Well, I guess there is what I call the 'Jesus' argument that he was not a human, but already enlightened as a Buddha who chose to be born in a manner which allowed him to teach the true path, for the benefit of all beings. Wouldn't that make Shakyamuni more of an emanation?Rael wrote: Whats this after his enlightenment thing???
when did he attain enlightenment?
Did he not attain this in the infinite past...??
Was not his whole life a three act play so to speak???
In the lotus sutra, i know of no other sutra to refer to ,and again "honestly" i think the lotus sutra is BOGUS..Says he in fact attain Buddhahood a long time ago....
the whole take the universe put it into a sack and with each step as you walk east take one particle out stop and place it on the ground....however long it takes to empty the sac one particle at a time multiply that by an infinite amount of Kalpas( a kalpa being the lenght of time it takes for a nymph to render a huge stone into dust by coming down with a silken scarf and rubbing it across the huge stone once a hundred years....how long it takes to wear it all down is the measurement of one kalpa ) an infite amount of kalpas is still not long enough.....the sutra goes on forever with multiplications to the power 2 or 4 and then you start all over multiplying that by infinities to get when He first attained Buddhaood.....
And it seems The Tulku I learn under said Buddha did not first attain enlightenment under the Bodhi....He said His life was an act so to speak ...Hiswhole life was a teaching....
Soooooo....then the whole poison mushroom to kill Him thing..not unlike Nargajuna who needed someone to kill him...
they don't die they have to be Killed it seems.....
questions questions....i ain't letting it go....ROFL!!!!!
i need these answered clearly.....thats why i is here....
What I've been prodding at with a stick, as Devil's Advocate, is that if we deem it possible for a person to become a Buddha whilst still alive as a human, have they reached Mahaparinirvana before death, which makes their every act free from the consequences of karma as Greg defined it.
They can certainly influence others with their karma, so are they split away from the consequences of collective karma ? Others may also act upon them, as with the poisoned food episode. I guess it depends to what extent we feel previous karma can continue to ripen for a Buddha, and to what degree of detail. Was his choice to eat the poison also due to karma ripening, or just the causal presentation of the conditions which enabled the choice ?
On topic, there is the consideration of merit. Could Buddha as a human continue to generate merit if he could no longer be affected by karma?