Buddhism

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Buddhism
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Assignment

• Explore the ways that Buddhism is influencing
  Western Culture.
• Find primary examples media, movements, science,
  politics, education, religion
• No Christian sources
• Web searches, magazines, observations, clip short
  examples.
• Be sure to point out what is Buddhist about the
  influence.

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Buddhism

• Population 3-4 million adherents worldwide.
• In the US 780,000
• Geography

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Historical Context

• During the 6th and 5th centuries BC Northern
  India experienced political, social, religious
  changes.
• The authority of the Brahmins challenged
• Tribal kingdoms were breaking down
• Food and land shortages
• Iron became widespread and used for weapons

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Buddhism and Hinduism

• Many features of a Hindu (Brahministic) worldview
  are shared by Buddhism.
• Samsara, Karma, rebirth, salvation, nature of the
  material world, evil.
• Differences
• Egalitarian no caste system
• Lack of ritual, meditative
• No gods

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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• His Birth

9th c relief
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Lumbini
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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• The Palace Prince (age 1-29)
• His father King Shuddhodana Gautama was a raja
  (king) of the Shakya clan, ruler over
  Kapilavastu.
• His mother Maya died when he was an infant
• Her sister Mahapatjapati raised him

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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• The Palace Prince (age 1-29)
• A sage, prophesied that Siddhartha would either
  be
• A great ruler like his father if he remained
  within his fathers castle, or
• A Buddha if he left his home and went forth in
  the world
• Alternative legend Siddharthas father had a
  vision that his son would grow up to be either a
  great world ruler or world renouncer.

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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• The Fathers Desire Siddhartha should be a great
  king.
• Lavished the good life on Siddhartha
• Married at 16 or 19
• Three palaces
• Young female attendants
• Siddhartha naive of realities of human suffering.

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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• The Gods Intervene
• The legend of the four passing sights
• A frail old man (depicting age)
• A leper (depicting suffering)
• A corpse (depicting death)
• An ascetic in a yellow robe (depicting
  contentment)
• Siddhartha realized that life was full of sorrow
  and that happiness was an illusion

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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• I also am subject to decay and am not free from
  the power of old age, sickness and death. Is it
  right that I should feel horror, repulsion and
  disgust when I see another in such plight? And
  when I reflected thus, my disciples, all the joy
  of life which there is in life died within me
  (3.35).

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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• The Great Renunciation (age 29)
• Siddhartha decides to leave his home and to
  become a wandering monk.
• The night that his wife Yashodara gave birth to
  their son Rahula, Siddhartha left and began his
  spiritual quest to discover the source of
  suffering.

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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• The Great Going Forth (age 29-35)
• Submitted himself to two Brahmin hermits
• Practiced meditation and lived a hermits life
• Found it unsatisfactory
• Then joined a band of ascetics
• Practiced extreme self-denial and discipline
  
• Found it futile

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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• The Great Enlightenment (age 35)
• The failure of self-mortification
• Siddhartha's previous lives passed before him.
• Mara, the evil one, tried to keep him from
  becoming the Buddha by enticing him with worldly
  temptations during his meditation.
• Finally he experienced the revelation of
  liberating awareness and became the Buddha.

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Teaching

• The Middle Path Between self indulgence and self
  mortification
• The Deer Park Sermon (or Fire Sermon)
• There are two extremes, oh monks, which he who
  has given up the world ought to avoid. What are
  these two extremes? A life given to pleasures,
  devoted to pleasures and lusts this is
  degrading, sensual, vulgar, ignoble and
  profitless. And a life given to mortifications
  this is painful, ignoble and profitless. By
  avoiding these two extremes, oh monks, one who
  has arrived at truth has gained the knowledge of
  the middle path, which leads to insight, which
  leads to wisdom, which conduces to calm, to
  knowledge, to enlightenment, to nirvana.

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Teaching

• The Four Noble Truths
• Life is suffering.
• Suffering is universal. Life consists of
  suffering. As people are near things we hate, and
  far from things they love.
• Desire causes suffering and leads to rebirth.
• The cause of suffering, thirst, desire and
  craving accompanied by pleasure and lust, leads
  to rebirth and more suffering.
• The cessation of suffering.
• Suffering can be overcome by eliminating desire,
  by not craving that which is impermanent
• The eight fold path leads to the cessation of
  suffering.

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Teaching

• Eight Fold Path
• One follows the middle path by and through the
  eight fold path
• Right belief
• Right aspiration
• Right speech
• Right conduct
• The eight fold path is considered progressive and
  sequential and parallels the life of the Buddha.
• Very pragmatic rules of behavior

• Right means of livelihood
• Right endeavor
• Right memory
• Right meditation

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Eight Fold Path

• Right belief
• Right aspiration
• Right speech
• Right conduct
• Right means of livelihood
• Right endeavor
• Right memory
• Right meditation

Wisdom (panna)
Ethical Conduct (sila)
Mental discipline (Samadhi)
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Teaching

• The five ascetics he had associated with earlier
  became his first disciples. They formed the
  Sangha, a begging order.
• The Sangha became a pattern for later disciples.
• A community of ordained monks and nuns.
  Sometimes the association of Buddhists.

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Siddhartha Gautama 563-483 BC

• His Death
• Buddha died from food poisoning in 483 BC
• His last recorded words to his disciples were
  Decay is inherent in all component things! Work
  out your own salvation with diligence

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Buddhist Concepts

• The Three Jewels
• The Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha. The three
  essentials of Buddhism.
• Five Hindrances
• Lust, ill-will, anxiety, sloth, doubt. These need
  to be absent for the experience of jhanas,
  rapturous states resulting from samatha or 'calm'
  meditation.

Without repelling thoughts of this world, Even an
excellent practitioner attains the tips of
samsara. Without relying upon the Triple Gem,
Even an excellent person is a heretic. From the
Fifth Verse of Root Verses on Mahamudra with
Seven Branches by Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen
Pal Zangpo (1182-1251)
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Buddhist Concepts

• The Three Marks of Existence
• Anicca
• Everything is impermanent, changing, and in a
  constant state of flux.
• Dukkha
• Suffering. Mental, physical, emotional suffering,
  and the unsatisfactoriness of life. Any
  happiness is fleeting.
• Anatta
• Not-self. No permanent self or soul

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Buddhist Concepts

• Tanha
• Craving. Suffering is caused by craving and
  desire for what is impermanent.
• Skandas
• Heaps. A person is comprised of five aggregates
  a physical body, emotions, perceptions, volition,
  and consciousness. None of these individually or
  collectively can be said to constitute a
  permanent self.

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Buddhist Concepts

• Karma and Samsara
• A chain of causation that exists in which the
  present life is conditioned by past lives.
• At death, one leaves strands of finite desire
  that form a causal connection between lives.
• Nirvana
• The ultimate goal of Buddhism. The goal of
  enlightenment is not annihilation, but a release
  from suffering, desire, the finite self, samara.

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Buddhist Concepts

• Sunyata
• Emptiness. The concept of a fundamental
  nothingness in which there is no substance, no
  concept of self, and no duality.

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Divisions

• Historical background
• Six years after Buddhas death, Kashyapa
  assembled a council of his disciples at Rajagrha
• He questioned Ananda, Buddhas closest disciple,
  and his answers constitute the Sutras.
• Sutras The sermons of Buddha, teaching in
  doctrine. The basis of Buddhism.
• He questioned Upali, another close disciple of
  Buddha, and his answers constitute the Vinaya.
• Vinaya The rules and regulations of the Sangha.

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Divisions

• Finally the philosophical interpretations of
  Buddhas teachings were assembled. These
  constitute the Abhidhamma.
• Together, the Sutras, the Vinaya, and the
  Abhidhamma form the Tripitaka, the Three
  Baskets of teaching.

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Divisions

• Around 383 BC, a second council met
• A large number argued for a less strict
  discipline, with more openness toward the laity
• Those who defended a stricter discipline split
  away from those who were less strict c 200 BC

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Divisions

• Asoka
• A fierce, prince and governor
• Murdered any rival princes on hearing of his
  fathers impending death.
• After taking the throne, attacked other regions
  of India (Orissa), killing thousands.
• Conversion to Buddhism in 265 BC
• Royal patron of Buddhism
• Commissioned Buddhist missionaries to go to other
  countries

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Asoka's First Rock inscription at Girnar
Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi, has caused
this Dhamma edict to be written. Here (in my
domain) no living beings are to be slaughtered or
offered in sacrifice. Nor should festivals be
held, for Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi,
sees much to object to in such festivals,
although there are some festivals that
Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi, does approve
of.
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Divisions

• Theravada (Hinayana) Buddhism
• "Small vehicle"
• Early Buddhism
• More conservative, attempting to maintain
  continuity from the time of the Buddha.
• Is a religion of bikhus
• Bhikkhu Monk. A person who has renounced the
  world in search of enlightenment. Traditionally,
  monks followed over 200 rules including
  celibacy.
• Bhikkuni nun
• The goal is to become an arhat (holy man, saint)
  who has attained nirvana.

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Divisions

• Believes that the Buddha was a great moral
  teacher and example, but not a god.
• Essentially atheistic without any God, creator,
  or savior.
• Hold to only one Buddha, Siddhartha
• The emphasis on monastic life, where one becomes
  an arhat by one one's own effort
• Individual enlightenment and extinction at the
  end of his life.

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Divisions

• Accepts the Tripitaka as scripture
• Can be found in Southern and Southeast Asia (Sri
  Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar)

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Divisions

• Mahayana Buddhism
• The Great Vehicle
• Emerged between 150 BCE and 100CE
• Liberal, incorporating other cultural and
  religious practices and teaching.
• Is a religion for lay people
• Can attain nirvana in ways other than becoming a
  monk.
• Goal is to become a bodhisattva, one who vows to
  postpone their own deliverance to save others.
• Believes that Buddha was a god
• He was a historical manifestation of a universal
  Absolute or Buddha essence.
• There are many Buddha manifestations.

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Divisions

• Evolved into a many schools and sects
• E.g. Pure Land, Zen, and Nicherin Shoshu
• Meanwhile, in Tibet, Vajrayana developed
• Has added several thousand scriptures
• E.g. the Lotus Sutras (2nd c) and the Perfection
  of Wisdom
• Can be found in Central and Northern Asia
  (mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and
  Vietnam, Nepal, Tibet)

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Divisions

• Tibetan Buddhism
• Vajrayana and Tantric Buddhism
• "The Vehicle of the Thunder-Bolt."
• Is the product of three convergent streams of
  religious influences
• Bon, the ancient religion of Tibet
• The doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism
• The teaching and practices of Tantrism
• Distinct from the mainstream Buddhist practice

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Divisions

• The importance of the lama. Lamaism
• Prominent lamas are addressed as Rinpoche meaning
  precious one. 
• Teaches that while laity can attain
  enlightenment, their role is to
• Support the monks or lamas
• Practice ritual magic in hopes of a better
  incarnation in the next life

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Divisions

• Bon
• From bon po meaning priest
• the indigenous religious tradition of Tibet
• shamanistic and animistic
• Focus is the propitiation of local spirits and
  demons and to ensure the well-being of the dead
  in the afterlife.
• Rituals involved sacrificing animals (mainly
  horses, yaks, and sheep), making offerings of
  food and drink, burying the dead with precious
  jewels, the benefits of which were apparently
  transferred to them in the afterlife.

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Divisions

• Tantrism
• Tantric practice is a form of psycho-physical
  exercises in order to achieve transformation of
  one's body and mind quickly into the perfected
  state of a Buddha.
• Practices involving controlling and transforming
  bodily energies.
• Male/female complementarity
• Esoteric, erotic, secret

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Divisions

• Employs special technical aids in their
  meditation to reach enlightenment
• Mantras are powerful words used in meditation
• The most famous mantra is om mani padme hum (om,
  the jewel is in the lotus, hum), which is
  understood as Hail to the jewel in the Lotus or
  Hail to the Buddha in our hearts.
• Prayer (mani) wheels
• Mani stones and walls.
• Prayer flags

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Divisions

• Yantras and mandalas are visual aids that assist
  in meditation
• They are usually circular and contain a cosmic
  diagram
• Mudras are symbolic hand gestures and
  finger-postures. Gestures that accompany
  meditation.
• They distinguish between spirits or between
  Buddhas and bodhisattvas, each of which possesses
  some particular quality
• Indicate the nature and the function of different
  deities symbolize divine manifestation.
• Five

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Divisions

• Zen
• China in the 6th c.
• Claim its origins go back to Siddhartha.
• Intuitive understanding.
• The essence of Zen The realization of
  enlightenment apart from words and explanations.
• True Zen knowledge transmitted only from master
  to disciple.
• Practices involve hand positions, postures,
  breath control, mind emptying meditation.

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Divisions

• Zen
• Dispenses with philosophy
• Takes reality as it comes Satori
• Zen master Umnon once held up his staff and
  pointed out that the the ignorant take this for
  a real thing, the Hinayanists resolve it into a
  nonentity, (the low level Buddhas) regard it as a
  hallucination, while the Bodhisattvas admit its
  apparent reality which is, however, essentially
  empty. But monks, you simply call it a staff
  when you see one. (Corduan 234)

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Divisions

• Methods to gaining satori
• Zazen meditation. Disciplined thought, posture.
• Mondos. Study of narratives of Great Zen
  masters.
• Koan. Riddle. Aid to stop thinking
  analytically.
• What is the sound of one hand clapping?
• Aesthetic expression.
• Calligraphy, martial arts, poetry, rock gardens.
• Capturing reality in a non-dual state wholistic.

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Life

• Holidays and festivals
• The Buddhist New Year begins in April and is an
  occasion for rejoicing and redemption
• Remembering Buddhas birthday, temples usually
  have services in which the story of Siddhartha
  Buddha is recounted
• During the Day of the Dead, food offerings and
  other forms of attention are given to the souls
  of ancestors

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Keep in Mind

• Buddhism includes an enormous range of diverse
  beliefs and practices.
• When interacting with a Buddhist you must sort
  out what is believed by the person in front of
  you.
• Folk Buddhism especially Tibetan Buddhism may be
  occultic.

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Worldview Disjunction

• Reality
• No personal God.
• Monistic. No eternal entities or identities
• Truth. Not the way things are but a way or path.
  History, material facts irrelevant.
• Response Creation/Personal Creator, God
  encountered as awesome Other who compassionated
  involved himself in human existence.

According to Buddhism, our Christian ideas of
God and soul are false and empty. Though highly
developed as theories, they are all the same
extremely subtle mental projections, garbed in an
intricate metaphysical and philosophical
phraseology. (Walpola Sri Rahula, What the
Buddha Taught, p 52)
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Worldview Disjunction

• Humanity
• No substantive ego or eternal soul. Five
  aggregates.
• Can not identify any features of essential human
  nature.
• Response We can identify features of our nature.
  Relational, spiritual, free agency, will,
  intellect, passions, appetites. The imago Dei.

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Worldview Disjunction

• The Problem
• Life is suffering. And suffering caused by
  desire. Buddhism denies our nature.
• Ignorance, craving and attachment to the self.
• Response Life is not essentially suffering,
  although suffering and death mark our present
  condition. Suffering is accident not essential
  to human life.
• The heart of the problem is anarchy against a
  personal God.

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Worldview Disjunction

• Suffering
• The impersonal nature of the law of karma
  provides no adequate understanding. Ultimate
  reality is non-dual for the Buddhist, so how is
  there a natural law which differentiates between
  right/wrong, good/evil?
• Because God is personal, He
• Is concerned about our suffering.
• Hears and answers prayers.
• Is able to love us and to forgive our sin.
• Must differentiate between
• Desire and craving rightly fulfilled hierarchy
  of desires
• Desire and craving wrongly fulfilled
• Desire that will be fulfilled perfectly in the
  eternal state.

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Worldview Disjunction

• The Purpose of Suffering
• Bring humanity back to God.
• Isaiah 269-10
• When the earth experiences Your judgments
• The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
• Though the wicked is shown favor,
• He does not learn righteousness
• He deals unjustly in the land of uprightness,
• And does not perceive the majesty of the Lord.

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Worldview Disjunction

• Solution to the Problem
• Cessation of suffering through the elimination of
  craving and the eraser of the self.
• Buddhists are not looking to find meaning in
  life, but to deny the meaning of life, and person
  identity altogether. Buddhists to not seek
  eternal life, but eternal individual extinction
• Salvation is by ones own effort only. No
  conception of grace.
• There are many paths to God.

In Buddhism everything depends upon myself or
us, while in Christianity everything depends upon
God or upon grace.
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Worldview Disjunction

• Solution to the Problem
• Response The problem is moral and relational and
  the solution is forgiveness and reconciliation
  through Christ and the cross. Not the denial of
  the existence of the self but self-denial.
• Surrender to Gods authority and will
• Controlling and ordering our desires and
  appetites.
• Only one way to God.

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Jesus

• Jesus is not unique
• Like the Buddha (Theravada), or a bodhisattva in
  Mahayana
• Compare and contrast

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