The Bodhisattva and Accumulating Virtue

Abstract

Buddhism is a religion which arose from the Enlightenment of the

Lord Buddha (Gautama Buddha) who became enlightened about the Great Dharma and overcame a host of difficulties to discover the rational Dharma teachings, with the wish for humanity and all beings to escape the treadmill of Samsara, the eternal cycle of Earthly existence, and pursue Nirvana, which is the great release. He practiced striving before attaining Enlightenment and accumulating virtue in previous lives, with the difficulties of abstinence, when he was called “Bodhisattva”. This means a person enlightened as a Bodhisattva in the future, or a person being kept in place to achieve Enlightenment. He accumulated virtues until he had the full ten Virtues: Generosity, Morality, Renunciation, Insight, Energy, Patience, Truthfulness, Resolution, Loving-kindness and Equanimity. For each virtue he was severely tested to the ordinary, middle and highest levels of virtue. For the Bodhisattva in the Theravada tradition, it is believed that having attained Nirvana he will no longer be reborn, while in the Mahayana tradition, after Enlightenment or attaining Nirvana, he was reborn to relieve other beings from suffering.