James Baquet

    jamesbaquet@gmail.com

    THE main hall of some temples is called the “Precious Hall of the Great Hero,” which refers to Shakyamuni, the historic Buddha. He is usually seated with figures on either side of him — bodhisattvas, or other Buddhas.

    If Buddhas, they may be different from the central figure, or sometimes, as at Liurong Temple in Guangzhou, they are virtually identical. In this case, they are the “Buddhas of the Three Times.”

    To understand this better, let’s talk about Buddhist time. A scholar named John Snelling pictures time as an arc, with a horizontal line across it. The smaller arc above is historical time; the two curved “legs” are mythical time, with the past on the left, and the future on the right.

    Everything we know of history, and realistic projections of the future, are in the arc above the line. This is the time of Shakyamuni, “the historical Buddha.” But Buddhism teaches that there were cosmic, or mythical, Buddhas before and after Shakyamuni.

    Now we’re ready to look at the Three Buddhas. The one on the left is Dipankara, called in Chinese “Randeng (Lamp-Lighter) Buddha.” He was the last Buddha before Shakyamuni, and in fact met him (in one of his previous lives) and declared that he would be the next person to attain Buddhahood.

    Likewise, Shakyamuni recognized his disciple named Maitreya as the next to achieve this status. Chinese know him as Mi-le Fo, often depicted as a fat, jolly man, but sometimes seen looking very much like other Buddhas.

    And so we have the Buddhas of the past, present, and future seated together, representing the “Three Times.”