The Buddha’s Enlightenment (part 3)

The buddha one day, put some sand particles on his thumb nail, and asked his attendant monk, the venerable Ananda, who was also his first cousin, ‘Ananda, which do you think is more, the number of sand particles on my thumbnail and those on the earth ?’

The venerable Ananda answered, ‘Lord, the number of sand particles on your thumb nail and that of those on the earth are beyond comparison. The number of sand particles on the earth is incomparably more than that on your thumb nail.’
The lord then went on, ‘It is just like that Ananda. The number of beings that are enlightened whenever a Buddha appears in the world is as small as the number of sand particles on my nail.

The number of beings that do not get enlightened even when a Buddha appears in the world is as much as the sand particles of the earth.’
It is therefore not an ordinary matter that a Buddha has appeared in the world. It is also indescribably fortunate to hear the teachings of the Buddha even though he has passed away. If an effort is not made to be liberated, then we go on and on, going floating and sinking in the stream of samsara.

Those with aggregates known as deities and man are said to be floating in the stream of the samsara. When they have a chance to listen to the teachings of the Buddha, when they have teachers who show them the path, they may be saved from suffering.

Those with aggregates known as beings of the woeful states, are said to have sunk in the stream of samsara, because when they are in animal forms or when they are in hell, even if a Buddha appears in the world, they cannot hear the dhamma and cannot be saved through guidance onto the path to deliverance.

The Buddha’s Enlightenment (part 2)

As a Buddha, seeing the universe with his divine eye, he saw beings were so overwhelmed by ignorance that he thought he would give up his desire to help beings escape from suffering.
Only upon being insisted by a brahma did he resolve to guide beings onto the path to enlightenment.

Once the venerable Mahæmoggallana reported to the Buddha that he had seen a hungry being peta. The Buddha replied that he saw at the beginning of his Buddhahood all forms of hungry being petas, and hell-beings in all forms of woe. But he knew nobody would believe him and therefore kept silent about those beings.

‘I do not argue with the world, Moggallæna, but only the world comes and argue with me,’ the lord Buddha had said.

The teachings taught by the Buddha during his forty five years as a Buddha is the dhamma.

His disciples, the monks, are the samgha. A Buddha does not always appear in the world to guide beings to get liberated from suffering. After a Buddha has appeared and has entered parinibbana, innumerable world cycles take place where there is no Buddha. These world cycles where no Buddha appears are known as suñña kappæ.

We have traveled in the samsara in various forms in various planes. All beings have been brahmas, deties; all beings have screamed in boiling lava of hell, all beings have, in the long samsara, been kings, beggars, the rich, the poor;all beings have, in the long samsara, been animals of all kinds.

When a Buddha appears in the world and if we are not among beings that attain enlightenment, then we go on and on, in the endless cycle of death and rebirth which is samsara.