Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Jesus in Buddhism: Buddha, Devadatta

Friday, January 17, 2025

Jesus in Buddhism: Buddha, Devadatta

Jesus in Buddhism: Jesus as a bodhisattva

(BuddhaVerse) Some Buddhists perceive Jesus as a bodhisattva — a being trying to become fully spiritually enlightened to "save" others by guiding them to spiritual enlightenment, as all beings at some time or other are striving for liberation from suffering and rebirth.

[The Ayutthaya Kingdom was in ancient Siam (modern Thailand), which resisted Christian missionaries and their Catholic (Vatican) hegemony.]
[Who is Devadatta? He was once a great monk who made the mistake of pursuing magical powers rather than liberation, squandering his great fortune to know and be close to the Buddha. Devadatta is the Judas Iscariot figure in Buddhism who, rather than practicing for awakening, grew an ego so big he tried to usurp the Buddha and take over the Sangha ("spiritual community" the Buddha had built, which may have had 80,000 or more members since many of those members were members because of their attainment of the paths-and-fruits, and the majority of them would have been devas (angelic light beings visiting or living on the human plane) rather than humans on Earth. Devadatta was the Buddha's cousin, the brother of his former wife (Bimba Devi, known as Princess Yasodhara, with a long history of envy and rivalry with the buddha-to-be or the Bodhisatta, as the Buddha referred to himself when talking about times and events before his great enlightenment). Devadatta held a grudge, and though he did much good in becoming a monk and practicing for 40 years or so, he was rotten and one of the very worst people in the history of Buddhism, almost on par with Mara Namuci. He was not the Buddha's brother, whose name was Nanda, the sibling of their sister Sundari Nanda, who became enlightened monastics like so many of the Scythians/Sakas/Shakyians did, even Devadatta's sister Ven. Yasodhara (who is obscured in Buddhism as badly as "Mary" is in Christianity, hidden by the use of many names to refer to her: Rahulamata or "Rahula's Mother"), Bhadda, Bhadda Kaccana Theri, Bhaddakacca, Bhadda Sundari, Bimba Devi, and Subhadakka, who after the Buddha's return home became a nun, a knowledgeable disciple of the Dharma, an unbeatable debater, and a respected and beloved fully enlightened elder (theri) Buddhist nun, along with the Buddha's mother and many Scythian/Saka princesses and family members, including their son Ven. Rahula, "foremost in doing quiet good."]

Some beings commit to striving not only for full awakening (arahantship) but also supreme or perfect awakening (samma-sam-buddhahood, Sanskrit samyak-sam-buddha) to be able to effectively help others gain realization or bodhi and achieve liberation or nirvana, which is the extinction of ignorance because only an illusion came into and goes out of being.

[One can argue that there are three types of buddhas: (1) the fully supremely enlightened, (2) the fully enlightened nonteaching or "silent" (pacceka) buddha, and (3) the fully enlightened personal buddha (arahant). All three experience the exact same awakening to the truth, but the first two have special knowledge, and the first has special abilities (the ten powers) beyond. What makes a buddha so extraordinary is that he (as there seems to be no shes because any being bent on supreme enlightenment, a bodhisatta, needs two things to succeed, at least according to Theravada Buddhism, and in doing so will repeatedly be reborn as a male, as the Dalai Lama and Vajrayana Buddhism agree with the ancient Theravada commentaries. Those two are a vow of strong determination to achieve self-awakening at a time when the Dharma no longer exists and no one is being liberated and a sure prediction of success by a current buddha. When the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, aka "Shakyamuni" or the "Sage of the Scythians/Sakas," determined to become a buddha, he did so in the presence of Dipankara Buddha aeons ago, or at least many generations ago as kappa/kalpa may also refer to an ordinary human lifespan at the time, and this span is very variable, going from less than 100 years up to 80,000 years, Dipankara Buddha knew his determination and gave him a prediction of eventual success. How long it takes to eventually succeed is hard to fathom and/or calculate. If a kappa/kalpa is translated as it normally is, it can be millions or hundreds of millions or hundreds of billions of years, astronomical time, archeological time, epochs, ages, which does not make sense since in that deep past there were Vedas ("Knowledge Books") and Sanskrit language texts and Brahmins (brahmanas) and wandering ascetics (shramanas) and things that seem like much more recent developments on the human plane, which would not seem to have existed millions and billions of years ago. But that is the official Theravada line. We prefer to think that buddhas and tirthankaras like Mahavira, the Nigantha Nataputta (aka Vardhamana), the founder of Jainism, arise much more frequently than that, something more in the range of being separated by thousands or tens of thousands of years rather than aeons. The historical Buddha Gautama named 24 or so previous buddhas and many pacceka buddhas, never suggesting to anyone they pursue those careers but constantly, daily, encouraging and helping countless human and deva beings to become arhats or fully enlightened disciples as quickly as possible. Why? Everything can wait, but our pursuit of wisdom and compassion cannot wait. The opportunity to ever hear and practice the Dharma/Dhamma is so incredibly rare that we have to seize the day and practice, learn, hear, and ask teachers NOW. There's only now.]

His selfless actions and willingness to sacrifice himself for others align with the ideals of a Buddhist bodhisattva [and his training in ancient Tibet/ now India at Hemis Buddhist Monastery in Ladakh in the Himalayas, where Vajrayana (a form of Mahayana) Buddhist lamas are taught to strive for bodhisattva careers rather than personal enlightenment and liberation.

See the work of Nicolas Notovitch, Swami Abhedananda, Holger Kersten, American cult leader Elizabeth Clare Prophet (The Lost Years of Jesus: Documentary Evidence of Jesus' 17-Year Journey to the East), and many others for documentation concerning the "lost years" of Jesus of Nazareth or Saint Issa as he was known in the East or Isa as he is referred to in Islam].

The Dalai Lama has repeatedly expressed admiration for Jesus Christ [who is explained with shocking clarity as a mystery school leader by Ancient Greek biblical scholar Dr. Ammon Hillman], calling him a great teacher of love and compassion. He emphasizes that Christianity and [Mahayana] Buddhism can learn from each other despite doctrinal differences.

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