In the Japanese traditions I'm familiar with, a Bodhisatva is someone who's achieved enlightenment but decided to stick around and help other people become enlightened instead of going off to nirvana/the pure land/wherever. Bodhisatvas are pretty godlike in a lot of Japanese myths, though obviously that varies a lot from sect to sect.
Mmm.. intriguing... and my knowledge of Japanese Buddhism is not as strong as my knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism. And I don't think I know THAT much about either of them. I just absorb, or try to absorb, a lot from Anne. What I do know is that Japanese Buddhism comes from a different, and I think older, school of Buddhism than the Tibetan variety.
Pure land Buddhism, I believe, is founded on the story of a man who said he would not allow himself to become totally enlightened until he had saved everyone else, too. He went on to become enlightened, so the presumption is that he succeeded, and that everyone will go to the pure land when they die... although I am not clear as to whether they'll be enlightened at that point or not. It's sort of like Christianity, but not quite.
If you already knew all that, forgive me, I was just thinking aloud. :)
The Pure Land, as far as the traditions I know are concerned, is a separate place from the mortal world and nirvana (and the realm of hungry ghosts, and all those other places) that Amida made when he became a Buddha. He promised that anyone who called his name faithfully would get reincarnated there. It's supposed to be pretty nice, paradise-style place. It doesn't get you properly out of the cycle of birth and death, but it's a lot easier to go there than to achieve enlightenment. It made Amida pretty popular.
Japanese Buddhism comes from China and Korea, though I don't know how their traditions relate to the Tibetan ones.
I thought Bodhisattva were beings that had achieved enlightenment but rejected moksha (Release, or is that the Hindu word?) in favor of helping others achieve the same state. And to get technical about it, Buddhism doesn't have gods. Or didn't in its original form, the Bodhisattva question is kind of murky. I'm a bit behind on everything else, seeing as my history class cuts off about 300 CE. A Majority of all forms of Buddhism in existence today are descendants of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism, the only remaining school of Hinayana (the older school) is Theravada Buddhism, practiced mainly in SE Asia and Sri Lanka.
Comments 5
Reply
Pure land Buddhism, I believe, is founded on the story of a man who said he would not allow himself to become totally enlightened until he had saved everyone else, too. He went on to become enlightened, so the presumption is that he succeeded, and that everyone will go to the pure land when they die... although I am not clear as to whether they'll be enlightened at that point or not. It's sort of like Christianity, but not quite.
If you already knew all that, forgive me, I was just thinking aloud. :)
Reply
Japanese Buddhism comes from China and Korea, though I don't know how their traditions relate to the Tibetan ones.
Reply
Neato, by the way.
Reply
A Majority of all forms of Buddhism in existence today are descendants of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism, the only remaining school of Hinayana (the older school) is Theravada Buddhism, practiced mainly in SE Asia and Sri Lanka.
Reply
Leave a comment