Friday, May 15, 2009

The Five Treatises of Maitreya

The source for the full information on the five Treatises of Maitreya is the following webpage begin quote:
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Five_Treatises_of_Maitreya


Five Treatises of Maitreya
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Maitreya
Maitreya

The Five Treatises of Maitreya (Tib. byams chos sde lnga) - The bodhisattva Maitreya, who will be the next buddha after Shakyamuni, transmitted the root teachings to Asanga, who transcribed them as the ‘Five Treatises of Maitreya’.

Among the five, four are classed as shastras (commentaries) proper, and one falls into the class of oral instructions. The four that are shastras are extensive are:

1. The Ornament of Clear Realization (Skt. Abhisamayalankara; Tib. ngönpar tokpé gyen).
2. The Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras (Skt. Mahayanasutralankara; Tib. tekpa chenpö do de gyen).
3. Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes (Skt. Madhyantavibhaga; Tib. ü dang ta nampar chepa).
4. The Sublime Continuum (Skt. Uttaratantra Shastra; Tib. gyü lama).
5. Distinguishing Dharma and Dharmata (Skt. Dharma-dharmata-vibhanga; Tib. chö dang chönyi nampar chepa) is very brief and direct in its presentation and is included within the class of oral instructions. end quote.

Since I wrote the article on Maitreya Buddha today I seem to be in an intuitive flow that I hope will be useful to you. So I'm going to find all I can about Buddha Maitreya. Though I have always known about the coming Buddha Maitreya I've always vibed as an intuitive that he would come and be both the Buddha and the second coming all at once. This was always my intuition about him. So since I'm moved to do this I'll keep trying to research Maitreya for all of us.


The following web address explained Abhisamayalankara in a definition
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Knowledge_of_all_aspects
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Knowledge of All Aspects (or Omniscience) - the first of the eight topics of the Abhisamayalankara.
Definition

Knowledge of all aspects (or omniscience) is defined as knowing directly, and in a single instant, all aspects, without exception, of things in their real nature and in all their multiplicity.
Subdivisions

It can be subdivided into the omniscience which knows the nature of things and the omniscience which knows all things in their multiplicity. An illustration of the former is the true cessation present in the continuum of the noble Buddha. The latter includes both the omniscience which knows the features of all knowable phenomena without exception, and the omniscience which knows the seventy points, the chief amongst all causes and effects.
Parameters

It is present only in the continuum of a noble Buddha.
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I think someone on the path to enlightenment could practice omniscience by experiencing themselves as the entire universe. Because I was a conscious soul traveler throughout this galaxy and others from my late teens and then got terrified when I went out past the end of the galaxy. So I stopped for a while until I met my first Tibetan Lama who seemed to understand the void beyond the Galaxy. Then I stopped being afraid of the void beyond the galaxy and somehow then could go to other galaxies too. Over time I realized that anywhere I went in my soul or mind body I was already there and didn't have to put effort into getting there because I was already there. Over time this made me realize that the universe is only a thought in a very evolved God or Buddha's mind. Even physicists now say that the universe seems to me more like thoughts that material or what we believe as humans to be physical. Once I experienced the universe in this way I realized that I experience myself as the universe and I experience myself as the universes past, present and future. Now the part I don't always figure out is the part about the multiplicity of all things. It is easy for me to experience the whole universe in this moment as one being and I can experience this being even as me and be okay with that. However, trying to understand the multiplicity of capacity of everything also being multiple things at the same time is something I'm just beginning to even know that that exists. I had always assumed that the universe is just one thing one being. But if someone tells me for example that the universe I'm experiencing is only one of 70 aspects of the universe then that is something new to get used to.

If you are brave enough to experience the whole universe, then my experience of it is a lot like when I drive a car. When I drive a car or truck or plane, or motorcycle or boat, I think of the vehicle as my body so I give enough clearance to other objects so I don't run into other objects by accident. I think this basic idea works also for experiencing the universe. However, when I experience the universe I just let the universe be so I can see what it has to teach me. I do the same when I experience myself as the earth or the Sun or a star. I just be with it to see what it has to say or teach me. In this way I am a friendly non-threatening being simply learning. I'm not sure if doing it another way would be useful to you or anyone else.

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