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“a Buddha” not “the Buddha”
by nigerian1981 4y ago
“a Buddha” not “the Buddha”
- Kranar 4y agoNope, it's "the Buddha".
- jhbadger 4y agoTechnically, Chinese doesn't have words for "a" or "the". It's only in English and other Western languages that the distinction makes sense.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoThe distinction makes sense everywhere, but it's not tracked in Chinese (as in many other languages). It's still possible to look at a Chinese text and determine accurately whether an English translation should mark definiteness or indefiniteness on particular nouns. That wouldn't be possible if the distinction didn't make sense.
- lucasmullens 4y agoThat's not the quote, although I guess you could argue it needs a [sic]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mhb 4y agoLike "That's one small step for [a] man..." https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/07/13/armstrongs-famous-one-small-step-quote-explained/ https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/07/13/armstron...
- IncRnd 4y agoPlease explain the difference between a Buddha and the Buddha.
- Dalewyn 4y agoA Buddha is someone who reached enlightenment. The Buddha is Buddha the guy.
- supertofu 4y agoActually, The Buddha we all know about (Siddharta Gotama, affectionately called Sakyamuni, as he belonged to the Sakyan clan) is indeed the Buddha of our current world system, but there were Buddhas before him and there will be Buddhas after him -- they will just belong to different world systems. The next Buddha is referred to as Metteyya (Maitreya for the Mahayana folks). An enlightened person is called an Arahat (Arahant). They are not Buddhas. The Buddha is one person in one world-system who rediscovers the Dhamma (Dharma) after it has been lost. Often a Buddha goes on to teach that Dhamma, but there are certain Buddhas who arise who never teach. These are called Paccekka Buddhas.
- mtalantikite 4y agoI guess it depends on your school of Buddhism and I think your statement is more in line with Theravada. In Vajrayana formulations, though, the goal is Buddhahood in a single lifetime and there are countless Buddhas that are used in practice. For example, in Aityoga [1] you'll often do visualization practice as, say, Tara [2] or Medicine Buddha [3]. Of course, all of it is ultimately considered illusion, as Niguma articulated so well in her dohas [4], but it's all useful for practice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_(Buddhism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_(Buddhism) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaisajyaguru https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaisajyaguru [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niguma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niguma
- SamBam 4y agoCitation? If I search Google for "meet buddha on the road kill him" (note, no "a" or "the") all the results show "the."
- nigerian1981 4y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linji_Yixuan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linji_Yixuan
- SamBam 4y agoAn uncited translation that the article says comes from a manga comic. I'll trust the thousands of other translations a little more.