An Interview with a Reporter on the Thoughts of
Yongsan Buddhism-4
There are people who assert that they can
see the Buddha. What level of the stage do
we have to rise to see the Reward Body
Buddha who is the original Buddha? We are
very anxious to know what appearances
Buddhas have had when you, the Great
Monk, saw them at the time when they
actually manifested.
The stage of being able to see the Reward
Body Buddha of Sakyamuni Buddha is the level
of a Buddha. As the Reward Body Buddha has
been made of the Immeasurable Light, sentient
beings cannot see it. Although we are able to see
it, the intensity of the Immeasurable Light is so
high beyond our imagination that we will turn to
powder. If a person who is not a Buddha says that
he has seen a Buddha Body, this means that he
must have seen a false Buddha, possessed by a
heaven mara.
Nosana Buddha who is the Reward Body
Buddha of Buddha the World-Honoured abides at
Hyonjisa all the time, but sentient beings cannot
see him. When the Reward Body Buddha comes
to the saha world, he manifests in various
Transformed Reward Body Buddha comes
Honoured is the King of the Three Realms, the
Dharma King in the universe, and the King of
Buddhism in Jambudvipa. He keeps his head
neatly shaved; he wears a long gray jacket with
wide sleeves and a red Dharma robe made of 108
pieces all the time; and he walks with a staff with
eight metal rings at its top.
The distinctive feature of Prabhutaratna
Buddha is that he has a short beard. Medicine
Tathagata Buddha puts white colthes on the lower
part of the body, and wraps with the red Dharma
robe around/above the breast, and his Body looks
transparent. Amitabha Buddha wears a long
jacket with wide sleeves in a golden color and a
red Dharma robe made of 55 pieces.
Samantabhadra Bodhisattva is in classical scholar
dress, letting his hair down and wearing it long,
and walks with a staff having a figure of a dragon
head on its top. Cundi Bodhisattva is in typical
queen dress. Avalokiteshvara has a typical Korean
woman figure, wearing traditional Korean clothes
in white silk. Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva wears a
gray traditional Korean overcoat and has a
bulging belly.
Do we have to see all mysterious abillty of
the Buddha appearing in the sutras such as
the Lotus Sutra or the Avatamsaka Sutra as
being true? Also, it is said that the awesome
spiritual power of the Buddha is universal. I
am anxious to know where such ability
originates from.
The rare awesome spiritual powers of the
Buddha are distinctively displayed in samadhi of
great quiescence, a billion kinds of Immeasurable
Light, and the Three Bodies of the Buddha. As
the Buddha has completed wisdom and blessed
virtues through practice over a billion kalpas, and
has completely become one with the original
body of the universe, he can make the most of all
limitless power, love, wisdom, substance, and
information that emptiness which is the original
body of the universe has. Therefore, we have to
understand the ability of the Buddha as being
limitless. There is almost nothing that is
impossible to the Buddha. Each one of a billion
kinds of Immeasurable Light that the Reward
Body Buddha emanates possesses rare ability. Let
me provide some examples of these abilities.
The Buddha possesses the ability of saving
human beings by leading sentient beings to the
road to liberation by clearing away their karmic
hindrance, and saving deceased spirits who have
fallen into evil destinies of the realms of hells,
hungry ghosts and animals to heavens. only the
Buddha has the ability of producing a Buddha.
only the Buddha has attained mastery of the
flame samadhi with the temperature of some
billion degrees that can bring all non-Buddhist
heretics into submission. He can throw away the
whole universe, can also manifest his body to be
as big as the earth, and can also make his body so
small that he can even enter a tiny sesame seed.
The Reward Body Buddha can reveal himself in
several thousands or tens of thousands of
Transformation Bodies in many Buddha-lands,
and they can act and work as individuals with
human character.
The following are all true facts, namely the
scene that Prabhutaratna Buddha and the Tower
of Prabhutaratna Tathagata rose up out of the
earth in the Chapter on the Appearance of the
Jeweled Tower in the Lotus Sutra; the scene that
Buddha the World-Honoured and Prabhutaratna
Buddha shared a seat together in the Tower of
Prabhutaratna Buddha that stood suspended in the
air and expounded the Dharma after having raised
the four groups of the followers into the air; the
contents of the Buddha having attained
Buddhahood in the immeasurable past and of his
immeasurable life in the Chapter on Duration of
Life of the Tathagata; and as is the contents that
the Buddha extended his long and broad tongue
and let it reach the Brahma Heavens upward in
the Chapter on the Supernatural Powers of the
Tathagata, and so on. In addition, the following
are also true that, as stated in the Avatamsaka
Sutra, the Buddha left his body at respective
places as he was and went to another place, going
back and forth to heaven and earth; and
manifesting himself freely as the Reward Body
and Transformation Bodies, he let people see the
inconceivable and endless worldsby emanating
hundreds, thousands, billions, nayuta and
asankhya of light from every pore of his Body.
I, J ajae Manhyon, make clear that the
mysterious awesome spiritual powers of the
Buddha described in the Lotus Sutra and the
Avatamsaka Sutra are all true. They have not
been sakd as a skillful means or figuratively. Still
these sutras have stated only a small number of
the abilities that the Buddha possesses. The
awesome spiritual powers of the Buddha cannot
be described in writing or speech at all. These are
the rare abilities of the Buddha that one can never
realize before one reaches the level of a Buddha.