Buddhism arose in India around 500 BCE. It was focused on the teachings of Gautama Buddha and organized around the spiritual practices of monks and nuns who also taught the Buddha's message. In the first 500 years of its existence in India the religion or tradition of Buddhism was influenced by other religious ideas and a new major interpretation of Buddhist teachings evolved. In this new version of Buddhism there were several spiritual figures called bodhisattvas; these were advanced spiritual practitioners who vowed not to enter enlightenment until all sentient beings had entered enlightenment and left the world of suffering or samsara
[...] New York: Bloomsbury Paul, Diana Y., Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in the Mahayana Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press Rahula, Walpola, What the Buddha Taught. New York: Grove Press Robinson, Richard H. & Johnson, Willard L., The Buddhist Religion. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company Shaw, Miranda. Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Wikipedia, “Guan March from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guan_Yin Richard H. Robinson & Willard L. Johnson, The Buddhist Religion (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, [...]
[...] Then they too would be able to seek enlightenment.[2] The bodhisattva in the Mahayana tradition was a person who made it to the doorway of enlightenment and then stopped, vowing not to enter enlightenment until all beings had been saved from the world of suffering (samsara) where all beings, living or dead, are trapped.[3] Practitioners who could not, or did not want to, engage in the arduous meditation practices and lives of renunciation required in Hinayana Buddhism, could reach enlightenment through the intercession and aid of these bodhisattvas by honoring and invoking them. [...]
[...] Though Chenrezi, the Tibetan male bodhisattva of compassion, continues to be a popular figure, he is not nearly so widely known and loved, both inside and outside Tibetan culture, as the female Tara, who is said to have been born from a tear Chenrezi shed in compassion for the suffering of the world. Tara, like Kuan Yin, is the embodiment of compassion in a female form. Tara was born out of Chenrezi/Avalokitesvara through his expression of compassion, while Kuan Yin actually became Avalokitesvara in a female form, and the male form disappeared from Chinese and Southeast Asian Buddhism. [...]
[...] When Buddhism moved out of India the devotees of Avalokitesvara carried the concept of this bodhisattva with them to other countries. As Buddhism moved north into Tibet, Avalokitesvara became a major influence in the development of the unique form of Buddhism evolving there. He was known in Tibet by several names, the most common of which was Chenrezi (or Chenrezig). Chenrezi, a male bodhisattva, had the same mantra as Avalokitesvara: Om Mani Padma Hum. All fourteen of the Dalai Lamas are believed by many Tibetans to be incarnations of Chenrezi or Avolokitesvara, and Karmapas, heads of another branch of Tibetan Buddhism, and other major Tibetan lamas are also believed to be his incarnation. [...]
[...] In one version of the story she was even offered instant enlightenment if she became a male. She rebuffed the monks, saying that the concept of male and female was an illusion, and then she vowed to become a Buddha in a woman's body, and, of course, succeeded.[7] This means that while the male image of compassion, Chenrezi, remained a bodhisattva, Tara became a Buddha, realizing full enlightenment. Tara is one of the most popular deities in Tibetan Buddhism and has various forms. [...]
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