The Humanity of Buddha

[Susthama]

[Ratnacitta]

Just to say that I'm reading the Feeling Buddha at the moment.....Its very liberating and stimulating.....I know there are no easy answers in the Buddhist Path, but with Dharmavidya as a guide, the Path feels possible and clear....
Namo Amida Bu !! Peter Campbell-Kelly

[Dharmavidya]

One of the difficulties in bringing Buddhism to the West is that there is no already established category to help people to understand what a Buddha is. Western thought tends to readily polarise to extremes. Either a person is a completely ordinary human being or they are God almighty and there is not much room for anything else. However, a Buddha is not a god, but is an extraordinary being. A Buddha has broken through the barrier of self-centric life that leads to endless karma. Karma is, essentially, a dead force. It is what holds people in a spiritual death even though they are organically alive. There is a passage in the Dhammapada that reads as follows:

Appamaado amatapadam - pamaado-maccuno padam
Appamattaa na miiyanti - ye pamattaa yathaa mataa
Non-infatuation is the deathless path - infatuation the path of death
The non-infatuated do not die - the infatuated are as if dead already

Buddhas realise this path that Buddhists call the Deathless. Their aliveness is beyond ordinary comprehension. They therefore do not fit into our normal categories. We should not think of a Buddha as a god, yet there is something about a Buddha that is more divine than anything that any god has. We should not think of a Buddha as an ordinary human being, yet a Buddha is more in touch with ordinary human life than we are ourselves.

Buddhas work for the benefit of all sentient beings. One day we shall be like them. This will come about through the faith we have in them. If we take refuge they will help us in subtle ways. Not by our own power will we become Buddhas, but if we have a true longing in our hearts we may also have confidence that "all is completely assured". In the meantime we shall live our lives in faith - in true refuge - and that faith will ensure that, in our own destiny and in the effect we have in the world, the liberation of the Buddhas will continue to be a more powerful influence than the dead hand of karma.