The Body of a Buddha
What is a Buddha? A Buddha is someone who has abandoned all unwholesome action,
all obstructions to knowledge and their remnants. When one abandons unwholesome
action, an imprint remains on the mind which acts as an obstructions to knowledge,
just as when one drops an onion from one's hand, a smell remains on it. The
Buddha has abandoned even the last remnants of these obstructions to knowledge.
He perceives the reality of all phenomena directly and has fully developed compassion
through meditation, so he spontaneously works for the welfare of all beings.
Over countless aeons, he has accumulated limitless merit through the practice
of the perfections of giving, ethics, practice and effort and has meditated
with a firmly stabilized mind on the antidote to the conception of an inherently
existent self-emptiness.
From the point of view of Tantra, he meditated on deity yoga, employing the
many subtle and powerful means of Tantra, which enables one to attain Buddhahood
in one lifetime.
Although there may be countless Buddhas in any aeon, in the present aeon 1002
Buddhas are to appear as such, of whom four have already appeared. They are
already enlightened, but take birth as humans to demonstrate the twelve deeds
of a Buddha and guide sentient beings towards enlightenment. The tantric path
to enlightenment is peculiar to Shakyamuni's teaching and is otherwise very
rare. Shakyamuni taught the sutras to ordinary disciples, in the form of a Buddha.
However, he taught superior disciples the tantras in the form of a king or in
the aspect of various meditational deities.
There are many ways of representing the body of the Buddha. Though they may
reveal different aspects, all are the Buddha's body in nature and offerings
made to them are equal to those made to Buddhas themselves. Thus, the Buddha
may be portrayed as a monk, like Buddha Shakyamuni, as slightly wrathful meditational
deities such as Heruka, or Guhyasamaja, or as female deities such as dakinis,
as wrathful male or female deities with ugly forms and animal heads, or as embracing
consorts. There are also occasions when Shakyamuni Buddha is represented as
a rabbit or an elephant, recalling exemplary deeds he performed in such lives
during his career as a Bodhisattva.
Similarly, religious images are also made of Arhats, those beings who have attained
personal liberation, religious protectors and Lamas. If the image is a statue,
it can be made of any material, whether clay, stone, wood or metal and while
there are no restrictions on size, it must strictly adhere to the prescribed
proportions and so forth. Whatever material is used, such images should be respected
equally, a statue should not be valued more highly than another because it is
made of gold and the other of clay. The same is true of two-dimensional images,
which in Tibet were most commonly paintings on cloth, block prints or murals.
The Buddha's Speech
or Dharma
From the point of view of experience, the Dharma is ultimately the abandonment
of afflictions and obstructions to knowledge in a being's mental continuum.
The way to attain this true cessation is to follow a true path. The means of
communicating this understanding is the speech of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,
which in written form comprises the collection of scriptures. Both of these
are also referred to as the Dharma. When the Buddha spoke, countless beings
each found in his words what benefitted him or her most and could understand
it in his or her own language.
Shortly after the Buddha's passing away, memorised collections of his teachings
were recited in four different Indian languages, including Sanskrit. Later these
were translated into Tibetan, Chinese, Mongolian, Korean, Japanese and so forth.
The Tibetan canon includes the Kangyur, about 108 volumes consisting of translations
of Buddha's own words, and the Tengyur, about 200 volumes of commentries to
teachings contained in the Kangyur composed by Indian scholars, and some commentaries
to those written by later Tibetan scholars. Recently, translations of Buddhist
texts have also begun to appear in Western languages. No matter what language
is used to convey them, what distinguishes such texts or teachings is that their
meaning is conducive to sentient beings' achieving enlightenment. This is reflected
in the subjects dealt with by Buddhist teaching. The Buddha is said to have
given 84,000 instructions, which elaborate on all the afflictions and the means
of overcoming them. When condensed, these can be included in the Three Baskets
of Doctrine- so called because the original palm-leaf texts in India were contained
in baskets. The Basket of Discourses explains the three trainings of ethics,
meditative stabilization and wisdom, the Basket of Discipline explains ethical
discipline and meditative stabilization, and the Basket of Knowledge explains
the divisions of phenomena.
When the Buddha was passing away, some people complained that he was leaving
nothing behind to show them the way to enlightenment. To this the Buddha replied
that they would find what they needed in the texts recording the meaning of
his words.
To show appreciation and respect towards the Buddha's teachings, some texts
were written out in gold, silver and other precious substances, especially the
Discourse on the Perfection of Wisdom. In general, scriptures are kept carefully
in a high clean place, also to denote respect. In temples, the statue of the
Buddha, which may form the principal object of offering, is generally flanked
by high stacks of books of scriptures which represent his speech.
The Buddha's Mind
To represent the Buddha's mind, which is free of all obstacles and has acquired
all knowledge, and to gain merit by paying respect to it, people have built
stupas.
The many aspects of a stupa symbolize many things, such as the ten wholesome
actions, great compassion and the ability to help all sentient beings.
Stupas were erected at the sites of Buddha Shakyamuni's birth, renunciation,
attainment of enlightenment and his passing into Parinirvana, as well as being
built over the relics of previous Buddhas.
Circumbulating them is a means of accumulating merit. In Magadha, an Indian
kingdom at the time of the Buddha, there was an old stupa reduced to a mere
mound. The Buddha circumbulated it, and when asked why, answered that there
were holy relics within it.
In response to a question from the gods of the Heaven of Thirty-three, the Buddha
explained what to place as relics in a stupa.
These are the four types of relics:
h Mantras written out on paper
h Physical relics of a Buddha such as hair or nails, or objects used by
him
h Fragments of his bones, teeth and so forth
h Other relics remaining after his cremation
After the Buddha's passing away and the cremation of his body, the people of
many kingdoms argued over possession of his remains. A disciple finally settled
the dispute by dividing the remains into eight, each portion being enshrined
in a stupa in each kingdom. The custom of erecting stupas over the remains of
great saints and lamas also continued in Tibet. In some cases, for example the
Dalai Lamas, the whole body was enshrined.
Stupas can be of any size and can be made of any suitable material. Relics,
other than the four described above, such as statues, clothes or scriptures
are also acceptable. For example, in Tibet, sets of thousands of stamped clay
images would commonly be made to be placed in stupas.