Buddhism in Five Minutes - Elizabeth J. Harris
10. How is the Nature of Buddhahood to be Understood?
Buddhism in Five Minutes - Elizabeth J. Harris
Christopher V. Jones [+]
University of Cambridge
Christopher V. Jones is a Bye-Fellow of Selwyn College, and affiliated lecturer and research associate at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. A primary focus of his research is the history of Mahayana Buddhist thought in the early centuries of the Common Era, preserved in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan literature.
Description
Asking about the nature of “buddhahood” is no small matter. Just as traditions of Abrahamic theology have not necessarily agreed regarding the nature of God, so too “Buddhology”—confessional or academic interest in buddhas and their nature—cannot provide one definitive account of what it is to be a buddha. The question invites an overview of how the Buddha (or buddhas) have been understood across roughly two-and-a-half thousand years of history.