Between Gods and Buddhas

                                                                                                         Venerable Master Hsing Yun

Gods and Buddhas are different and should not be confused. Gods do not necessarily have historic backgrounds. During the age of divine right, humans made gods out of every natural phenomenon in the universe. For instance, there were gods in heaven, on earth, of the mountains, and of water. Then there were gods and deities in trees, flowers, rocks, and stones, or in the various elements of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain. All in all, there was nothing in nature that did not have a god. 

As civilization developed, humanity progressed from the age of the divine to the Middle Ages, where sovereign power was supreme. In Chinese culture, many of the gods and deities were created based on heroes of the times. Well-known personalities such as Guan Gong and Yue Fei were gods of military prowess, and Confucius, Mencius, and Zhuge Kongming became scholarly deities.

These so-called gods were none other than those who were either superior in martial arts or excelled in aiding the general public. They were personalities that members of the community yearned for. For instance, the "Old Man Under the Moon" is the modern day matchmaker, the "Disease God" is the Secretary of Health, and "Wenchang Dijun" is the Secretary of Education.

The creation of gods and deities was the result of human misconceptions about the world of nature. Or, people might have turned to gods for assistance when encountering problems dealing with government officials. The gods and deities were creations of their thoughts.

Some gods carried weapons, wore special garments, had beards, and even ate meat and fish. They were almost humanized. However, Buddhas were different from these gods. The Buddha was a human being. He had a birthplace, parents, cultivation, and enlightenment to the Truth. The Buddha was not a fictitious being; in fact, there is universally accepted historic proof of his existence.

The Buddha did not carry any weapon and wore no special garments. He did not reward the wholesome or punish the unwholesome. As a matter of fact, he was someone enlightened to the Truth who passed his wisdom onto the world, showed its people the path, gave them a direction, and left them his teachings. When the light of the Buddha shines in the world, we have brightness. But more importantly, we must allow the light in our hearts to shine through and to shine on others.

The Buddha is not about power. He is the Truth and a reflection of our minds. Since we each have a mind, then each of us has a Buddha in us. If we understand "the mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the mind," then we can look at the world through the Buddha's eyes, thereby which the world becomes the world of the Buddha. In the Buddha's world, we listen to sounds using the Buddha's ears and we speak using the Buddha's language. When we practice the compassion and wisdom of the Buddha, we become Buddhas right here and now.

Gods and Buddhas are different: not all of us can become gods, but each and every one of us possesses Buddha Nature within ourselves and can become Buddhas.