Is Venerable Mahakashyapa still Alive?

Question

Is the disciple of Lord-Buddha Mahakashyap still Alive?

"The Venerable Mahakashyapa is still present in the world. When he left home under the Buddha, he was already one hundred sixty years old. At the time Shakyamuni Buddha had spoken Dharma for forty-nine years in over three hundred Dharma assemblies, Kashyapa was already over two hundred years old. After Shakyamuni Buddha entered Nirvana, Kashyapa went to Southwestern China, to Chicken Foot Mountain in Yunnan Province. It has been over three thousand years since the Buddha's nirvana, but Mahakashyapa is still sitting in samadhi in Chicken Foot Mountain waiting for Maitreya Buddha to appear in the world. At that time he will give Maitreya the bowl which the Four Heavenly Kings gave Shakyamuni Buddha and which Shakyamuni Buddha gave him, and his work in the world will be finished.

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Is that all true that he still's exists?

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Answer 1

I have no definite answer, but maybe this info will be useful:

According to Mahayana views, the material world we ordinarily perceive is only a part of reality. Another part of reality can be viewed as some kind of "spiritual realm", Sambhogakāya.

In a sense, both that spiritual realm and this material world are projections from true reality. It's not like there are other dimensions somewhere out there; rather, limits of our ordinary perception let us see only a part of what is here.

On some levels of advanced practice, we are able to perceive Buddhas and Bodhisattvas from Sambhogakaya realm,

may gain access to the Sambhogakaya and receive direct transmission of doctrine.

(All the quotations are from the link above).

In the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, Chan Master Huineng describes the Samboghakaya as a state in which the practitioner continually and naturally produces good thoughts:

Think not of the past but of the future. Constantly maintain the future thoughts to be good. This is what we call the Sambhogakāya.

Just one single evil thought could destroy the good karma that has continued for one thousand years; and just one single good thought in turn could destroy the evil karma that has lived for one thousand years.

If the future thoughts are always good, you may call this the Sambhogakāya. The discriminative thinking arising from the Dharmakāya (法身↔fashen "Truth body") is called the Nirmanakāya (化身↔huashen "transformation body"). The successive thoughts that forever involve good are thus the Sambhogakāya.

In that light, it seems quite possible that Venerable Mahakashyapa abides in Sambhogakaya to these days, and it's not impossible to meet him and receive teachings.