Vimalakirti is a Bodhisattva who appears as a layman in order to help all living beings. A woker of wonders, he reveals distant universes, feeds thousands of beings with a single bowl of nectar, and wins a philosophical debate with a thunderous silence Because he is enlightened the means he uses are highly skilful yet utterly inconceivable.
Sangharakshit, was born Dennis Lingwood, established the friends of the Western Buddhist order (FWBO) and the Western Buddhist Order, (called Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha in India). He also played a key part in the revival of Buddhism in India. A translator between the East and the West, his depth of experience and clear thinking have been appreciated all over the world
IT MUST HAVE BEEN a disturbing and unsettling experience to meet the Buddha in person two-and-a-half thousand years ago in northern India. The examples of such meetings that we find in the Buddhist scriptures give the impression that those who encountered him were often fascinated, awe-struck, and inspired; but occasionally they seem to have been perplexed, nonplussed, even irritated. For some, their existential situation was radically clarified 'as if a lamp were brought into the darkness, so that those with eyes could see what was there'. But others, intrigued though they were, found their meeting with him difficult and his message beyond their grasp. 'Profound is this teaching, hard to see, hard to comprehend, good, excellent, beyond the sphere of reasoning, subtle, to be understood only by the wise.
If the Buddha's contemporaries sometimes found it hard to relate to him, it is surely even harder for us, so much further away from him in time, space, and culture. Sakyamuni led a very different life-style from most of us: as an 'outsider', a religious mendicant dependent on alms. However, in the Pali scriptures he is still a recognizably human figure. In contrast, the Mahayana sutras present the Buddha as an archetypal figure, living in a splendid and imaginal realm: still fascinating but, apparently at least, still more distant and difficult to comprehend. In the
Vimalakirti-nirdega or 'Teaching of Vimalakirti' alcyamuni's remoteness from us is pointed up by the person of Vimalakirti, introduced to us as a prosperous city-dweller, married with a family, a respected citizen, a popular man-about-town. Here is someone whose life and concerns might seem to resemble our own. But Vimalakirti's similarity to his fellow citizens of Vagali and to many of us is more apparent than actual. Sangharakshita points out that it would be a serious mistake to regard him as an example of the average layman, either two-and-a-half thousand years ago or now.
As the narra-tive of the Vimalakirti-nirdega unfolds, we come to realize that Vimalakirti, with his depth of spiritual understanding and his ability to demonstrate it through magic and miracles, is almost the Buddha's equal. In other words, he is not what he seems to be. Why did the Buddhist tradition produce such a figure as Vimalakirti? What is his function? And why has Sangharakshita, one of the leading interpreters of the Dharma in the modem West, chosen to point him out to us through this series of explorations of themes from the Vimalakirti-nirdega?
In a way, it is what Vimalakirti seems to be that matters. It is because he gets on well with everybody, because he can be 'all things to all men', that he is able to teach the Dharma so effectively and so dramatically, not just in his meetings with the ordinary people of the city, but also in his casual but electrifying confrontations with Arhants and Bodhisattvas. He relates directly, with an uncompromising clarity and compassionate energy that responds to the needs of the immediate situation. He is skilful means personified, skilful means in action, in a manner that, later on in the development of Buddhism, was to flower more fully in the figure of the Tantric guru. So Vimalakirti, like the historical Buddha, is a fascinating and unsettling figure. But he too is now far distant from us. For his teachings to affect our lives in the way that they affected those around him, we need those teachings applied to our own situation. We need to understand the significance of who Vimalakirti was and what. He did for who we are and how we behave.
The general spiritual or cultural interest which may lead us to pick the Vimalakirtinirdega off the bookshop shelf will not be enough. We will - almost certainly - need help in seeing its relevance to the process of our own spiritual growth. Sangharakshita's guidance, drawing on a lifetime of scholarship and reflection, enables us to enter the exotic world of the Mahayana sutras, and to dwell on the beauty and Strangeness of which they speak allowing their meaning to emerge and unflold for us.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
Art (274)
Biography (230)
Buddha (1897)
Children (96)
Deities (45)
Healing (30)
Hinduism (56)
History (523)
Language & Literature (446)
Mahayana (406)
Mythology (91)
Philosophy (455)
Sacred Sites (112)
Tantric Buddhism (90)
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