Mahayana The Great Wheel Important Sutras The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines

1. Mahayana The Great Wheel Important Sutras The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines The Flower-Ornament Sutra The Lotus Sutra Saddharmapundarīka-sūtra The Heart Sutra The Diamond Sutra

2. Terms Mahayana = Great Vehicle Prajna paramita = Highest wisdom Bodhicitta = Buddha-mind, Buddha-nature Bodhisattva= Enlightening/ment Beings *** Upaya = expedient means *** Samsara = the round of existence Samsara = Nirvana

3. The Inconceivable

4. Excerpts from the Lotus Sutra, 1 Manjushri,there are also bodhisattvaswho after the Buddha has passed into extinctionmake offerings to his relics.I see Buddha sonsbuilding memorial towersas numberless as Ganges sands,ornamenting each land with them,jeweled towers lofty and wonderful,five thousand yojanas high,their width and depthexactly two thousand yojanas,each of these memorial towerswith its thousand banners and streamers,with curtains laced with gems like dewdropsand jeweled bells chiming harmoniously.There heavenly beings, dragons, spirits,human and nonhuman beings,with incense, flowers and musicconstantly making offerings. Yojana = 7-8 km http://www.sgi-usa.org/buddhism/library/Buddhism/LotusSutra/

5. Good men, once, at a time that was an immeasurable, boundless, inconceivable number of asamkhya kalpas in the past, there was a Buddha named Sun Moon Bright, Thus Come One, worthy of offerings, of right and universal knowledge, perfect clarity and conduct, well gone, understanding the world, unexcelled worthy, trainer of people, teacher of heavenly and human beings, Buddha, World-Honored One, who expounded the correct Law "Then there was another Buddha who was also named Sun Moon Bright, and then another Buddha also named Sun Moon Bright. There were twenty thousand Buddhas like this, all with the same appellation, all named Sun Moon Bright. And all had the same surname, the surname Bharadvaja. Maitreya, you should understand that from the first Buddha to the last, all had the same appellation, all were named Sun Moon Bright. They were worthy of all the ten epithets and the Law they expounded was good at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end." Kalpa = One of the Brahmanic eons, a period of 4,320,000,000 years. At the end of each Kalpa the world is annihilated.

6. from the Lotus Sutra, 7, The Phantom City The Buddha made this announcement to the monks: Once in the distant past, an immeasurable, boundless, inconceivable asamkhya number of kalpas ago, there was at that time a Buddha named Great Universal Wisdom Excellence Thus Come One, worthy of offerings, of right and universal knowledge, perfect clarity and conduct, well gone, understanding the world, unexcelled worthy, trainer of people, teacher of heavenly and human beings, Buddha, World-Honored One. His land was named Well Constituted and his kalpa was named Great Form. "Now monks, since that Buddha passed into extinction, a very great, a very long time had passed. Suppose, for example, that someone took all the earth particles in the thousand-million-fold world and ground the up to make ink powder, and as he passed through the thousand lands of the east, he dropped one grain of the ink powder no bigger in size than a speck of dust. Again., when he passed through another thousand lands, he dropped another grain of ink. Suppose he went on in this way until he had finished dropping all the grains of the ink made from the earth particles. Now what is your opinion? Do you think that, with regard to those lands, the masters of calculation or the disciples of calculation would be able to determine the number of lands that had been visited in the process, or would they not?" "That would be impossible, World-Honored One." "Now monks suppose that one should take the earth of all the lands this man had passed through, whether he dropped a grain of ink there or not, and should pound it into dust. And suppose that one particle of dust should represent one kalpa. The kalpas that had elapsed since that Buddha entered extinction would still exceed the number of dust particles by immeasurable, boundless, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands millions of asamkhya kalpas. But because I employ the Thus Come One's power to know and see, when I look at that far-off time it seems like today."

7. In the Eagle Nebula

9. Voyager 1 image of earth from 4 billion miles

10. The Bodhisattva

12. Guan Yin

13. Devotional images of Guan Yin, Chinese representation of Avalokitesvara, bodhisattva of Compassion. Note willow branch in her left hand and water bottle in right.

14. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is an incarnation of Avalokitesvara. Shown here at age 4, Tenzin Gyatso is the 14th Dalai Lama

16. Manjusri, From the Jacques Marchais Museum, Staten Island, New York

18. Samantabhadra, “universally extending” (samanta) “virtue” (bhadra),” is the primordial Buddha, pure omniscience, the enlightened mind, the union of samsara and nirvana. Here show in union with his consort Samantabhadri.

20. Maitreya, 2nd Century CE

21. Amitabha in Western Paradise

22. Amitabha in Western Paradise

23. Chan Zen and the Arts

24. Bodhidharma

25. Bodhidharma

28. Stone garden at Ryoanji, Kyoto, Japan

29. Stone garden at Ryoanji, Kyoto, Japan

30. Stone garden at Ryoanji, Kyoto, Japan

31. Calligraphy of Kazuaki Takahashi http://www.brushmind.net/

32. Kas’s rendition of qi, breath/ energy 30x35”

33. Kas’s rendition of xing (action/practice) 30x35”

35. Cha no yu

39. Ikebana

41. Arts of the Tokonoma

42. Tokonoma