Buddhism

1
Buddhism
Everything that arises also passes away, so
strive for what has not arisen. - Buddha
2
Three Marks of Existence
Impermanence (anicca)
No Self (anatta)
Suffering (dukkha)
3
The Greater Discourse on Cause
4
Buddhist Conception of Reality
Doctrine of Dependent Arising
Reality is a flow of multiple momentary mutually
conditioned events.
5
Impermanence is a pervasive feature of the
universe.
6
Impermanence
(1) All things come into existence and go out of
existence.
(2) While things exist, they undergo constant
change.
7
The 12 Links in the Causal Chain of
Dependent Arising
8
John Holder Observation
The Buddhist view of reality stands in between
the extremes of theories that postulate a
transcendent absolute reality (e.g., Brahman in
Hinduism) and those that postulate that nothing
exists (metaphysical nihilism).
From the point of view of dependent arising,
things do exist, but only as complex,
interdependent, changing processes. (Holder, p.
26)
9
Discourse to Kaccayana
Everything exists this is one extreme.
Everything does not exist this is the second
extreme. Without approaching either of these
extremes, the Tathagata teaches dhamma by the
middle. (Buddha, in Holder, p. 83)
10
A Discourse to the First Five Disciples Verses
of Sister Vajira
11
No Self (Anatta)
All Things are Impermanent
There is No Self
There is no permanent self or enduring mind.
12
For the Buddhist there is no atman or essential
self underlying the changing stream of events
which constitute the mind-body complex. The
Buddhist doctrine of no-abiding-self (Pali
anatta Sanskrit anatman) provided a stark
philosophical contrast to brahmanical notions of
a substantial self (atman). Richard King,
Indian Philosophy, p. 78)
13
What is the human person?
14
Personhood in Buddhism
Buddhism maintains that a person is a dynamic
aggregation of five different elements
(skandhas), together called Nama-Rupa
Vinnana
Consciousness
Sankhara
Dispositions or Tendencies
Sanna
Perception or recognition of sensation
Vedana
Feelings or Sensations
Rupa
The Physical Body
15
The Skandha-Identity Argument

• (1) The self is not anything other than the
  five skandhas (individually or collectively
  considered).
• (2) None of the skandhas is permanent.
• Therefore
• (3) The self is not permanent.

16
The Five Elements (skandhas) constitute the
individual person, though not in any substantial
sense. Self is simply a name given to the
aggregate of skandhas. There is no soul or
permanent self residing in or behind the
skandhas. There is no atman.
17
Buddhaghosa, 5th century CE Buddhist Philosopher
The words living entity or ego are but a
mode of expression for the presence of the five
aggregates, but when we come to examine the
elements one by one, we discover that, in the
absolute sense, there is no living entity there
to form the basis for such figments as I am or
I in other words, that in the absolute sense,
there is only Nama and Rupa. - Buddhaghosa
18
The Chariot Analogy
19
Verses of Sister Vajira
Why do you assume a person? Mara, you have
adopted a wrong speculative view. This is only a
heap of processes. There is no person to be found
here. Just as the word chariot refers to an
assemblage of parts, so, person is a convention
used when the aggregates are present. (Holder,
p. 87).
20
Substantialist Tendencies?
In some branches of Buddhism, something similar
or functionally equivalent to atman seems to be
affirmed.
21
The Buddha-Nature
Mahayana Buddhism
22
In Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha-nature
typically refers to an innate potentiality in all
sentient beings for becoming enlightened.
In several scriptures, though, the Buddha-nature
appears to refer to an underlying ontological
reality, a single essence shared by all sentient
beings. It seems to be functionally equivalent to
a transcendental Self.
This Buddha-nature is said to be uncreated,
immutable, and immortal.
23
Tantric Scripture exalts the beginningless
Self, the Self of primordial unity, and the
Supreme Being, each in contrast to the empirical
or phenomenal self. Jeff Hopkins (Mountain
Doctrine, pp. 279-294)
24
Permanent is the Self the Self is thoroughly
pure. The thoroughly pure is called bliss.
Permanent, blissful, Self, and thoroughly pure is
the one-gone-thus i.e. Buddha. Jeff
Hopkins (Mahayana Mahaparinirva?a Sutra, Trans.
Hopkins in Mountain Doctrine, p. 129)
25
The Buddha-nature is eternal bliss, the Self,
and the Pure. Buddha-Nature is not non-eternal,
not non-bliss, not the non-Self, and not
non-purity Buddha (Mahayana
Mahaparinirvana, Trans. Kosho Yamaoto in Mahanaya
Mahabarinirvana, vol. 8, p. 23)
26
What about Anatta?

• Can this Buddhist view of a transcendent Self be
  reconciled with the anatta doctrine?

Yes.
Anatta can be interpreted as no individual,
enduring self or no individual soul.
The term atman in the Upanishads sometimes
refers to the individual soul, sometimes called
jivatman.
27
Within the framework of Buddhism, Anatta can mean
(i) no permanent individual self or (ii) no
permanent self of any sort.
28
No self means to awaken to a Self that is so
vast and limitless that it cannot be seen.
Sekkei Harada (Essence of Zen, p. 63)
29
Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta

• So the Buddhist anatta doctrine may be compatible
  with the conception of Atman affirmed in Advaita
  Vedanta, namely a single, pure undifferentiated
  consciousness.
• This may explain why bhakti vedantins accused
  Sankara of being a crypto-Buddhist.

30
The Greater Discourse on the Foundations of
Mindfulness
31
The Four Noble Truths
32
Life is suffering. Broadly understood in the
Pali canon to include physical and psychological
pain. Lack of satisfaction. Disappointment.
Suffering is inevitable. It is a general claim
about human life, not a claim that every moment
is suffering.
Suffering Dukkha
The origin of suffering is attachment to or the
desire for identity and permanence. Desire
impermanence suffering. Desire is closely
connected to individuality, for desire
presupposes a subject-object duality.
Attachment Tanha
33
The third noble truth of Buddhism teaches the
cessation of craving or desire as the means of
overcoming suffering. If desire for identity and
permanence is the cause of suffering, remove this
desire and you remove suffering. Absolute
cessation of desire is called Nirvana (to be
blown out).
Dispassion
The Path
The path to Nirvana is in actions and thoughts
that lie in between excessive indulgence and
excessive self-denial. This is expressed in the
eightfold path toward enlightenment.
34
The Eightfold Path
1. The Right View Believe the four noble truths.
2. The Right Intention Free the mind from
worldly desires, dishonesty, egoism, and cruelty
to all living creatures.
3. The Right Speech Refrain from lying, harsh
or hurtful language, and idle talk.
4. The Right Action Abstain from killing,
stealing, and sexual misconduct.
5. The Right Livelihood Avoid occupations that
harm other living beings.
35
6. The Right Effort Attempt to gain mastery over
evil thoughts.
7. The Right Mindfulness Give special attention
to every state of your body, mind, and feelings.
8. The Right Concentration Concentrate on one
particular object to bring about a special state
of consciousness by way of a meditative state.
The Eightfold path is essential to achieving the
six perfections wisdom, morality, charity,
forbearance, striving, and meditation. The
Eightfold path is essential to achieving the
ultimate state nirvana, roughly the Buddhist
equivalent of Moksha in Hinduism.
36
Nirvana
37
Nirvana The Ultimate State
Nirvana means literally to be blown out.
What is blown out?
A man comes to believe in his essential nature,
to know that what exists is the erroneous
activity of the mind and that the world of
objects in front of him is non-existent. . .this
is called gaining nirvana. Asvaghosa (2nd
century CE Buddhist philosopher)
Nirvana is an indefinable state, independent of
all worldly ties, beyond all earthly passion,
freedom from all egotistical, false ideas, - in
short, it is the exact opposite of everything
known to the conditioned, individual existence
between birth and death. Von Glasenapp,
modern Buddhist commentator
38
Nirvana does not mean unqualified cessation of
existence, annihilation, or extinction.
Nirvana is best interpreted as the annihilation
of ego-consciousness, the death of the cravings
that define myself as an individual and that
tether it to the world sense experience.
Nirvana, then, means the blowing out of self
only in this specific sense, a blowing out of the
desires that constitute ego-consciousness.
39
Buddhism and the Doctrine of Rebirth
40
Physical Death
The skandhas, which together constitute an
individual personality, are severally and
collectively impermanent. Hence, they cannot
survive death, individually or collectively.
At the time of death, the nama-rupa
disintegrates. The individual psycho-physical
person that once existed, no longer exists.
41
What Survives Death?
42
Not any soul or enduring mind.
The doctrine of anatta prevents this
understanding of rebirth.
43
Buddhaghosa considers it a confusion to suppose
that rebirth involves a beings transmigration
to another incarnation. . . .a lasting beings
manifestation in a new body. (Buddhaghosa,
Visuddhimagga 17.113-114)
44
First Approximation Ones individual karma
survives the death of the self, and provides the
basis for the emergence of a new personality.
What is reborn is a cluster of dispositions or
tendencies that constituted the character of the
formerly living person. The person has ceased to
exist with death, but his or her character
persists and becomes integrated with a new
psycho-physical person.
45
"There is rebirth of character, but no
transmigration of a self. Thy thought-forms
reappear, but there is no ego-entity transferred.
The stanza uttered by a teacher is reborn in the
scholar who repeats the words Buddha, The
Gospel
46
Refining the Buddhist Concept of Rebirth
Karma is not a substance or thing that
transmigrates from life to life. Karma passes
from one life to another only in a figurative
sense.
Karma conditions dispositions and consciousness
in subsequent sets of skandhas.
G. Karma
B. Karma
A. Karma
Christina Aguileras Life b. 1980 present
Mohandas Gandhis life b. 1869, d. 1948
John Bonhams Life b. 1948, d. 1980
47
There is no identity between sets of skandhas.
There is only causal continuity between sets of
skandhas.
G. Karma
B. Karma
A. Karma
Christina Aguileras Life b. 1980 present
Mohandas Gandhis life b. 1869, d. 1948
John Bonhams Life b. 1948, d. 1980
48
Rebirth Analogy. . .
cause
effect
As one fire lights another fire, so one set of
skandhas conditions another, but nothing passes
between them.
49
Consciousness and Rebirth. . . .
The Buddha called that which is reborn vinnana
(consciousness), but he was explicit that what is
reborn is neither the same as nor different than
the person who died in a former existence.
Resolution. . . .
Buddhaghosa spoke of a rebirth-linking
consciousness (patisandhi vinnana), the first
stirring of consciousness in a fetus contingent
on the karmic deposit of a former life and
conditioned by a persons last moment of
consciousness (cuti vinnana) before death.
50
Past Life Memories and Rebirth. . . .
The Buddha claimed to have remembered many past
lives.
Does this not imply that memories pass from a
prior life to a subsequent life?
Not Necessarily
Just as consciousness from one life may condition
the consciousness of a subsequent life, memorial
states (a form of consciousness) may be
conditioned by past consciousness. Memories as
well as dispositions may be effects caused by the
karmic deposit of a particular life and its
skandhas, rather than things passed on from one
life to the next.
51
The Process of Rebirth
Ignorance
Desires
Unsatisfied Desires
Rebirth
Unsatisfied desires produce rebirth in accordance
with the flow of ones built up karmic energy.
Karma is like the field, craving like the
moisture, and the stream of consciousness like
the seed. When beings are blinded by delusion
and fettered with craving, the stream of
consciousness becomes established, and rebirth of
a new seed (consciousness) takes place. Buddha
52
Rebirth Realms
As in Hinduism, Buddhism does not confine rebirth
to earth or the human species. Rebirth may take
place in different realms and in different
species.
Heavenly Realm
Human Realm
Animal Realm
World of Shades
Purgatory
53
All realms are temporary.
Only the human and heavenly realms are desirable.
The rest are unhappy and undesirable.
Karma can only be accumulated or altered in the
human realm.
54
Buddhism and Hinduism Comparison
Like Hinduism, Buddhism accepts the related ideas
of karma and samsara.
However, Buddhism denies the existence of atman,
a substantial, unchanging, self.
There is no deeper or higher self behind the
changing empirical self that can be reborn.
In Hinduism the finite self (jiva) is the
infinite self (atman) enveloped in various finite
sheaths or bodies. In Buddhism, the finite self
(nama-rupa) is simply another one in a changing
cluster of states of consciousness connected by
karma.
55
Rebirth Contrasts Hinduism and Buddhism
Although some streams of Buddhism present a view
of rebirth very similar to the more sophisticated
view of rebirth in Hinduism, where they diverge
it tends to be along the following lines
Hinduism Some substance transmigrates, whether
atman, jiva, or subtle body. So there is some
thing that grounds the continuity between
distinct lives.
Buddhism Nothing transmigrates. There is only a
continuity of a causal sequence of dharmic
events, a series of modifications to distinct
skandhas.
In both Buddhism and Hinduism, karmic
conditioning of subsequent lives is recognized.