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Context of his life

Lived from 563 to 480 bce

Probably a member of the Kshatriya caste [second highest in ritual status of the four varnas, or social classes, of Hindu India, traditionally the military or ruling class.]

Protected from the realities of suffering and evil by his father

Discovered tragedy

Discovered old age and death

Discovered illness

Discovered injustice

Discovered cruelty

Discovered mental illness

Discovered prejudice

Why does life include such things?

What do they mean?

Gautama explores—

The disciplines of philosophy of the highly educated Brahmins.

Spiritual disciplines of the highly disciplined, self-denying ascetics.

Gautama is disappointed.

Through a life-or death meditation

He came to understand the source of suffering and its relationship to universal/timeless life.

Buddha goes through four trances

Joy and pleasure from reasoning

Joy and pleasure from concentration without reasoning

Calmness and self control towards joy or aversion

Aversion: a feeling of strong dislike or a lack of willingness to do something

Beyond pleasure or pain with purity of mind and peacefulness with self control

 

 

From the Way of Purification

Birth goes with death. Fortune goes with misfortune. Bad things follow good things. Men [and women] should realize this. Foolish people dread misfortune and strive after good fortune, but those who seek Enlightenment must transcend both of them and be free of worldly attachments.

Thousands of people may live in a community but it is not one of real fellowship until they know each other and have sympathy for one another.

To adhere to a thing because of its form is the source of delusion. If the form is not grasped and adhered to, this false imagination and absurd delusion will not occur. Enlightenment is seeing this truth and being free from such a foolish delusion.

Persons living today have former lives.

Rebirths are dependent on karma.

The Buddhist idea of karma:

Life contains suffering because humans selfishly desire physical, spiritual, and intellectual attainments and satisfactions. This suffering can be overcome through elimination of desire; then rebirth, according to one’s actions in this life, can be transcended.

It is the accumulated karma attached to one’s consciousness that requires the round of rebirths.

These truths free one from the round of rebirths and bring one to Nirvana.

Nirvana: a state of being beyond all selfish desire, intellectual comprehension, or usual human emotions. "The stopping of becoming is Nirvana.

Nirvana: permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, and unbecome; it is power, bliss, and happiness; the secure refuge, the shelter, and the place of unassailable safety; it is the real Truth and the supreme Reality; it is the Good, the supreme goal,…the eternal, hidden and incomprehensible Peace.

The Four Nobel Truths

Life inevitably involves dukkha (suffering).

The cause of suffering is tanha (ego-oriented desire or selfish craving).

Suffering can be overcome by defeating selfish desires.

Selfish desires are overcome through following the
Eightfold Way.

The Eightfold Path:

Right view

Awareness of the need to overcome selfish desire

Right thought

Determination to solve this problem

Right speech

Choosing not to lie or use evil language

Right action

A refusal to kill, steal or behave immorally

Right mode of livelihood

Noninvolvement in the professions that harm living things

Right endeavor

Suppression (not repression) of wrong states of mind and creation of right states of mind.

Right Mindfulness

Self-knowledge and self-mastery

Right Concentration

The experience of being freed from the false sense of selfhood and the isolation of selfish motivation

Enlightenment—

Is more than a matter of ethics.

Is insight into the very essence of life and freedom to live on the basis of that insight.

Ends the rounds of reincarnations

His nature

In his own eyes, he was not "divine"; he was "the enlightened one"—I am awake!

After a number of years, others believed the Buddha’s teachings and patterns of living revealed insight into human life and the nature of reality. In some areas of Buddhism, the Buddha was elevated to divine status.

After the Buddha died:

Followers joined in council and began to recite and memorize his teachings.

Result: Dogma and tradition, something the Buddha had criticized in Hinduism

Followers split into two groups:

Theravada—the school of the elders; adheres to a strict teaching of the Buddha; a way of the full-time religious person, the monk.

Theravada (cont’d)

Laypeople express their religion by being supportive of the monks.

In return for material support, the monks perform ritual and festival functions, although meditation is stressed more than these.

Mahayana Buddhism

Stresses the infinite compassion of the Buddha

Buddha assumes the role of savior, as he and others assist persons toward enlightenment.

Less strict than Theravada

Mahayana (cont’d)

The concept of the bodisattva

Persons or beings who are "awakening"

Persons far along the path to full enlightenment

Both male and female

Bearers of divine grace to help the ordinary believer

Compassion is their chief characteristic

Tibetan Buddhism—7^th century ce

Religious Leader: The Dalai Lama

The earthly manifestation of infinite compassion and wisdom

A bodhisattva in his 14^th manifestation in human incarnation

Beliefs

In the interrelationship of all of life

The energies of the body may be used in the spiritual quest for enlightenment.

Beliefs (cont’d)

Practice of rituals perfect body energies and transform negative karmic patterns of life into positive perfections.

Use of mandalas

Using sacred designs to focus the mind

Use of mudras

Hand rituals signifying feelings

Use of mantras

Chanting or reciting spiritual formulas or words

A blending of Buddhism from India with Taoism from China. It is predominately practiced in China and Japan.

A school of Mahayana Buddhism asserting that enlightenment can come through meditation and intuition rather than faith

A school of Mahayana Buddhism that places great importance on moment-by-moment awareness and 'seeing deeply into the nature of things' by direct experience.

Zen mind

Developed through practice

Makes you notice yourself—"What am I?"

Makes you go beyond the words and to wonder what your own mind and being are

To make you wonder and to answer that wondering with the deepest expression of your own nature.

Beliefs

A Zen Buddhist is attaining enlightenment (bodhi) through meditation as Siddhartha Gautama did.

All human beings have the Buddha-nature, or the potential to attain enlightenment, within them, but the Buddha-nature been clouded by ignorance.

To overcome this ignorance, Zen rejects the study of scriptures, religious rites, devotional practices, and good works in favor of meditation leading to a sudden breakthrough of insight and awareness of ultimate reality.

Goal of Zen

To see things as they are and eventually realize in a flash the original nature of things.

To make real in one’s life that perfect freedom which is the potentiality for all human beings

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Last modified: February 28, 2008