Neo Zen
There are many references to this mystical number and each metaphor has its own place within its own context. This is all exciting to know, yet could lead someone astray if one is merely satisfied with relative knowledge. Its nice to know the distance to the Pureland is such and such, but it is more significant to begin a right path toward freedom and happiness. When you get down to business, one must face reality and start on the path to Buddhahood…provided that one understands the real significance of traversing such a path. It is more important to know that there is such a path out of suffering on this planet right now. This is the fourth noble truth itself which the Vedas don’t quite get to the point and explain the definitive meaning.
The word bhumi is a Sanskrit term that literally means ground and represents a level of spiritual attainment. The implication is that each successive ground is an ascension towards full Awakening. As it states in the Lankavatara sutra each bhumi is a stage of increasingly higher perfection in wisdom. The bodhisattva on the higher bhumis has more intelligence and more abilities because he is perfecting his understanding of Sunyata. It is interesting to note that each of the Ten bhumis corresponds to a specific perfection starting with generosity and moral conduct and ending with skillful means and Knowledge.
When one acquires more wisdom through right meditation, one’s full potential, that has been dormant since beginingless lifetimes, starts to unfold by traversing the five paths towards Buddhahood. And as one reaches the final Path of No-More Learning one becomes a Buddha. In this regard, can we truly say that one is finished school…whether we call it Earth school or Bodhisattva school or Nyingma school. The last path is specifically called no-more learning or Asiksa-marga. Before, one had to learn to perfect the two-fold accumulations of merit and wisdom for many aeons. But now, as a Buddha, one is “finished the course” and “completely graduated” from this earth-plane because there is no more chance for rebirth; as those karmic-seeds are gone even at the eighth bhumi. The Buddha has completely escaped all the sufferings of cyclic existence (samsara). Furthermore, it is impossible for a Buddha to revert back to ignorance or “start school again” from the beginning since the chain of interdependent origination (birth, old age and death) has been cut off. We might say the continuity of the 108 beads of the mala has finally broken.
Thanks,
Neo
