Religious Studies 232: Introduction to Buddhism

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Religious Studies 232 Introduction to
Buddhism
Week 7

• Instructor
• Justin Whitaker

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Announcements 10/13

• Were running out of blue-books!! Bring in your
  blank blue-books next week if you havent already
• Extra Credit assignments due today -

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II. Three Historical Phases of Buddhism

• 1. Early Conservative Buddhism---focusing on the
• Developmental Dimension
• 2. The Mahayana Revitalization---focusing on the
• Relational Dimension
• 3. Phase Three Diversity (Pure Land, Zen
  Vajrayana)--- focusing on the
• Technical Dimension

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Key Characteristics of the Mahayana
Expansiveness Universality

• Expansiveness
• breadth of scope
• imagination
• scale a bigger stage
• Universality
• more comprehensive appeal
• less historical cultural specificity
• emphasis on myth and poetry

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Key Characteristics of the Mahayana
Expansiveness Universality

• Literature sutras attributed to the Buddha
• Cosmology model of the universe
• Buddhology conception of the buddhas
  bodhisattvas
• Soteriology conception of the goal
• Doctrines key teachings
• Methodology forms of practice

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Expansiveness Universality Key
Characteristics of the Mahayana

• Literature new texts attributed to the Buddha
• Imaginative
• Mythic
• Of vast dimensions
• Of universal appeal

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Expansiveness Universality Key
Characteristics of the Mahayana

• Cosmology an new emphasis on
• the manifold dimensions of existence
• and
• a multiplicity of Buddhas
• active participation in a vast
  psycho- cosmology

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Expansiveness Universality Key
Characteristics of the Mahayana

• Buddhology from Prototype to Archetype
• From
• buddhas are few and far between
• to
• buddhas everywhere
• Shravakas (disciples/listeners) Arhats
• vs.
• Bodhisattvas (buddha-to-be) Buddhas

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Expansiveness Universality Key
Characteristics of the Mahayana

• Soteriology (theory or conception of
  liberation/salvation)
• emphasis on bodhi (awakening) vs nirvana
• and on unfixed nirvana or
• nirvana of no abode
• the realm of samsara is no different than the
  realm of nirvana

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Expansiveness Universality Key
Characteristics of the Mahayana

• Key Doctrines
• Bodhicitta heart-mind of awakening
• Bodhisattva Ideal reformulating the path
• Upaya skill in means
• Emptiness lack of intrinsic existence

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Key Mahayana Teachings Bodhic(h)itta

• Meaning heart/mind of awakening
• To seek enlightenment
• for the sake of all sentient beings
• Key turning point on the spiritual
• Re-framing the quest for liberation
• from a
• focus on ones own benefit
• to a
• focus on enlightenment for the sake of all
  beings

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Key Mahayana Teachings

• Bodhisattva Ideal
• Shravaka/Arhat path vs Bodhisattva/Buddha path
• Arhat sees enlightenment as a matter of
  self-interest
• whereas
• Bodhisattva seeks enlightenment for the sake
  of all sentient beings
• Arising of the Bodhicitta
• beginning of the Bodhisattva Path

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Key Mahayana Teachings

• Upayaskill in means
• Skill in cultivating the means necessary to
  that goal
• Lotus Sutra
• parable of the burning house
• parable of the physician