Page 188 - Popular Deities of Chinese Buddhism (Illustrated) and Symbols

think that their parents are Buddhists by their acts of offering

incense to their family altars which, in fact, is ancestral worship

and has nothing to do with Buddhism. erefore it is important

that such people be taught not only of who or what the Buddha

is but what the Buddha is not.

e Buddha is not God or a deity whom one should pray to for

some fulfillment in life. e Buddha is not an incarnation of God

like Jesus Christ is to the Christians. He is not a prophet nor a

messenger of God. e Buddha does not answer your wishes or

bring you to heaven just because you have accepted him as your

Saviour. He is not the creator who decides the destinies of your life

nor can he save you if you have not lived a wholesome life. How-

ever, the Buddha can show the way by means of which you have to

save yourself. is means that only you can save yourself and that

you will have to work very hard at it in order to save yourself.

So if the Buddha is not God, who or what is He? He is a human

being but a very special human being, one who has gained what

we call “Enlightenment”. He is the fully Awakened One and He

is one who has become free from all kinds of worldly passions;

whose mind is pure; whose mind is full of wisdom; whose mind

is full of love and compassion towards all sentient beings; a super

human, the purest, the noblest and most virtuous of beings. All

these qualities He possesses in the highest possible degree. is

is but a brief description that one can make of a Buddha. Going

for Refuge to the Buddha therefore means taking and accepting

the Buddha as our ideal. e Buddha was a man such as we, so

what He achieved, we too can achieve. If we accept this, if we

 