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 The Light of Asia
Buddha was an embodiment of the
Upanishads. The Christ of the Orient. So great was he that Christ himself
might almost be called the Buddha of the West.
Buddha gave up everything for the
Truth. Lived for it: as Christ died for it. If we give up everything,
we think we will have nothing left―nothing
except ... immortality!
BUDDHA
Ramakrishna remarked that to see God in others and as others was the
last word in spiritual life. So if you have difficulty doing that,
take heart―you
are not alone. It is the last word!
Only a profound mystical experience―many
of them―can
bring us to that state. But Buddha acted on that prescription
before his enlightenment. He saw everyone with such empathy and
fellow feeling that he didn't need a mystical experience to fulfill
Ramakrishna's teaching.
His mind was transformed by sorrow for humanity―an unabating sorrow.
Year after year. It is almost selfish to speak of mystical experiences
when confronted by such unmatched compassion.
It is true, spiritual experience gave him his Nirvana, his Four Noble Truths,
his philosophy of life, his discovery of the innermost workings of the
mind and karma. All this would have been veiled from him had he not
known his mystical experience under the Bodhi tree.
But it is not his philosophy so much as his personality that has
captured the imagination of the world. A personality utterly rooted in
a feeling of oneness with all living things. He would not even talk
about his Experience after it had come―so
immersed was he in the world that ordinary men knew ... though of
course not from their standpoint.
THE BODHISATTVA
Buddha
has given us the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, but the most
valuable legacy he has left us is himself—his incomparable personality:
his profound,
unique
compassion for humanity. He is the
personification of the Bodhisattva1, Buddhism’s great gift to
religious tradition.
Other prophets and sages have served a nation, a people, a race, or a
class. Humanity itself was
Buddha’s
passion:
nay, human nature itself....
Read more.
1.
In Mahayana Buddhism, a deity or being that has attained nirvana but
remains in the human world to help others.
__________
BUDDHA: THE COMPASSIONATE ONE
His Four Noble Truths and his Eightfold Path are not the most valuable legacy Buddha has left us. The priceless treasure in Buddhism, rather, is Buddha himself: his incomparable personality. Most of all his profound, unique compassion for
humanity. It was the sorrows of others that grieved and appalled him, not his own.
How to end suffering, how to overcome sorrow, how to help mankind: this was his quest, not his personal liberation. He hungered to know the secret of life so that he could give it to others, not keep it for himself. Not his own salvation but others'―that was his mission.
See also:
Questions Arising on
the Path
and
TRUTH: THE HIGHEST PRINCIPLE
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Note: All "Words of Wisdom" are quotations from Paul Hourihan, unless otherwise noted.
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