Golden Offering of Precious Beauty
Section I - The Life of a Storyteller and Buddhist Disciple of Maitreya
Maitreya speaks about the past life:
Your former life in a Buddhist monastery was a humble one.This ends the past life biography of the Buddhist monk Golden Offering of Precious Beauty.You never had much love in your life, so you did not miss it. You were glad to have survived a family where you were not wanted in a land of war and famine. Your name in that life would translate to Golden Offering of Precious Beauty. You had found a rock with gold flecks in it on your way to the monastery as a child, and you gave it to the abbot as an offering. He decided to name you after the rock.
The monastery had pictures and small statues of buddhas and bodhisattvas. But you always liked my picture and sat before it when you meditated during your free time. You asked for nothing.
You only sought to admire. This is a very pure form of devotion, and it drew me to you. I looked through the eyes of the thangka you were sitting before and our gazes met. A spark of divine light exploded between us and a bond was formed.
In your dreams, you were poor and neglected. So, I decided to improve them. I came on a pathway of golden stars and sent you images of the ancient buddha-lands. You saw the wars of the green-light devotees, the passions and adventures of the ruby-light devotees, the analysis and asceticism of the sapphire devotees, and the kindness and compassion of the devotees with golden hearts. Drama always involves opposition. So, there were monsters and villains of the shadow worlds.
There is both terrestrial and supernatural history. So, I brought your soul to the hills and valleys to view supernatural and ancestral adventures.
You awoke with inspiration and started writing down stories. You still did your work in the monastery, but the other monks realized that something unusual was happening with you.
It was rare that monks left the monastery but occasionally it happened. Your monastery focused on the historical buddha but accepted the existence of many buddhas and bodhisattvas. When monks from other monasteries visited, each would give teachings from his tradition.
Section II - A Monk Takes on a New Role as a Storyteller When you had been there for several years, the abbot of the monastery suggested that you tell some of your stories to guests. You told them the tales came from dreams and that you were unworthy of visions which were associated with advanced meditation skills. You then told them of the creations and wars of high buddhas and their followers and described the paradises of their emanations (dakinis and bhairavas).
The visitors were surprised and glad that you were writing down the stories. They told the abbot that your skills were being wasted in doing heavy labor. You would need a new role.
The monastery inhabitants practiced an older form of Mahayana Buddhism before it became philosophical and competitive. Some monasteries used to be places of devotion towards a variety of gods. In the distant past, the monastery had been a place of devotion or bhakti to different gods rather than buddhas.
At the monastery, the abbot was kind and open to the suggestions of the visitors. He offered to take you for further meditative training with recognized experts. They said you could earn your place by telling stories to potential donors to the monastery. Lay people always wanted to know what was happening in the heavens and you could both inform and entertain them.
When a person joins a monastery, especially as an adult, it is a tradition to bring a monetary offering. You did not have money. This is why the visitors discussed how you could earn your keep. A low offering meant low status but also that you could not take advanced teachings for free.
The abbot gave his blessing, and the visiting lamas discussed how their monasteries could be closer. In a sense, you were yourself an offering of value to them.
So, you left to travel with them to the new monastery and each day you told stories from your dreams. You learned how to deal with animals during travel and greet lay people.
The group of monks was traveling to bring back a relic from a great yogi siddha (one who had attained spiritual perfection). He had spent much of his life in a cave and lamas took rocks from his cave which they believed were imbued with his spiritual power. These rocks were placed within an altar at the home monastery, as an offering of power to the Buddha.
You came to the new monastery, Vajradham. It was larger than your previous home with rooms full of thangkas and scrolls. You found a place dedicated to me, Maitreya, and it became your favorite meditation spot.
I gave you the grace of clear thoughts and words and you in return gave devotional love, honor, and respect. The meditation teachers at Vajradham showed you how to control your experiences.
You lived in a small house in a small monastery. You could have been in an administrative hierarchy at a large monastery, but you did not want it for this life. You were repelled at the vanity and callousness of the monks as they worked their way up the chain of command. You wanted humility and devotion that was not corrupted by fund-raising monastic leaders.
So, you were a jewel that was hidden, a garden enclosed. You may have to battle dark karma in other ways but your devotion to me could be pure.
It was not your fate to be active politically, to create a revolution or spearhead an attack.
In your life as a monk and a storyteller, you found supernatural beauty amid pictures and writings. You had learned a rudimentary form of reading and writing but at the larger monastery, there were experts in literature, and you could learn from them.
As a monk, you had no woman in your life. So, you idealized White Tara and together we could be like ideal parents.
Your meditations could show the paradise worlds. The texts at Vajradham could talk about the history of the universe, the creation of many worlds and the fights with the deities of destruction and ignorance. Each day the goddess Maya revealed a new veil, and the god Mara showed a new battlefield or act of ignorance.
So, your life continued as a life of chores and meditation, a life of work and prayer. You became interested in cooking for the community and arranged food in attractive ways. You tried to have beauty in life that reflected the beauty in the paradise worlds.
The other monks had goals of power and prestige learning philosophy and debate. Some monks came from wealthy families that did not want them because of some flaw. Some sought to be negotiators in wars and were seen as good and just referees because they had no loyalty to either side of the conflict. Some sought to escape unhappy lives, especially broken love affairs. Some used their monk status as a steppingstone to work for kings as ministers, priests, or educators.
But for you, the monastery was the center of the world. It was a place to seek those you loved - the buddhas of mercy and beauty.
You told stories of cosmic battles and beautiful supernatural worlds to potential donors and gave them hope for reaching ancestor worlds and heavens following their deaths. You taught them introductory meditation and played games with children to teach them about karma and rebirth.
Your life was a humble one and did not get more dramatic with age. It was a life in which your devotion started to wear away the millstone of your bad karma.
We were spiritual friends. What does it mean to be friends with a bodhisattva? It means sharing jokes and appreciation of beauty and perspectives on the world. It means compassion becomes a shared state, separated from the spheres of greed and the demands of monastic colleagues.
Monasteries served many functions. They were orphanages, old age homes, schools, retreat centers, and places of psychological counseling. Convents served as shelters for battered women, deserted wives, and unwanted daughters.
People in monasteries needed many skills: cooking, cleaning, construction work, medical knowledge, counseling, and ritual skills for blessing and removing curses. Occasionally, a monk would have supernatural skills, with knowledge of hidden things of past and future, and how to deal with bad karma. Some monasteries had scrolls and thangkas. They were like small libraries and museums.
But your skills were different ones. You could write both religious revelations and supernatural tales. You could describe the incarnations of buddhas in different worlds and their teachings about how each form of life could perform religious ritual.
You came as an orphan at a young age and were sincere about questions concerning how the world was created and how souls can return to the heavens. The assistant abbot had similar interests and was willing to teach you.
But I appeared in your dreams and visions and gave you your path. I took you to the source of the tales that you told.
You kept up the relationship with the towns that were nearby visiting them by walking and oxen. Each month you would visit a town to get food and supplies and to help the people. You gave blessings to the old people and stories to the young ones. You welcomed infants into the world and sent old people into the next world with pathways and prayers. You spent time counseling the troubled.
This kept food and goods coming to the monetary. I blessed these trips.
During your travels, you would stop along inns at the side of the road and swap stories with merchants and traders. They had stories of kings and warriors. You had tales of gods and buddhas. You could speak at length before the fires and share food and drink.
You were a lifeline between the monasteries and the towns. When you got too old to travel, some of the younger monks tried to take over, but they were poor at storytelling, and the towns gave less food and charity. Fewer monks came to visit the monastery over time, and it was reduced to only a few monks remaining. It was the place with a golden jewel, but many monastic hearts lacked the bright gem of mercy. Between cold, storms, lack of food and threats from armies, it was difficult for small monasteries to survive.
But when you got old, the townspeople sent a message to the abbot saying that they wished to participate in your funeral so that they could say goodbye and thank you for your stories.
When you reached old age and fell down in pain, some of the monks took you by oxcart down to one of the towns. Though monks could be buried rather than burned, they wished to give you a warm send-off. They nursed you through your last days and you blessed the people who came to visit you in the name of the buddhas.
Some of the men gathered wood for a pyre when you had died and cremated you. Several children offered their toys to the pyre so you would remember them. Monks did not own things but there were offerings given to show honor and respect. One monk was there to chant prayers for liberation, but really the other monks were not that interested in your death. It was the townspeople who mourned you.
Your body was burned on the pyre surrounded by people praying for a good rebirth. These prayers were more sincere than the ones for liberation and they held sway.
Your soul rose from the body with light and you would have been welcome in my heaven. But it was weighed down by curses from your past and these changed the arc bringing you to rebirth. They pulled the soul back towards the dark smoky realms of cursed incarnation. The gem of your soul was drowned in a sea of muck, shining in the darkness.
Section III - The Afterlife of a Monk Blessed by The Bodhisattva Maitreya So, you did not enter my paradise following your death, though I would have welcomed you. After your death, you were pulled down by the forces of karma. I could delay them, but you would have to deal with them sooner or later. So, I decided to mitigate or lessen the effect of their extremes.
You would live in exile in your next life, but you would not be starving and poor. Instead, you would have a reasonably comfortable exile, with enough food and warmth. You would be betrayed by those in power over you, but you would not be jailed or killed. You would be able to accomplish your life goals despite these difficulties.
I also gave you a blessing that we would recognize each other in a later life, and you would rise like a lotus out of the mud. Your stem and leaves may be battered but your blossom would remain pure.
It was because of that blessing that we are able to speak now. It created a permanent link between us that will last over many incarnations.
Section IV - A Sample Folk Tale Told by the Monk and Traveling Storyteller Buddhas are like suns, full of beautiful shining light. Suns have sunbeams with rays that can appear over cloudy mountains at sunset and through foggy skies. As the sun's beams can travel outwards, so buddhas can radiate rays of compassion that are like sunbeams. The buddhas can create special bodies that can slide down the sunbeams like water slides down over rocky hilltops.
Buddhas can travel through the universe on these sunbeams. They can take on bodies like people put on boots. As boots help people walk through mud, the buddha's bodies help them travel through many worlds.
Long ago, a buddha decided to come down to our land to see how people were practicing Buddhism and how they treated each other. He disguised himself as a pilgrim from a faraway country going to sacred sites.
Along the way, he asked for food and shelter from the people that he met. Some people were selfish and called him an ignorant fool. They would not share food or water.
Others respected his goal and were charitable. They put rice and water in his bowl. He blessed them and continued on.
It happened that a great monster had long been imprisoned beneath the earth, and it was now able to escape. It came raging out of a deep canyon breathing fire and smoke, destroying houses and crops.
The people prayed to the buddha for help. But the selfish people who were uncharitable did not receive help because they would not help others.
But those who received the blessing from the hidden buddha had their houses and lands protected.
Not only that, but the monster shaking the ground revealed hidden jewels and gold that had been left by their ancestors. So, the monster's destruction brought blessings.
The hidden buddha created food and drink for the creature in the sky and it flew into the stars. The scales it shed became good luck amulets and the people that were generous were trice blessed.
The town became lucky with good weather and crops. The buddha left a world of happiness behind him.
Section V - A Second Buddhist Folk Tale: Amitabha Challenges the Rest of the Celestial Buddhas Most religions give folk stories that help less educated followers relate to the tradition. These stories draw people temporarily out of their limited lives as peasants and laborers. The stories point to a different landscape that allows their imaginations free rein while providing entertainment and a respite from hard labor and survival activities.
These stories are not for sophisticated and educated monks and lay people. However, they are a form of "buddha gossip" that provides a view of another world where heroes and buddhas interact and in the process explain something of the cosmology and the cast of characters in a given religion.
Here is an example folktale for adults told by Golden Offering of Precious Beauty to villagers.
The celestial buddhas of the Vajrayana path did not always get along with each other. In their highest forms, they accepted the value and beauty of variety in the created worlds. But in their more manifest forms, they can disagree with each other. Amitabha is the red buddha of drama, passion, and enthusiasm. His paradise is full of souls having fun in all sorts of dramatic ways. He is never satisfied with his number of devotees and always tries to poach the disciples of the other buddhas. He lures them in in many ways: He offers power to followers of Amoghasiddhi, love relationships to those who follow Ratnasambhava, and liberation of repressed desires to those that follow Akshobhya. For those that follow Vajrasattva, he creates red diamonds so the vajra light is tinted and thus distorted.When souls are between incarnations, they are vulnerable to temptation. The red buddha creates the image of an ideal world, a paradise that fulfills all the needs that a soul might have. He can hide the heavens of the other buddhas and attract those souls meditating on them to his own paradise.
While celestial buddhas are ultimately aspects of liberation, they also have more relative and creative forms. And some of those forms did not appreciate the red buddha's actions. He immersed himself too much in the worlds of illusion for their tastes.
So they decided to teach him a lesson. Even the detached buddhas were willing to participate. They created an illusory horde of souls to clog up Amitabha's paradise, who were ill-tempered and grouchy, and destroyed the happiness of other souls there. These souls were bored by drama and not interested in passion. They found the paradise of the red buddha dull and sleep inducing. Waves and more waves of these souls flooded his paradise, sending out waves of boredom and disapproval.
The excitement and drama of Amitabha's paradise was being submerged in gray clouds of dullness. But the more enthusiasm he created, the more it disappeared in the clouds.
He created great hurricanes to get rid of the waves of illusion, but it was not enough. The attacks of illusory form were endless.
Amitabha finally went to the other buddhas for help but they were not interested in helping him. They said, "You steal our followers, why should we be interested in helping you?"
He realized that they might have something to do with the problem, and that they would not help him as long as he poached souls.
Amitabha said, "Alright, from now on, I will not go out and draw souls to my paradise. I will let them go where they choose."
The other buddhas withdrew their illusions, and they agreed to focus more on liberation in the future.
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Lives of Awakening
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