91 - Was the Buddha Always a Buddha? (The Lotus Sutra's Chapter 16)
5/29/202630 min
In this episode, we explore one of the most surprising teachings in the Lotus Sūtra: the idea that the Buddha didn’t become a Buddha under the Bodhi tree, but awakened countless ages ago. His birth, enlightenment, and even his passing are presented as skillful means and are compassionate appearances meant to guide us, not limits on who he is.
This teaching reminds us that awakening / enlightenment isn’t distant or rare. It’s timeless, ever‑present, and something we can uncover in ourselves right now.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Alan Peto· Host0:14
Welcome to another episode of Learn Buddhism. I'm Alan Pedo. Today, we're gonna talk about something you may not even know about. Traditionally, we learn about Siddhartha Gautama, the man who became the Buddha, where he set off and eventually meditated under the Bodhi tree, the tree of enlightenment, and became the Buddha. But there is actually another sutra that we find in Mahayana Buddhism that upends that. It tells you a whole different story. That is the Lotus Sutra. Now, this isn't the whole story of the Lotus Sutra, but it's a very interesting one, and it comes from chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra. In this portion, this chapter of the Lotus Sutra, we find that Shakyamuni Buddha, Gautama Buddha, was actually a Buddha before this. So he actually didn't become a Buddha under the Bodhi tree. He was already a Buddha, and it was really skillful means that he did this for us to actually understand the practice, understand the path, understand the Dharma.