Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide (Graphic Guides)

by Borin Van Loon

The followers of the Mahayana returned to the original inspiration of the Buddha to develop compassion for all beings. They felt that the only liberation possible was one in which the experience could be used to further the welfare of others. Individual liberation was impossible if other people were suffering. Can there be happiness when all living creatures suffer? Can you be saved and hear the whole world cry? The new ideal became the Bodhisattva whose outstanding quality was compassion and who would infinitely delay his or her own enlightenment until all beings were freed. In this way, the entire world was drawn into the process of liberation. Individual suffering was overcome by a compassion that was so all-embracing that personal sorrow lost its meaning. Paradoxically, if we accept our own suffering and fully relate it with the suffering of others, we transform that pain into a means of liberation. The ideal of the Bodhisattva transformed early Buddhism which had sought escape from the world, and changed it from a collection of schools – all claiming to possess the true interpretation of the Buddha’s teaching - into a world religion in which individual freedom takes second place to a sense of responsibility for the liberation of all beings. Compassion and empathy for one’s fellow beings becomes more important than escape from one’s own suffering. To the followers of the Mahayana, the historical Buddha became less important. During the Buddha’s lifetime he had been a l...