོས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོ་སྐོར་བ་)
12. Passing into mahāparinirvāṇa (མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་)

Nāgārjuna, in his Praise of the Buddha through Twelve Deeds, contains a different list.
1. Descending from Tuṣita to enter mother's womb
2. Taking birth in Lumbini grove
3. Mastering the various arts and skills
4. Enjoying palace life in the company of consorts
5. Seeing futility of worldly life and becoming a renunciate
6. Undergoing austerities and reaching meditative states
7. Becoming fully enlightened under the Bodhi tree
8. Turning the wheel of Dharma at various places
9. Defeating his rivals and taming the opponents
10. Performing miracles and spreading the teachings
11. Passing into nirvāṇa
12. Leaving behind relics

However, the common enumeration of the twelve deeds of the Buddha in the Himalayan communities differs slightly from both of the above-mentioned Indian sources.
1. Descent from Tuṣita
2. Entering the mother's womb
3. Taking birth
4. Becoming skilled in various arts
5. Delighting in the company of consorts
6. Becoming a renunciate
7. Practicing austerities
8. Proceeding to the foot of the Bodhi tree
9. Overcoming the evil forces
10. Becoming fully enlightened
11. Turning the wheel of Dharma
12. Passing into nirvāṇa

Weekly quote

 

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nirmāṇakāya - An fully enlightened Buddha is said to have the power to manifest in many forms in order to help the sentient beings. The emanation body of a buddha, as the third of the three bodies of a buddha, refers to the many forms in which a buddha can manifest and which are accessible to ordinary sentient beings. Buddhist scholars present four types of emanation bodies: emanation as supreme being, emanation as rebirth, emanation as artisan and emanation in diverse forms. Skt. निर्माणकाय Tib. སྤྲུལ་སྐུ། Ch. 化身

These are the root verses of the Uttaratantra attributed to Maitreya by the Tibetan tradition.

bodhi - Enlightenment or awakening. In Tibetan it is translated as "purified" (byang) and "perfected" (chub), which corresponds to Siddhartha Gautama's achievement of purifying all obscurations and perfecting or attaining all qualities associated with a buddha. Skt. बोधि Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་ Ch. 菩提,悟,覺

bodhi - Enlightenment or awakening. In Tibetan it is translated as "purified" (byang) and "perfected" (chub), which corresponds to Siddhartha Gautama's achievement of purifying all obscurations and perfecting or attaining all qualities associated with a buddha. Skt. बोधि Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་ Ch. 菩提,悟,覺