What era is it now?
Strictly speaking, this is the era of Xiangfa. According to the spread of Buddhism, it can be divided into three periods. The period when the Buddha lived in the world and taught in person is called the Dharma Period; after the Buddha passed away, many scriptures were left behind, and the Buddhist statues and scriptures that still remain in the world are called the Dharma Period; in the end, there are no Buddha statues and no scriptures. Now, it is called the Dharma Ending Period, and human catastrophes will come one after another. There are several kinds of catastrophes for human beings. The catastrophes of swords and wars are wars. Human beings kill each other and die together. The catastrophes of epidemics are diseases. All kinds of strange diseases are prevalent and medicine is helpless. The catastrophes of famine are environmental pollution, ecological destruction and crises in food production. Everyone is hungry, which is a minor disaster. In addition, there are three major disasters such as wind, water, and fire, which can destroy the entire universe, which is even more terrifying.
At the end of the tribulation, human knowledge has been very advanced, the mind is very smart, the brain is fully developed, and the limbs have degenerated. Although we are not yet in the Age of Ending Dharma, modern children are much smarter than before. At the same time, people are also lazy, and their limbs are becoming less and less developed, because more and more of our lives rely on machines. At the same time, when the real end of the world comes, human lifespan will also be shortened. At that time, people's hearts will become very bad and they will kill each other. In the end, only a few will be left as a human race. Then, human history and culture are re-established. Every hundred years, the life span increases by one year, and the height increases by one inch. This gradually increases, and the human life span reaches 84,000 years, which is when Maitreya Bodhisattva was reborn in the human world.
When the Buddha was alive, the so-called Dharma Era; or, after the Buddha's Nirvana, the so-called Immortal Dharma Era, the sutra Buddha statues were still there; or, in the Dharma Ending Era, all the classic Buddha statues were gone. At the end of the Dharma Age, even though the Dharma has ended, the true Dharma of Buddhism still exists. All living beings still have Buddha nature, and there are also great people.
"There is no difference between the true Dharma and the imaged Dharma." Buddha Dharma is the truth and exists eternally in this world. The Buddha said that after I pass away in the future, there will be no Dharma. That is just a convenient way of saying it, and it cannot be a righteous teaching. According to the doctrine of Righteousness, there is no such thing as Dharma, Dharma, or the Age of Ending Dharma. The truth exists eternally, but you have to find it yourself.