Buddhahood in Chan

[ground]

Question: "What is called Buddha?"

Answer: "To awaken according to Dharma, to awaken to the fact that there is nothing to be awakened to, is called Buddha."

Question: "What is called Dharma?"

Answer: "Mind does not arise in accordance with Dharma, and mind does not extinguish in accordance with Dharma. This is called Dharma."


excerpt from The Bodhidharma Anthology, J. L. Broughton

[klqv]

that doesn't answer the question IMO... whatever the buddha has awakened to, he still existed.


the question i was asking, was whether any lineages say that those that have their lineage, are not to be reborn again.
i kinda know the answer to that question: i read that master seongcheol said that he has experiened perfect enlightenment having climbed through the bhumis, and i don't know what else that could mean. however, part of me wants to say that that suggests that not just his actions having been awakened, but his awakening itself, was different to sakyamuni.

[Astus]

klqv,

I'm not sure what you're getting to. As a Mahayana path, those who follow the Zen methods aspire to be bodhisattvas and buddhas who liberate sentient beings. It is not the path of the small minded who want only to escape from the cycle of birth and death, but the way of those who realise the inseparability of samsara and nirvana.

[klqv]

klqv,

I'm not sure what you're getting to. As a Mahayana path, those who follow the Zen methods aspire to be bodhisattvas and buddhas who liberate sentient beings. It is not the path of the small minded who want only to escape from the cycle of birth and death, but the way of those who realise the inseparability of samsara and nirvana.

hi,

it was just a way of framing the question: nothing left to do, even in future lives.