Who is the Buddha?

[There has been misconceptions by certain quarters 

that the Buddha was 
a 'reincarnation of ...' and in others,
that the Buddha was
a 'messenger of ...'.

This error in understanding or ignoring the Dhamma-Vinaya is often the result of 'wanting to rope in' a well respected teacher resulting in 'cherry picking' or ascribing (while ignoring the large body of teachings that provide the complete understanding of the subject) and 'seeing things where there is nothing there'.

The following is the Buddha's response from the Tipitaka and a commentary from a respected member of the Bhikkhu Saṅgha.]

“.. Just as a blue, red, or white lotus flower, though born in the water and grown up in the water, rises above the water and stands unsoiled by the water, even so, though born in the world and grown up in the world, I have overcome the world and dwell unsoiled by the world.
Remember me, brahmin, as 'awakened’.'

Dona Sutta AN 4.3

China’s ‘Handsomest Monk’ Wins Hearts, Converts

Wang Lianzhang Sixth Tone

Mar 02, 2017

Young abbot’s millennial appeal sparks renewed interest in Buddhism.

Shi Mingxing stands next to a window at Pu’an Temple, Wenzhou, 

Zhejiang province, Feb. 21, 2017. Wu Yue/Sixth Tone

ZHEJIANG, East China — Wandering along a cobblestone path near a temple in eastern China, Buddhist abbot Shi Mingxin is a striking figure: With his long earlobes, he even resembles the Buddha himself. And at 187 centimeters tall, it’s easy to see how the 36-year-old with broad shoulders and deep-set eyes earned the online moniker “the handsomest monk.”

“This is the life of a monk that I illustrated to you as much as I can.”

The Buddha taught us to practise all the time except when we go to sleep. He has set a schedule for a monk: from 6pm to 10pm we practise samādhi and wisdom, by sitting in meditation or walking meditation; from 10pm to 2am, we go to take a rest, to sleep; we get up at 2am and from 2am to 6am we do more walking and sitting meditation until the time to go on piṇḍapāta, to collect food.

Know and be aware

Tibet and India: Buddhist Traditions and Transformations

Posted on 17 February 2017 by Buddhism Now

As Buddhism spread out from north India, the place of its origin in the sixth century BC, the core ideas of this great religious tradition were often expressed through images. This Bulletin and the exhibition it accompanies, “Tibet and India: Buddhist Traditions and Transformations,” focus on Indian and Tibetan Buddhist art of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a period that witnessed both the end of the rich north Indian Buddhist tradition and the beginning of popular Buddhist practice in Tibet. At this critical juncture in Buddhist history, a number of Tibetan monks traveled down out of the Himalayas to study at the famed monasteries of north India, where many also set about translating the vast corpus of Buddhist texts.

Reminder for myself

"When a man is always mindful,
Knowing moderation in the food he eats,
His ailments then diminish:
He ages slowly, guarding his life."

SN 3.13, translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi

It is very nice and gives a personal note to the Buddha seeing him not only teaching people the Dhamma in order to attain Nibbana, but also to deal with very ordinary every day issues, like overweight!

Read the interesting and humorous story of overweight king Pasenadi coming to visit the Buddha, "huffing and puffing", after having eaten a "bucket measure of rice and curries" (Bhikkhu Bodhi), and the cure the Buddha prescribes to him.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/…/sn03.013.wlsh.html

BUDDHIST BAMIYAN MANUSCRIPTS ON PUBLIC VIEW FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THAILAND

12 November 2010

A selection from the centrepiece of the Buddhist collection - some 5,000 leaves and fragments, with around 7,000 micro-fragments from a library of originally up to 1,000 manuscripts found in caves in Bamiyan, Afghanistan - are on display in Buddhamonton in Thailand until February 2011.