İnanç Dosyası 23 | Buddhism 5

Lantau, Hong Kong’s largest island, larger than Hong Kong itself. Hong Kongers go to climb the 943m Lantau Peak, visit Po Lin, Precious Lotus Monastery, with its 34m  statue of the Buddha.

The Three Buddhas of Life –

Past Amitabha ( Left )- Symbolises wisdom of discriminating awareness. He is Buddha of infinite light in meditation. He is Buddha of the west.

                    

the Present Sakyamuni ( Middle )- Gautama Buddha is supposed to have 550 incarnations. Buddhists believe that in every aeon, there lived a Buddha.

                         

The Future Maitreya ( Right )- Buddha yet to come from heaven, Garden of Joy. Future Buddha, to be born in Fotunate Aeon. It is said he will be born in Benares ( Varanasi ), India. It is a notion that he will be  born 5000 years after the  death of  Gautama  Sakyamuni.

 Guangzhou ( Canton ), China.

In Wat Si Saket ( 1818 ) there are 6840 Buddhas.

Vientiane, Laos

The brass statue of Avalokiteshvara, Ming Dynasty, Guangzhou ( Canton ), China – He is the most popular of the Bodhisattvas and known as the lord who is observing. Avalokiteshvara is the spiritual son of the Buddha Amitabha and his Shakti Pandara. He is the compassionate Bodhisattva, is found in different forms.

Huineng ( 638 – 713 ), founder of the dominant school of Zen Buddhism, was born in China. Arrived Canton in 676. He declared that all people possess the Buddha-nature and that one’s nature is originally pure. This self-nature alone makes one equal to the Buddha. Instead of reading scriptures, building temples, making offerings, reciting the name of the Buddha, and praying for rebirth in paradise, one should take refuge in this self-nature,in which all Buddhas and doctrines are immanent. The way will be attained when one is freed from deliberate thought and from attachment to things. The traditional method of sitting in meditation is useless, for traquillity is not motionless but unperturbed inner nature and absence of erroneous thought. If one sees his own nature, he does not require any external help and will attain enlightenment suddenly. Southern school of his has dominated China and has strongly prevailed in Japan.

The copper statue of Master Huineng was cast in 989 CE., during Song Dynasty - Guangzhou ( Canton ),China.