Nine qualities of the Buddha.

Honour to the Lord, Arahat, perfectly and completely Enlightened one!

Nine qualities of the Buddha is something that we should remember and recall every time. As a daily practise if someone is recalling and remembering these qualities of the Buddha, one starts living in the Buddhahood. A person who lives with recalling these qualities does not do any bad thing to anyone or think anything bad about anyone. Following is the list of the qualities of a Thatagatha and an explanation will follow as well.

01. Arahan

02. Samma Sambuddhda

03. Vijjha charana sampanna

04. Sugatha

05. Lokavidu

06. Anuthtar Purisadhamma sarathi

07. Sattha

08. Buddho

09. Bhagava .

The quality of Arahan (attained Nibbana)

The quality of Arahan means the one who has become to the state of NIbbana. The end of suffering. He, who destroyed the circle of rebirth and other endless sufferings coming with the rebirth. A person achieved the level of Arahat never breaks the five precepts. This is also a quality of the Buddha. But there is a different of using the word Arahan for the Buddha, it is a quality that other people who have attained Nibbana do not have. Even though both Arahat and a Buddha destroy the suffering the Buddha has a knowledge that other Arahat persons do not have. Because he himself found this truth of Nibbana at the Bo tree, he gained a knowledge that is unique to all Buddhas. This makes the Thatagata different from other Arahats. The other reason is that the Buddha has long running Paramitha for many lifetimes. This means that other than other Arahats, the Buddha has fulfilled different paramithas wishing the Buddhahood. Because of his good karma earned in the past lives, he gained this special knowledge with his enlightenment which other Araahts do not have.

The other reason we call Him Arahan is of his quality of introducing the Dhamma to the world. As you know that the Dhamma is only introduced to the world when a Buddha has been born. The Buddha understands the Dhamma by himself without a teacher. Now this is the Dependent origination (Patichcha samupada). Only a Buddha introduced this Dhamma to the world and people who understand that Dhamma become to the stage of Arahat by practising that Dhamma.

We also need to understand that it is only a Buddha that introduced the four noble truths to the world. They are the suffering, the cause for the suffering, the cessation of suffering and the path to cease the suffering. Now these four elements can only be seen in Buddhism.

The next article will cover the second quality, Samma Sambuddha.

Meditation

Honour to the Lord, Arahat, perfectly and completely Enlightened one!

A majority of us use meditation for sensual pleasure. In fact it is for the better of the present situation. When you are stressed and cannot get your head around you sit down for meditation to calm your body. But what we need to understand is that Buddhist meditation is for liberation. There is no middle and there is no other option. It is for liberation only. It is not to be born next to the God or not to be born in heaven. It is to understand the truth of this world and find answers for the suffering.

What is suffering?

A lot of us would ask what suffering is? What we need to realize first is that we cannot see this suffering that is around us. Even the richest person on this earth is suffering for the earthly conditions that are common to everyone such as sickness. Old age, death and even being born is a suffering. Well even in heaven, the Gods or God needs to go through the heavenly conditions. They are normal. That is the nature. In Hinduism they talk about Gods having a fight with the demeans. Meditation leads to the tranquillity of the mind and then the trained mind can be then focused towards the wisdom that will reach the state of Enlightenment.

How does Enlightenment end the suffering?

Well everything starts because of a reason. You are meant to be sick because you are born as a human or a God or a demean. So birth is suffering because we are born we are faced to all these sufferings. But we cannot control our birth. So does sickness, it is suffering and death is suffering too. No one likes to be dead. Enlightenment is the end to suffering because there is no Karma generated for a being to be born again. Simply the sole or what ever you may call it get vanished. The sole has no need to be born anywhere

This is a very deep concept in Buddhism and in order to understand this concept you need to look into it deeply. As Ven. Ajahn Brahmavamso says Buddhism is not a philosophy. Because you cannot attain Nibbana by reading or studying about the concept. You only can attain it by meditating. In this set of articles let me take you though some of the Buddhist meditation techniques.

Buddhist meditation is divided to two parts Samatha or tranquillity and Vipassana or wisdom. Out of these two meditation only Vipassana can take you to NIbbana. Samatha is not only a Buddhist meditation. Some of the Hindu meditation methods are same as Samatha meditation. For new practitioners, Samatha is recommended since it helps to calm your thoughts. Samatha meditation is an important component in meditation since without it a practitioner cannot lead the mind towards Nibbana. once someone trains their mind to calm down then the mind can be directed to look into the true form of everything.

In every practise there are preliminaries that need to be taken into consideration. Even in Buddhist meditation you need to practise these preliminaries that help you to get onto meditation. Remember meditation is not easy but it is very beautiful. It is like going on a holyday and forgetting all the burdens for a while.

Be well!