Told A Monk About This Forum

[lungmi]

and even in the commentaries of such highly academic Buddhists a PA Payuttho.

O.K. Quote and I fight back,

(I see in a Tibetan documentary where novices learnt to argument, big mouvements, big mouth)

[Jawnie]

Every Buddha has to be born as a man...since otherwise people will believe he can do things because he is superhuman.

However he is more than just a normal man, because he has been perfecting himself as a Boddhisatva for innumerable aeons...which is why when he was born he proclaimed that there was no being his superior in any of the 31 realms....quite true.

At what age and development did he make the proclamation?

Was he enlightened at the time?

Does this mean that if any of us haven't been a Boddhisatva in former re births, we are precluded from enlightenment in this life?

The movie Groundhog Day was very insightful and comes to mind.

A man was stuck in time, repeating the same day with the same people, only he was able to remember each day that went before.

He would make mistakes and over indulge, but eventually improved his interactions until true love and care for others was perfected.

At the time of Buddha's final human rebirth, he had been on the Bodhisattva path for many aeons, as fabianfred said. The history of some of the Buddha's previous lives are recorded in the Jataka stories. Buddha was a highly realized spiritual being when born into his final birth. But, he had not achieved the full and complete enlightenment of a Buddha. This is what I've read but it's way too advanced for me to really know.

The sutras talk about ten levels of Bodhisattvas, the tenth being a fully Enlightened One. Reaching the first level is extremely difficult and time consuming to reach (we are talking lifetimes here). It is not a matter whether a person is "precluded" from Enlightenment. I don't think such a concept even applies. One is either enlightened or they are not; there is no external thing that could exclude one from enlightenment. As is typically mentioned here, whether one achieves enlightenment is completely up to the individual. However, I don't believe the Therevada form of Buddhism allows for enlightenment in one life time; I think Theravada allows for enlightenment after "Three Immeasureable Aeons"....there could be further distinctions. For example, I'm not sure that Bodhisattva is a Theravada ideal, but rather a Mahayana ideal. It is only Vajrayana Buddhism that allows for Buddhahood in a single lifetime. If you are a Theravada practioner destined to reach full and complete enlightenment in this lifetime, you probably already know it.