Luminous polytheist Buddhism

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978 - The seed is planted... terror grows. 

Whereas in the narrative of the beginnings of the “Great recluse” (mahāsamaṇa) the gods seemed to occupy a minor place as protectors, disciples or admirers, and the death (parinibbana) of the Buddha was initially viewed as a disaster, this very soon changed with the disputes about the nature of nibbana and the deification of the Buddha, who became one of the many Buddhas that preceded and followed Śākyamuni, waiting for their turn in Tuṣita heaven in the company of gods. It became generally assumed that successful followers of the Buddha lived in the highest heavens of the Buddhist cosmos together with the gods, and shared the same, or often far superior, godlike powers. It would probably be difficult for mere mortals to distinguish between bodhisattvas and gods, when ascending into a divine realm after their death.

The universalist (mahāyāna) and esoteric forms of Buddhism have a lot in common with the other religions as they developed around the beginning of our era, specifically during Hellenistic and Roman times in the Mediterranean basin and farther eastward. Whether Christ was the Son of God, an angel etc., he “was sent” from above, or considered from the start as a savior by those following him. The earlier hagiographies of the Buddha don’t present him as someone with a mission except the one that he fixed for himself: mokṣa. Prince Gautama discovered “Buddhadharma” and initially hesitated to share it, before he decided to become a teacher. Whether these hagiographic versions are partly based on the real events of a historic individual or legends we will probably never know. By lack of proof for a historic Buddha we have many versions of the life he is thought to have led and the things he is thought to have said. Everything in the scriptures is known by hearsay (oral transmission) and the transmissions, interpretations, prequels and spin-offs thereof (see e.g. the Mahāvastu).

This is how “Buddhism” developed and instead of speaking of “the Words” of “the Buddha” we ought to speak of “Buddhism”, what Buddhists believed and did, and believe and do. By these standards the large majority of Buddhists in the world were and are “polytheists”, and the “Buddhism” they follow is a religion, that --like many religions-- also incorporates ethics, religious and secular precepts, methods of contemplation, prayer and “wisdom” in the largest sense of the word. As for other religions, the afterlife is one of its main concerns.

Buddhist tradition speaks of a split between the sect of the “Elders” (Sthavira) and the “the Great Sangha" (Mahāsāṃghika) after the Second Buddhist council, which may have occurred during or after the reign of Ashoka (c. 268 to 232 BCE), who according to Buddhist tradition had a Gandharan grandmother. The universalist (“Great”) approach of Buddhism seems very compatible with Ashoka’s and the Mauryan’s “universalism”, as known through Ashoka's rock edicts engraved on pillars in a Greek-influenced style ("Hellenistic baroque”).

The Lotus Sutra (Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, 1st century BCE - 2nd century CE) presents a clearly deified Buddha with transcendent qualities, a savior that can manifest himself in various forms. Unlike the human “Unbound Buddha” that freed himself from Saṃsāra, karma and rebirth at his death, the deified Cosmic Buddha is something completely different, more an eternal principle than a human, manifesting in many various ways, including in humans and Buddhas… No more reason to mourn a dead Buddha. This Buddha never dies. This Buddha is a god, or even God (Ādi-Buddha). And candidate-Buddhas, bodhisattvas (e.g. Avalokiteśvara), sharing the heavens with gods are like gods too. The mere invocation of their names can help protect humans against the main dangers.

The universalist message (“the path of the single vehicle”, “The True Dharma [that] is the hidden essence of all the buddhas”) of the Lotus Sūtra is that all sentient beings can become “deified” Buddhas themselves.

“I tell you, O Śāriputra:
All of you are my children,
And I am thus your father.
Since you were burned by the fire
Of various sufferings for many kalpas,
I saved you all
By leading you out of the triple world.
Although I have previously told you
About your parinirvāṇa,
You have only extinguished birth and death
And have not actually attained nirvana.
You should now seek only
The wisdom of the Buddha.”

“I will give sentient beings who have escaped from the triple world all the toys of the Buddha’s meditations and liberations, which are of one character and one kind, are praised by the Noble Ones, and which produce pure and supreme pleasure.”

“All the buddhas, the Best of Humans,
Know that all dharmas are ever without substance
And that the buddha-seeds germinate
Through dependent origination.”

And those who want to destroy “the seed of the Buddha” will suffer the dire consequences of their heinous act.

“Those people who will not accept
And who disparage this [Lotus] sutra,
Will consequently destroy the seed of the Buddha
In the entire world.”[1]

Buddhas and bodhisattvas (“the sons born from the mouths of the buddhas”[2]) of the highest levels are manifestations from the same “Logos”/Dharmakāya, not individuals. They take whatever form is needed to convert and save “their children” from the triple world below, in order to establish them beyond the triple world, not in parinirvāṇa, while remaining active in the triple world. This idea will be further developed in later sūtras, such as the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra (Flower Garland Sutra), the Śūraṃgamasamādhi (Śgs, T642). The Avataṃsaka Sūtra describes “a cosmos of infinite realms upon realms”, and a vast network of interconnected Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and worlds, that are basically a display of Logos. In the Śūraṃgamasamādhi this Logos is personified by Superbodhisattva Mañjuśrī, the universal One man orchestra all by himself, and the object of Luminous Praise in “Chanting the Names of Mañjuśrī” (Mañjuśrīnāmasamgīti).

As Etienne Lamotte explains[3] in his Introduction to the French translation of the Śūraṃgamasamādhi (La concentration de la marche héroïque), Rājagṛha is not the place we know, but a Pure land, a buddhakṣetra, and Śākyamuni teaching the sūtra is not the “historical” Buddha, but “a pure ray of wisdom and power”, the embodied “Concentration of Heroic Progress”. And so is Mañjuśrī who plays an important part in this Sūtra as another embodiment of Concentration of Heroic Progress, and the one man orchestra of the cosmos, i.e. Mañjuśrī’s stage where he can play all the roles, including that of Māra. He can even stage the nirvāṇa of a Pratyekabuddha at times when there are no Buddhas.

“127. Manjusri, you should know that I [Śākyamuni] exercise this supernormal power everywhere in innumerable (apramāṇa) and infinite (ananta) koṭinayutaśatasahasrāṇis of buddhakṣetras, but the Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas do not know this. Such is, O Mañjuśrī, the supremacy (ārṣabha) of the Śūraṃgamasamādhi bodhisattvas, even while always manifesting such wondrous feats (vikurvaṇa) in innumerable universes, never swerve from this samādhi. 128. Mañjuśrī, just as the sun (śūrya) and moon (candra), without ever leaving their palaces (vimāna), illuminate villages (grāma), towns (nagara) and districts (nigama), so the bodhisattvas, without ever swerving from the Śūraṃgamasamādhi, manifest themselves everywhere in innumerable universes and expound the Dharma according to the aspirations (adhimukti) of beings.”

Mañjuśrī and other bodhisattvas (Maitreya, 156) are capable of doing this, because of this Concentration, and there are many ways of practising it (154). In “reality”, Mañjuśrī has already been a Buddha named Nāgavamsagra (159), but the cosmic show must go on, and so he pretends to be Mañjuśrī in the Concentration of Heroic Progress. Is there anything in the whole cosmos that is not “Concentrationally” accounted for? Including evildoers and Māra, the Lord of evildoers (89-100)? Isn’t this is a sort of pantheism, “ the belief that the divine intersects every part of the universe and also extends beyond space and time”, and that everything is actually alright.

Even Māra pretends to convert, and arouses bodhicitta for the wrong reasons, whereafter the Buddha predicts Māra’s future Buddhahood. The Heroic Progress is unstoppable. Even bad monks "in the future to come" are accounted for.

“96. Then the Buddha said to the bodhisattva Dṛḍhamati: Today Māra Pāpīmat aroused the bodhicitta in order to be unbound, and not with a pure intention (adhyāśaya). Equally, O Dṛḍhamati, after my Nirvāṇa [at the end of time, in the final period], in the last five hundred years (mama parinirvṛtasya, paścime kale, paścime samaye, pascimāyām pañcaśatyām vartamānāyām), numerous bhikṣus will arouse the bodhicitta for material gains (lābha) and not with a pure intention (adhyāśaya).”

No problem. Nothing escapes the project of the Cosmic Buddha where everything seems like it was staged by Buddhas and bodhisattvas in their Concentration. All beings in the cosmos look like empty shells secretly run by the Concentration of Heroic Progress. Only the act of arousing bodhicitta seems “real”, or the Concentration of Heroic Progress for that matter. All other religious acts don’t have real efficiency and don’t really matter. Yet they take place and fill the lives, time and space of those progressing heroically, unbeknownst to themselves and despite themselves.

“[The bodhisattva in Śūraṃgamasamādhi] takes up the religious life in an heretical order (pāsaṇdikeṣu pravrajati) in order to win over beings, but he does not really take it up (pravrajyā), he is not defiled (kliṣṭa) by all the false views (mithyādṛṣṭi) which prevail there and does not give any credence (prasāda) to them. He seems to adopt the bodily attitudes (īryāpatha) of the heretics (pāsaṇḍika), but does not conduct himself in accordance with them. (32)”

The only real offence is to not arouse bodhicitta or to ignore the Concentration of Heroic Progress, or to destroy one's defilements...

“O Bhagavat, a man guilty of the five offences of immediate fruition (pañcānantarya) who hears the Śūraṃgamasamādhi expounded is superior to the [holy one who has] entered into the certainty (avakrāntaniyāma) and to the arhat who has destroyed all the defilements (kṣiṇāsrava. Why? The man who is guilty of the pañcānantaryas, on hearing the Śūraṃgamasamādhi expounded, arouses the anuttarasamyaksaṃbodhicitta and even if, because of his previous misdeeds (pūrvapāpakarman), he falls into the hells (naraka), the merit (kuśalamūla) of having heard the Śūraṃgamasamādhi enables him to become a Buddha. Conversely, the arhat who has destroyed the defilements (kṣiṇāsrava) is like a broken receptacle (chinnabādjana): never could he make use of the Śūraṃgamasamādhi.” (150)

Why? Because he could not behave in worldly or evil (Māra) ways. He could not, like the bodhisattva Māragocarānupalipta, convert two hundred daughters of Māra (devakanyās) deeply attached to the pleasures of the senses (kāmarāgatisakta) by making love to them simultaneously through "creating through transformation" two hundred devaputras, sons of gods, of perfect beauty, identical to his own (94). He could not act like a “banker, householder, minor king, great king, warrior, brahmin or śūdra” (122-123, for this topic also see the Gaṇḍavyūha sūtra, in particular the passage about king Anala).

The world of Māra and the world of Buddha share the same essence. There is no duality and no difference (114)[4]. The world, as it is, is filled with suffering everywhere, like a house on fire (Lotus sūtra). Yet everything ought to be left as it is, because everything is in the good hands of bodhisattvas and under the control of the Concentration of Heroic Progress.

And so in Buddhist monist polytheism everything is left as it is. The only way out is through arousing bodhicitta and abiding in the Concentration of Heroic Progress, while opportunely remaining on the side of the ones in power in heaven as on earth, because why try and fix anything that cannot be fixed and is and will always remain imperfect anyway? With one’s head in dharmakāya and one’s feet in the mud the world will gradually be taken over by the Concentration of Heroic Progress, without any noticeable difference. Perhaps it already is the case.

***

[1] English translations from THE LOTUS SŪTRA, (Taishō Volume 9, Number 262) Translated from the Chinese of Kumārajīva by Tsugunari Kubo and Akira Yuyama

[2] Just like brahmins are born from the mouth of Brāhma.

[3] “The Buddha Śākyamuni who appears in the Sūtra is not the Buddha of the sixth century B.C.E. whom we call 'historical' and whom the Mahāyānists term 'transformational', that Buddha who was born in the Lumbinī Park, attained enlightenment at Bodh-Gaya, expounded the Dharma for forty-five years, and passed into Nirvāṇa in Pāvā. This is Śākyamuni in Heroic Progress, a pure ray of wisdom and power, who manifests himself simultaneously in our little universe of four continents, in the Great Cosmos from which the latter derives, and in all the great cosmic systems as numerous as the sands of the Ganges; here, he repeats the feat of the historical Buddha; there, he is some divinity; there again, he is a banker, householder, minor king, great king, warrior, brahmin or śūdra (§§ 122-3). “ English translation by Sara Boin-Webb, MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS, Delhi

[4] “The true nature of the world of Māra (māradhātudharmatā)23* is the true nature of the world of the Buddha (buddhadhātudharmata). Between the māradhātudharmatā and the buddhadhātudharmatā there is neither duality (dvaya) nor difference (viśeṣa). And we do not leave, do not exceed that true nature.”