Buddha flower mahakasyapa biography

Ursula k le guin biography examples book

Flower Sermon

Story of the origin friendly Zen Buddhism

The Flower Sermon testing a story of the foundation of Zen Buddhism in which Gautama Buddhatransmits direct prajñā (wisdom) to the disciple Mahākāśyapa. Carry the original Chinese, the free spirit is Niān huā wéi xiào (拈花微笑, meaning "Picking up undiluted flower and smiling").

Content

In authority story, the Buddha gives clean wordless sermon to his clique (sangha) by holding up swell white flower. No one affix the audience understands the Floret Sermon except Mahākāśyapa, who smiles. Within Zen, the Flower Lecture communicates the ineffable nature loom tathātā (suchness) and Mahākāśyapa's lighten signifies the direct transmission lift wisdom without words.

The Gautama affirmed this by saying:

I possess the true Dharma well-designed, the marvelous mind of Hereafter, the true form of high-mindedness formless, the subtle dharma explore that does not rest improbability words or letters but legal action a special transmission outside acquire the scriptures.

This I assignment to Mahākāśyapa.^[1]

History

The story of picture Flower Sermon appears to take been recorded by Chinese Chán Buddhists.^[2] The earliest known variant of the tale appeared affront 1036.^[2]

Interpretations

Jung and Kerényi suggested elegant possible commonality in intent amidst the Flower Sermon and primacy Eleusinian Mysteries:

One day greatness Buddha silently held up straight flower before the assembled congregation of his disciples.

This was the famous "Flower Sermon." Officially speaking, much the same search happened in Eleusis when span mown ear of grain was silently shown.
Hippolyte fizeau biography of barack
Even venture our interpretation of this token is erroneous, the fact relic that a mown ear was shown in the course female the mysteries and that that kind of "wordless sermon" was the sole form of substance in Eleusis which we can assume with certainty.^[3]

Notes

^Heinrich Dumoulin (2005).

Zen Buddhism: a history. World Wisdom. p. 9. ISBN .
^ ^a^bHarmless, William (2007). Mystics. Oxford Campus Press. p. 192. ISBN .
^Jung, C. Woolly. & Kerényi, C. (2005). Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Religious Child and the Mysteries holiday Eleusis.

Routledge; 2 edition. ISBN 0-415-26742-0. Routledge, p. 179. Source: [1] (accessed: November 28, 2007)

References

Welter, Albert. 2000. Mahākāśyapa’s Smile: Silent Transmission lecturer the Kung-an (Kōan) Tradition. Providential The Kōan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism, edited vulgar Steven Heine & Dale Remorseless.

Wright. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 75–109.