How do Bodhisattas Get Started?

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pelletboy
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How do Bodhisattas Get Started?

Post by pelletboy »

How do Bodhisattas and Paccekabodhisattas know each of the paramis and practice them? How do they know it leads them to Buddhahood? How do they persist in it throughout their myriads of lives?
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retrofuturist
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Re: How do Bodhisattas Get Started?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

The following sutta explains how the bodhisatta got started...

MN 26: Ariyapariyesana Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
shjohnk
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Re: How do Bodhisattas Get Started?

Post by shjohnk »

Sounds more like a topic for http://www.dharmawheel.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, the Mahayana sister site.
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cooran
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Re: How do Bodhisattas Get Started?

Post by cooran »

Hello pelletboy, all,

This is a long read, but should provide the answer:

Arahants, Buddhas, and Bodhisattvas by Bhikkhu Bodhi
http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebdha335.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

with metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
pelletboy
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Re: How do Bodhisattas Get Started?

Post by pelletboy »

shjohnk wrote:Sounds more like a topic for http://www.dharmawheel.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, the Mahayana sister site.
Mahayana has different tenets, key ones at that, than Theravada. My question is directed at how bodhisattas in the Theravadin sense get started. I'm also not talking about the bodhisatta in his last life but in prior lives when they first make the vow to be one. How do they know the paramis and get started on them? Esp. pacekkabodhisattas.
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ground
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Re: How do Bodhisattas Get Started?

Post by ground »

pelletboy wrote: Mahayana has different tenets, key ones at that, than Theravada. My question is directed at how bodhisattas in the Theravadin sense get started. I'm also not talking about the bodhisatta in his last life but in prior lives when they first make the vow to be one. How do they know the paramis and get started on them? Esp. pacekkabodhisattas.
I think pacekkabodhisattas do not depend on being taught by anybody else. It may be understood as an accumulation of wisdom across many lifes culminating in pacekkabuddhahood. so actually your question cannot be answered because pacekkabodhisattas come to know by themselves as do "sammasam bodhisattvas".
The "buddhahood" attained by "Mahayana type" bodhisattvas and the arhathood attained by "Theravada type" "hearers" are dependent on being taught by others.


kind regards
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tiltbillings
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Re: How do Bodhisattas Get Started?

Post by tiltbillings »

pelletboy wrote:
shjohnk wrote:Sounds more like a topic for http://www.dharmawheel.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, the Mahayana sister site.
Mahayana has different tenets, key ones at that, than Theravada. My question is directed at how bodhisattas in the Theravadin sense get started. I'm also not talking about the bodhisatta in his last life but in prior lives when they first make the vow to be one. How do they know the paramis and get started on them? Esp. pacekkabodhisattas.
bodhi
(from verbal root budhi, to awaken, to understand): awakenment, enlightenment, supreme knowledge. "(Through Bodhi) one awakens from the slumber or stupor (inflicted upon the mind) by the defilements (kilesa) and comprehends the Four Noble Truths (sacca)" (Com. to M. 10).

The enlightenment of a Buddha is called sammā-sambodhi, 'perfect enlightenment'. The faith (saddhā) of a lay follower of the Buddha is described as "he believes in the enlightenment of the Perfect One" (saddahati Tathāgatassa bodhim: M.53, A.III.2).

As components of the state of enlightenment and contributory factors to its achievement, are mentioned in the texts: the 7 factors of enlightenment (bojjhanga = bodhi-anga) and the 37 'things pertaining to enlightenment' (bodhipakkhiya-dhammā). In one of the later books of the Sutta-Pitaka, the Buddhavamsa, 10 bodhipācana-dhammā are mentioned, i.e. qualities that lead to the ripening of perfect enlightenment; these are the 10 perfections (pāramī).

There is a threefold classification of enlightenment:

1. that of a noble disciple (sāvaka-bodhi, q.v.). i.e. of an Arahat,
2. of an Independently Enlightened One (pacceka-bodhi, q.v.), and
3. of a Perfect Enlightened One (sammā-sambodhi).

This 3-fold division, however, is of later origin, and in this form it neither occurs in the canonical texts nor in the older Sutta commentaries. The closest approximation to it is found in a verse sutta which is probably of a comparatively later period, the Treasure Store Sutta (Nidhikkanda Sutta) of the Khuddakapātha, where the following 3 terms are mentioned in stanza 15: sāvaka-pāramī, pacceka-bodhi, buddha-bhūmi (see Khp. Tr., pp. 247f.).


The commentaries (e.g. to M., Buddhavamsa, Cariyapitaka) generally give a 4-fold explanation of the word bodhi:

1. the tree of enlightenment,
2. the holy path (ariya-magga),
3. Nibbāna,
4 omniscience (of the Buddha: sabbaññutā-ñāna).
As to (2), the commentaries quote Cula-Nidesa where bodhi is defined as the knowledge relating to the 4 paths (of Stream-entry, etc.; catūsu maggesu ñāna).

Neither in the canonical texts nor in the old commentaries is it stated that a follower of the Buddha may choose between the three kinds of enlightenment and aspire either to become a Buddha, a Pacceka-Buddha, or an Arahat-disciple. This conception of a choice between three aspirations is, however, frequently found in present-day Theravāda countries, e.g. in Sri Lanka.
The notion of a bodhisatta path was not something the Buddha taught. It was something that was developed after the Buddha's death, and in the Theravada, and probably most other Mainstream Indian schools, it was not something that was carefully worked in any explicit detail. It was only with the Mahayana that the idea of a bodhisatt(v)a path gets worked out in angels on the head of a pin detail, which is likely so for the Mahayana version of the pecekabuddha, as well. There is no answer to your question from the suttas, and likely little from the later commentaries, which are likely influenced by the Mahayana.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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