World religions. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 60 стр.

     When Buddha was about eighty, a blacksmith named Cuanda gave him a               Buddha. However, he taught superior disciples the tantras in the form of a king
meal that caused him to become ill. Buddha forced himself to travel to Kushi-         or in the aspect of various meditational deities.
nagara, and laid down on his right side to rest in a grove of shala trees. As a             There are many ways of representing the body of the Buddha. Though they
crowd of followers gathered, the trees sprouted blossoms and showered them on         may reveal different aspects, all are the Buddha’s body in nature and offerings
Buddha. Buddha told Ananda, “I am old and my journey is near its end. My              made to them are equal to those made to Buddhas themselves. Thus, the Bud-
body is like a worn-out cart held together only by the help of leather straps”.       dha may be portrayed as a monk, like Buddha Shakyamuni, as slightly wrathful
Three times, Buddha asked the people if they had any questions, but they all          meditational deities such as Heruka, or Guhyasamaja, or as female deities such
remained silent. Finally Buddha said, “Everything that has been created is sub-       as dakinis, as wrathful male or female deities with ugly forms and animal
ject to decay and death. Everything is transitory. Work out your own salvation        heads, or as embracing consorts. There are also occasions when Shakyamuni
with diligence”. After passing through several states of meditation, the Buddha       Buddha is represented as a rabbit or an elephant, recalling exemplary deeds he
died, reaching Parinirvana (the cessation of perception and sensation).               performed in such lives during his career as a Bodhisattva. Similarly, religious
     Five Precepts:                                                                   images are also made of Arhats, those beings who have attained personal libera-
     1. Do not kill.                                                                  tion, religious protectors and Lamas. If the image is a statue, it can be made of
     2. Do not steal.                                                                 any material, whether clay, stone, wood or metal and while there are no restric-
     3. Do not lie.                                                                   tions 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
     4. Do not be unchaste.                                                           should not be valued more highly than another because it is made of gold and
     5. Do not take drugs or drink intoxicants.                                       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 Body, Speech and Mind of a Buddha                                                      The Buddha’s Speech or Dharma
                             The Body of a Buddha                                           From the point of view of experience, the Oharma is ultimately the aban-
     What is a Buddha? A Buddha is someone who has abandoned all unwhole-             donment of afflictions and obstructions to knowledge in a being’s mental con-
some action, all obstructions to knowledge and their remnants. When one aban-         tinuum. The way to attain this true cessation is to follow a true path. The means
dons unwholesome action, an imprint remains on the mind which acts as an ob-          of communicating this understanding is the speech of Buddhas and Bodhisatt-
structions to knowledge, just as when one drops an onion from one’s hand, a           vas, which in written form comprises the collection of scriptures. Both of these
smell remains on it. The Buddha has abandoned even the last remnants of these         are also referred to as the Dharma. When the Buddha spoke, countless beings
obstructions to knowledge. He perceives the reality of all phenomena directly         each found in his words what benefitted him or her most and could understand
and has fully developed compassion through meditation, so he spontaneously            it in his or her own language. Shortly after the Buddha’s passing away, memo-
works for the welfare of all beings. Over countless aeons, he has accumulated         rised collections of his teachings were recited in four different Indian lan-
limitless merit through the practice of the perfections of giving, ethics, practice   guages, including Sanskrit. Later these were translated into Tibetan, Chinese,
and effort and has meditated with a firmly stabilized mind on the antidote to the     Mongolian, Korean, Japanese and so forth. The Tibetan canon includes the
conception of an inherently existent self-emptiness.                                  Kangyur, about 108 volumes consisting of translations of Buddha’s own words,
     From the point of view of Tantra, he meditated on deity yoga, employing          and the Tengyur, about 200 volumes of commentries to teachings contained in
the many subtle and powerful means of Tantra, which enables one to attain             the Kangyur composed by Indian scholars, and some commentaries to those
Buddhahood in one lifetime.                                                           written by later Tibetan scholars. Recently, translations of Buddhist texts have
     Although there may be countless Buddhas in any aeon, in the present aeon         also begun to appear in Western languages. No matter what language is used to
1002 Buddhas are to appear as such, of whom four have already appeared. They          convey them, what distinguishes such texts or teachings is that their meaning is
are already enlightened, but take birth as humans to demonstrate the twelve           conducive to sentient beings’ achieving enlightenment. This is reflected in the
deeds of a Buddha and guide sentient beings towards enlightenment. The tantric        subjects dealt with by Buddhist teaching. The Buddha is said to have given
path to enlightenment is peculiar to Shakyamuni’s teaching and is otherwise           84000 instructions, which elaborate on all the afflictions and the means of over-
very rare. Shakyamuni taught the sutras to ordinary disciples, in the form of a       coming them. When condensed, these can be included in the Three Baskets of

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