Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Setting IDOLATORY to light
This Zen story is indeed enlightening,doing away with the equation of BUDDHISM = IDOL WORSHIP :
On a cold winter night, a big snow storm hit the city and the temple where
Dan Xia served as a Monk got snowed in. Cut off from outside traffic, the coal
delivery man could not get to the Zen Monastery. Soon it ran out of heating fuel
after a few days and everybody was shivering in the cold. The monks could not
even cook their meals.
Dan Xia began to remove the wooden Buddha Statues from the display
and put them into the fireplace.
"What are you doing?" the monks were shocked to see that the holy Buddha
Statues were being burnt inside the fire place.
"You are burning our holy religious artifacts! You are insulting the
Buddha!"
"Are these statues alive and do they have any Buddha nature?" asked
Master Dan Xia.
"Of course not," replied the monks. "They are made of wood. They cannot
have Buddha Nature."
"OK. Then they are just pieces of firewood and therefore can be used as
heating fuel," said Master Dan Xia. "Can you pass me another piece of firewood
please? I need some warmth."
The next day, the snow storm had gone and Dan Xia went into town and
brought back some replacement Buddha Statues. After putting them on the
displays, he began to kneel down and burn incense sticks to them.
"Are you worshiping firewood?" ask the monks who are confused for what he
was doing.
"No. I am treating these statues as holy artifacts and am honouring the
Buddha." replied Dan Xia.
Gassho,"Heitetsu"Christopher
[Re:
Buddha's Bones?
by JohnsonCM
on Thu Feb 17, 2011 3:25 pm ]
Universal Buddha
Wherever the Dhamma lands, its roots go deep into the local culture and tradition. The Dhamma is truly one system that's beyond any cultural trappings from the land of its origin, a system that is universal.
Just a look at how the Buddha is depicted in each Asian community that accepted Buddhism generations ago is enough to show us how ancient people of ages past in Asia would very much like to identify the Buddha as part of their already existing culture.
Just a look at how the Buddha is depicted in each Asian community that accepted Buddhism generations ago is enough to show us how ancient people of ages past in Asia would very much like to identify the Buddha as part of their already existing culture.
Buddhist art is derived from each local artist's intepretation of the symbolism that exists within the Buddha's discourses,like the depiction of lotus, Dhammacakkha [wheel of dhamma] and the Bodhi tree.
