"...believed in the Tengri and the Bodhisattvas - the Buddhist side of his people's inherited religion had been less prominent since the Change - and performed rites and sacrifices."
-SM Stirling, The Sky-Blue Wolves (New York, 2018), CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, p. 281.
Bodhisattvas are mythological enlightened beings who return to Samsara to help everyone else to realize Nirvana. They are not based on historical figures and it is not necessary to believe that they literally exist. Poul and Karen Anderson's Ysans had a philosophical understanding of Myth.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I believe the Catholic/Orthodox belief in actual, historical persons whose devotion to God and mankind raised them to the level of saints esp. recommended for our reverence and emulation to make more sense. A mere personalization of a myth which is not even believed to be TRUE strikes me as basically, deeply unsatisfactory.
Sean
Sean,
But we can be Bodhisattvas to each other.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
True, or at least saintlike.
Sean
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