Golden Light Sutra

Nice, I haven't read that one yet. Do you have a favorite passage?
 
Nicholas Weeks said:
Many, all of chapter four among them.
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Thanks, reading chapter four.

In keeping with the recent thread about reading other people's scriptures, I'd like to make a comment (respectfully, mindful of cultural bedrock and the gulf of time, and the difficulties inherent in translation) on the following passage from chapter 4:

“May all women become like men,
Heroic, learned, lucid and strong.
Endeavoring to complete the six perfections,
May they incessantly strive for enlightenment.

May they come to behold buddhas in the ten directions,
Seated at ease upon precious lapis thrones
Under bejeweled exquisite stately trees.
May they hear the buddhas' Dharma explained.”

(Excerpt From
Sutra Of Golden Light
This material may be protected by copyright.)​

If the basic idea here is that men have all these qualities (since women should be more like men in order to to gain them), then I can't be a man...

Another thought: maybe it was verses like this one which got Noble Tara to make her vow.

I like the general atmosphere of the chapter a lot! The whole sutra seems to have a social political quality. Wish there was more of that in (Western) Buddhism.
 
Buddha narrates in chapter 18 his past life where he gave his body to a starving tigress. He mentions the karmic ties of the major persons around him then:

I, the Tathagata Shakyamuni was formerly Mahasattva, Son of King Maharatha who made the tigress well.

Shuddhodana, the great king was the king called Maharatha, and Queen Maya was the sublime queen. Mahapranada became Maitreya. Likewise, Prince Mahadeva was the youthful Manjushri. The tigress was Mahaprajapati; the five bhikshus were her five cubs.

When Mahasattva gave the tigress his body, he made this altruistic wish: “By the merit of completely giving my body, may I, in future times for eons utterly beyond thought, perform the deeds of buddhas for sentient beings.”
 
So this is where that story comes from. I always assumed it was in the Jataka tales.

Given the Buddha's ambivalent position towards the order if nuns, it is interesting how the tigress' later incarnation was instrumental in the founding of the bikkhuni order.
 
Nicholas Weeks said:
Revered in both Hinayana & Mahayana circles, this powerful sutra provides many blessings & merit to those who study, recite, copy or share it:

https://fpmt.org/wp-content/uploads/teachers/zopa/advice/pdf/sutragoldenlight0207lttr.pdf
Click to expand...

Looking this Sutra up, I found that I had downloaded it a while ago. Dipping into it I was struck by the words speaking of the "Buddha's domain of experience, the profound sphere of reality". This linked for me with a recently read poem by Chiao Jan (730-799)

Spring's songs already quieting,
The ancient source still bubbles forth.

It's a mistake, my modern friends,
to wound the heart to try
to cross the stream.

The "domain" is home, but also a journey. Experience never ends.

Well, that's how I see it.
 
CobblersApprentice said:
It's a mistake, my modern friends,
to wound the heart to try
to cross the stream.
Click to expand...
The impersonal effulgence of the absolute truth hides the personal beauty of its wellspring.

Though I travel through the valley of low-life slugs,
I fear no slug...

Persona comes from Persona.

Which came first, the Persona or the Person?
 
Sublime Golden Light Sutra - new Mahayana translation from 84000 project:

https://read.84000.co/translation/toh555.html

SUMMARY

The Sūtra of the Sublime Golden Light has held great importance in Buddhism for its instructions on the purification of karma. In particular, much of the sūtra is specifically addressed to monarchs and thus has been significant for rulers‍—not only in India but also in China, Japan, Mongolia, and elsewhere‍—who wished to ensure the well-being of their nations through such purification. Reciting and internalizing this sūtra is understood to be efficacious for personal purification and also for the welfare of a state and the world.

In this sūtra, the bodhisattva Ruciraketu has a dream in which a prayer of confession emanates from a shining golden drum. He relates the prayer to the Buddha, and a number of deities then vow to protect it and its adherents. The ruler’s devotion to the sūtra is emphasized as important if the nation is to benefit. Toward the end of the sūtra are two well-known narratives of the Buddha’s previous lives: the account of the physician Jalavāhana, who saves and blesses numerous fish, and that of Prince Mahāsattva, who gives his body to a hungry tigress and her cubs.
 
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