[click image, Avalokiteshvara, buds with Samantabhadra and Maitreya]...
It has come to my attention that there are and have been claimants to buddhahood, to capital B buddhahood, as in THE buddha. The Buddha would never claim such a thing. All sentient beings are buddhas, but no enlightening beings, of any stage, call themselves "The Buddha", even if they ARE, nor do they call themselves "teachers" or "bodhisattvas" or anything designed to set themselves up as something special.
Yes, this lets out almost all the public teachers. Some are less dangerous than others. Some actually do a little good. But NO buddha, let alone The Buddha, stands there and tells you he is The Buddha. No one who does is.
I'm not even sure the last one ever considered himself The Buddha. It's baloney. There's no such a thing, not in the sense people take it, anyway. That's a designation to head up a following, which too soon devolves into a religion. It's NOT a religion. Yes, yes, people have made it into a bunch of religions, but it is NOT a religion, and no enlightening beings even call themselves "enlightened". That's crap. That's "samsara". That's deluding delusory delusion. Don't fall for it. YOU might recognize an enlightening being, a teacher, a spiritual master, but you will know you've made a mistake if they ever refer to themselves as such. You can take that to the bank.
I came across this offense to living things in the course of trying to check out a rumor that they are talking about Maitreya, the next Buddha, as foretold by the ancients, on TV. I didn't catch the whole drift of that, and maybe it's just another claimant to something Buddhas don't claim, but PLEASE, keep this much straight, okay?
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