On Lotus Peak … when the Buddha had finished speaking, the ground did tremble and burst open all around. From within the land there arose hundreds of thousands of myriads of millions of Bodhisattvas, each with a body of gold hue and bearing the thirty-two physical marks of the great ones. They had been waiting through time in the realm of empty space under the great earth … Upon hearing the words of the Buddha, they rose up from under the earth. Each of these Bodhisattvas, in turn, led an assembly of thousands of Bodhisattvas, equal to the sands of sixty thousand Ganges rivers, of millions or more Ganges rivers … which cannot be totaled, tallied, numbered or compared, nor known by mystical magic … When they had all emerged from the earth, they approached the Stupa of precious treasures that hovered in the sky, within which the Buddha Prabhutaratna, the last Thus Come One, sat with the Buddha Sâkyamuni, both together on a throne. All circumambulated thrice and bowed at the feet of these Tathâgatas, and toward countless other emanations of Buddhas upon Buddhas which arose from the body of the Buddha Sâkyamuni. Everyone sat together on thrones at the base of endless jewel trees stretching toward all directions, and onward and into many worlds.
Thereupon, the Bodhisattvas circled these many Tathâgatas, moving from left to right, praising them with chants and hymns …
Thereupon, the Bodhisattvas circled these many Tathâgatas, moving from left to right, praising them with chants and hymns …
However, bridging the two, Buddhism came to develop a further notion of “ideal” Buddhas: The Sambhogakaya, or “Enjoyment Body” Buddhas. They too are archetypes representing the highest perfections of wisdom, goodness and other capacities, but this time leaping far, far beyond actual human capabilities. Here, the laws of physics and biology are fully suspended, and we enter into visionary realms combining story-book fantasy with boundless religious imagination, springing from the ultimate depths of the human psyche.
In fact, the human Buddha, the universal Buddha, and this further aspect came to be considered as different faces of each other, and of one reality. This new fantastic face, the “Enjoyment Body” (meaning one who fully enjoys and thrives in the perfection, plenitude and bliss of Buddhahood) arose out of the natural tendency of devout Buddhists to celebrate and enhance the qualities and powers that were associated with the wisdom and compassion of an enlightened Buddha. It is a process which likely began even during the lifetime of the historical Buddha himself, just as it is natural for any faithful believer or follower to gradually polish and embellish depictions of their guru, saint, or champion. The Buddha’s physical, mental, and spiritual attributes were portrayed as ever more wondrous, ever more powerful, ever more perfect, ever more beyond-human. There also was a wish to express the timeless, boundless (but formless, abstract) nature of an all-encompassing “universal Buddha” in some relatable human form, much as other world religions reduce their transcendent deity into a more manageable image of a great bearded king seated on a throne.
In fact, these are countless “enjoyment Buddhas,” for they come by multitudes, in endless varieties, as unique and colorful as the flowers of the garden. Theirs is a selfless, pure, perfect spiritual enjoyment and fulfillment, not some ordinary sensual pleasure measurable by worldly standards. Unlike the impersonal, boundless and formless “universal” Buddha, the enjoyment body has an appearance superficially much resembling the historical Buddha as a human being, sitting in meditation or standing, clad in priest’s robes, but not in any flawed, mortal, or constrained human way. These are depicted instead as idealized Buddhas who shines golden or other colors, emit sacred light from their brow, are all knowing and seeing, pure in every way, residing in perfect and perpetual deepest meditation, incomparable and astounding in their splendor and virtue, fully enlightened. They remain in bliss, reside in wondrous lands and dimensions that our ordinary eyes cannot easily see. They travel to distant worlds in a single leap, moving through realms, heavens and other astounding realities, and are depicted in the (primarily Mahayana) Sutras as surrounded by all manner of gods, other astonishing creatures, as well as spectacular men and women beyond ordinary description.
Emanating from these Super-Buddhas are the Great Bodhisattvas, also superlative in their respective goodness and other qualities. We encountered many of them earlier in this book, in figures such as Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and Samantabhadra, a Bodhisattva of Wisdom, not readily visible to our ordinary eye, yet everywhere present and looking out for us always. In Buddhist art, their forms are also shown as human-like, but so much more than human, dressed in crowns and other clothing and jewelry of ancient royalty, with gorgeous and unmatched features. Traditional stories feature them in countless astonishing exploits. The talents and powers of these ideal Buddhas and Great Bodhisattvas are matchless, beyond the capabilities of commonplace creatures like you and me in this mundane life and world.
It is easy to doubt the reality of such mindboggling figures, our rational mind telling us that they are but religious flights of fancy. However, generations of Buddhists have held faith in their existence, and myriad mystics have declared that, in the depths of their meditations, they have been in the presence of these great beings, and traveled to their realms. Maybe so, for how can we challenge what somebody claims to have experienced? Even so, personally, I doubt that their existence is found any place but within the human heart, mind and imagination. I do not take them literally. On the other hand, however, I believe that the good qualities they stand for, their compassion and wisdom, do become “as real as real can be” when we manifest such in our own lives. When our hands do charity, for example, lending a hand to others, our hands become the Bodhisattva’s hands.
That said, very soon, even the most wondrous and super-human of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will one day stand before our eyes, talk with us and walk with us, and we will live in their realms should we choose, all with a snap of our fingers: A relatively fast and easy way for human beings to achieve life in some perfect world, filled with perfect Buddhas, not a problem or care, will be available in the surprisingly near future.
... to be continued ...
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