Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle features Joseph Goldstein.
Buddha as Archetype
[We can] view the Buddha as a fundamental archetype of humanity; that is, as the full manifestation of buddha-nature, the mind that is free of defilement and distortion, and understanding his life story as a great journey representing some basic archetypal aspects of human existence. By viewing the life of the Buddha... as a historical person and as an archetype, it becomes possible to see the unfolding of universal principles within the particular content of his life experience. We can then view the Buddha's life not as an abstract, removed story of somebody who lived twenty-five hundred years ago, but as one that reveals the nature of the universal in us all. This becomes a way of understanding our own experience in a larger and more profound context, one that connects the Buddha's journey with our own. We have undertaken to follow the same path, motivated by the same questions: What is the true nature of our lives? What is the root cause of our suffering?
~ Joseph Goldstein, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.
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To see the Buddha as an object of worship, I can't do. I appreciate this quote about the Buddha as archetype of universal principles in us all. It's Jung's "Self" archetype, a mechanism towards wholeness. It is attributed to the Buddha, that he wasn't even going to teach after his enlightenment. I love that - kind of an anti-missionary. Helps me to look harder at his teachings, knowing that about him.
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