Buddhist Scriptures – by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (2004)

While Buddhism has no central text such as the Bible or the Koran, there is a powerful body of scripture from across Asia that encompasses the dharma, or the teachings of Buddha. This rich anthology brings together works from a broad historical and geographical range, and from languages such as Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese

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The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 1: The Realms of Rebirth

The doctrines of karma and rebirth are fundamental to Buddhist theory and practice. Karma is the law of the cause and effect of actions, according to which virtuous actions create pleasure in the future and non-virtuous actions create pain. It is a natural law, accounting for all the happiness and suffering in the world.

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The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 2: A Call to Practise

It is a common tenet of Buddhist traditions that human life, or more specifically rebirth as a human born with access to the dharma, is very precious; something difficult to find and, if found, of great meaning. In a famous passage, the Buddha described a single blind tortoise swimming in a vast ocean, surfacing

The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 3: Karma Tales

The doctrine of karma is one of the foundations of Buddhist thought and practice. The sufferings that beset humans (and all sentient beings), as well as the happinesses they enjoy, are considered to be the results of deeds done in the past. Over the centuries, Buddhists, both monks and laity, have remained preoccupied with

The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 4: A Lesson from a Ghost

Ghosts are one of the six types of beings that populate the Buddhist universe. Although they have their own underground realm, some of them venture into the human world, invisible to all but the spiritually advanced, as in the story below. Ghosts suffer from hunger and thirst (thus, the common translation from the Chinese,

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The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 5: A Scripture that Protects Kings

The word of the Buddha is said to possess extraordinary power, and there are many stories told of miracles that occurred when a sutra, or even the title of a sutra, was recited. The efficacy of scripture in Buddhism, therefore, does not derive simply from the ideas and doctrines it contains. Its more immediate

The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 6: One Buddha per Universe

The selection below is drawn from the famous Questions of Milinda (Milindapanha), a dialogue between a Bactrian Greek king named Milinda and a Buddhist monk named Nagasena. It is uncertain whether such a dialogue ever took place. There was indeed a famous king named Menander (Milinda in Indian sources) who ruled over a large

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The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 7: Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side

We saw in the previous chapter that there is only one buddha for each age, that indeed, the universe cannot sustain more than one buddha in each age. Buddhas thus appear individually over the long course of samsara, with a new buddha appearing only when a new buddha is needed, that is, when the

The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 8: Rebirth in the Land of Bliss

Rebirth in an auspicious realm is a ubiquitous concern in the Buddhist traditions, with practice directed towards avoiding a sorrowful rebirth and assuring a happy rebirth, whether for oneself or for others. Among the six realms of rebirth, those of humans and gods are considered happy; one is reborn there as a result of

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The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 9: Avoiding Hell, Gaining Heaven

In the first centuries of Buddhism in Japan, the recitation of the homage to Amitabha (in Japanese namu amida butsu) as recommended in the longer and shorter Sukhavati sutras, was used primarily as a means of protecting the living by sending the spirits of the dead to the pure land, and thus was regarded

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The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 10: A Chinese Pilgrim in India

Buddhism is a religion that extended over much of Asia. It did so not through a disembodied dharma descending on one culture after another, but rather through a more material movement – of monks, texts, relics and icons – along trade routes and across deserts, mountains and seas. And among those who received it,

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The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 11: A Sacred Peak

Pilgrimage has long been regarded as a meritorious practice in Buddhism. As he was about to pass into nirvana, the Buddha is said to have recommended paying homage to the sites of his birth, enlightenment, first sermon and death. Pilgrimage centres developed at these and other places in India, places often associated with events

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The Buddhist Universe – Chapter 12: Maitreya Describes the Future

Perhaps the best-known story in all of Thai Buddhism tells of the arhat monk Phra Malai, who one day encountered a poor grass cutter who presented him with eight lotuses, asking that the merit from his gift result in his never being reborn as a poor man again. In order to fulfil his request,

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The Buddha – Chapter 13: The Three Jewels

The recitation of the formula I go for refuge to the Buddha. I go for refuge to the dharma. I go for refuge to the sangha’ (recited three times) is the most fundamental Buddhist practice, the Buddhist correlate to the confession of faith. The practice of taking refuge is said to derive from the

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The Buddha – Chapter 14: The Noble Search

Given the importance of the Buddha for Buddhism, it is noteworthy that biographies of the Buddha, that is, chronological accounts of the events of his life from his birth to his death, are a late addition to Buddhist scriptures. The first such texts appear some five hundred years after his passage into nirvana. This

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The Buddha – Chapter 15: A Life of the Buddha

As noted in the previous chapter, the earliest accounts of the life of the Buddha are those found in the collections of discourses traditionally attributed to the Buddha. Here the Buddha autobiographically recounts individual events that occurred from the time that he left his life as a prince until he achieved enlightenment six years

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The Buddha – Chapter 16: Maya, Mother of the Buddha

In Chapter 14, the Buddha recounted how he left his weeping parents and went off in search of a state beyond suffering. In Chapter 6, Nagasena explained to King Milinda that the universe can sustain only one buddha at a time. Things did not remain that simple. In accounts of the Buddha’s birth, it

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The Buddha – Chapter 17: Why the Buddha Had Good Digestion

The Buddha was remarkable in mind and body. He was said to be endowed physically, for example, with the thirty-two major marks and eighty secondary marks of a superman, and his voice had sixty-four kinds of euphony. Such qualities of the Buddha were the direct result of his practice of virtue in former lives,

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The Buddha – Chapter 18: A King Gives Away His Head

In Buddhism, no deed is more universally praised than the act of giving (dana). It is, of course, the charity of the laity towards monks and nuns that sustains the sangha. The giving of gifts in this life results in rebirth in the luxuriant heavens of the gods in the future. But giving is

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The Buddha – Chapter 19: Rupyavati Gives Away Her Breasts

There are stories of the Buddha’s past lives as an animal (a rabbit, a deer, a fish), and stories of the Buddha’s past lives as a male human (as an ascetic, a merchant, a prince, or a king). But stories of the past lives of the Buddha in which the bodhisattva is a woman

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