Bodhisattva of Progress
This chapter offers an analysis of Taixu’s Maitreyan theology through a close reading of his commentaries on the Three Essentials—the texts he identified as the cult’s foundation. These were the “Chapter on Knowing Reality,” the Yoga Bodhisattva Prātimokṣa, and the Sutra of Maitreya’s Ascent. It argues that Taixu found in these texts, and in his interpretations augmented, indigenous analogues to the key values that inspired him as a young anarchist: science, a revolutionary ethic, and utopia. These texts further allowed him to bring these values into meaningful relationship with the core Buddhist good of Buddhahood.