Buddha

1
Buddhas Heroic Journey

• Divine Birth Mothers dream
• Call to Adventure The Four Sights
• Tests and Trials Mara
• Boon - Teachings

2
Early Life of the Buddha

• Born as Siddhartha Gautama around 563 BCE at
  Lumbini Grove, northern India
• Born into a royal family
• Married princess Yashodhara when he was nineteen
• Shielded by his family from difficulties of life
  outside the court
• Life focused on pleasure

3
Centers of Early Buddhism
4
Four Sights

• Upon managing to temporarily leave the court,
  Siddhartha saw four things that surprised him
• a old man
• a sick man
• a corpse
• a wandering ascetic

5
Siddhartha sets out

• Disturbed by the Four Sights, Prince Siddhartha
  escaped the court and took up ascetic practices
• After taking ascetic practices to their extreme,
  he sat under a tree at Bodhgaya with new resolve
  to understand the nature of suffering
• Some Buddhist accounts present this as time when
  demons assailed Siddhartha, trying to defeat him
  in his efforts at insight

6
Demon Mara tests Siddhartha

• Three temptations
• Theres trouble at home
• Voluptuous women dance around him
• Mara summons host of demons

7
Enlightenment and Teaching

• Siddhartha, sitting unperturbed under the Bodhi
  tree, finally gains insight into the nature of
  suffering and becomes the Buddha, i.e., the
  Enlightened One
• With his new insight, the Buddha set out to
  instruct others
• Encountering ascetics at Deer Park near Benares,
  the Buddha began what would become a forty-five
  career as a teacher

8
Bodhgaya, India
9
Fire Sermon

• Delivered as his second sermon
• Explains the Four Noble Truths
• Nirvana, a state of No-being beyond all desire
• Becomes the Buddha, the Enlightened One

10
The Buddha Addressing Monks at Sarnath
11
Boon A Philosophical System

• Buddha preaches/teaches
• Caste system is abandoned in the sangha
• Arhats (disciples) begin to missionize
• Monasteries proliferate in India
• Women are allowed to enter the order
• Lives for another 45 years, respected for his
  wisdom and compassion

12
Teachings

• Four Noble Truths
• The Middle Way
• The Noble Eightfold Path
• Nirvana
• No individual soul (no self to be reborn)
• No Creator God

13
Four Noble Truths

• Fundamental to the Buddhas teachings is the
  doctrine of the Four Noble Truths
• all life is characterized by suffering
• suffering is the result of or misguided desire
  (attachment)
• to eliminate misguided desire is to eliminate
  suffering (detachment)
• the method for eliminating suffering is the
  Eightfold Path

14
Middle Way

• The Buddha had known two extremes of religious
  practice
• the worldly rituals of Hinduism
• the extreme privation of asceticism
• He posited a compromise between these two as the
  appropriate stance for religious practice

15
Noble Eightfold Path

• Right view correct insight into the nature of
  suffering
• Right aim correct resolve in overcoming
  suffering
• Right speech truthful speech that reflects
  Buddhist knowledge
• Right action ethical behavior and discipline
• Right living a livelihood that isnt in conflict
  with Buddhist ethical commitments
• Right effort disciplining the mind
• Right mindfulness remaining focused on
  appropriate understandings of self and suffering
• Right concentration progression through
  successive stages of insight

16
NIRVANA

• Extinction
• Cessation of consciousness
• Bliss
• Release from the cycle of existence
• Psychological state
• State of mind
• NOT heaven

17
Samsara, Karma

• The Buddha agreed with samsara only in the fact
  that birth followed death. Release from
  suffering was achieved through the Four Noble
  Truths.
• The Buddha reinterpreted karma to focus
  particularly on the states of mind of the
  individual. Grasping, desires and intentions bind
  humans to an impermanent world.
• When these things cease, humans pass over to
  Nirvana.

18
KARMA Buddhist view

• Primarily psychological
• Grasping, desires and intentions bind the
  psychological processes
• There is a consequence for every thought and deed
• Impulses from an individuals life carry over
  into another life. (yet, there is no self to be
  reborn)

19
Skandhas

• There is no permanent self rather it is the
  appearance of self generated by skandhas
• Senses
• mind
• perceptions
• impulses
• consciousness
• As opposed to Hindu thought, Buddha taught that
  there was no eternal self that continues through
  reincarnation.
• Those who seek permanence suffer for no self
  exists.

20
Regarding Metaphysical Questions

• The Buddha disregarded broader metaphysical
  questions, remaining focused instead on the
  practical concerns of suffering and its
  alleviation
• No creator god

21
Buddhist Scripture

• Extensive writings exist that pertain to a
  variety of understandings of the Buddhas life
  and teachings
• Tripitaka, or three-fold basket, is an early
  set of scriptures composed in Pali
• rules for Buddhist monks
• collections of what are regarded as the Buddhas
  sayings, in addition to stories, poems and songs
  about the Buddha and what some regard as the
  Buddhas former lives
• Further systematic development of ideas

22
Buddhist Scripture (cont.)

• Following the Buddhas death, some accounts
  describe the gathering of his followers in a
  series of councils to decide controversies that
  had arisen
• First council shortly after the death of the
  Buddha, establishing the Tripitika
• Second and third council a hundred years later to
  settle questions regarding rules for monks and
  questions of orthodoxy.
• Councils continued to be held to decide on points
  of faith and practice.

23
Sects develop - Two Major Vehicles

• One of the splits that developed among Buddhists
  was between two major traditions
• Theravada Buddhists regarded the Buddha as an
  exemplary human being who provided a model for
  ultimate religious transformation through
  self-application
• Devotees focus on monastic life
• Maitreya, the Buddha to come
• Salvation is through dedicated self-effort rather
  than intervention of deity.

24
Two Major Vehicles contd

• Mahayana Buddhists regarded the Buddha in more
  cosmic, god-like terms. Furthermore, human beings
  were regarded as aided in their spiritual
  development and well-being by bodhisattvas,
  beings who - though capable of Nirvana - remained
  active in the world out of compassion for the
  suffering of others
• Believe in liberated heavenly beings who assist
  humans bodhisattvas
• Salvation is not solely a matter of personal
  discipline but is assisted by various deities.

25
Conversion of Asoka 3rd century BCE

• Northern Indian ruler devoted to conquest
• Attracted to Buddhist teachings
• Abandoned warfare and built temples
• Sent missionaries throughout India, to Asia,
  Africa, Europe and Sri Lanka, Burma

26
Buddhism enters China, Korea, Japan and Tibet

• By 1st century BCE, Mahayana and Theravada sects
  had entered China
• From Korea, Buddhism spread to Japan in 6th - 8th
  centuries CE
• 14th century political implications Mongol
  chieftain awarded Tibet to the Dalai Lama

27
Buddhism in China

• Mahayana Buddhism developed in new directions in
  imperial China
• Tian Tai attempted to consolidate seemingly
  conflicting Buddhist doctrines into a single
  system that recognized one scripture, the Lotus
  Sutra, as the pinnacle and clearest exposition of
  Buddhist thought.
• Hua Yen, like Tian Tai, attempted to consolidate
  all Buddhist teachings this school, however,
  placed the Flower Garland Sutra at the pinnacle
  of Buddhist doctrines. It emphasized the
  interpenetration of all things.

28
Buddhism in China (cont.)

• Jingtu or Pure Land Buddhism posited that the
  bodhisattva Amitabha would compassionately
  intervene in the lives of human beings and
  transport them after death to a paradise, or Pure
  Land
• Chan, brought to China from India by Bodhidharma,
  emphasized the practice of meditation in the
  achievement of enlightenment

29
Guanyin (Kwan Yin), Goddess of Mercy

• Bodhisattva who assists Amitabha in Chinese Pure
  Land doctrine
• Madonna of the East
• Carries a vial of compassion which she pours on
  the world (to aid in the elimination of suffering)

30
Buddhism in Tibet

• In seventh century CE, Tibetan ruler Srong Tsan
  Gampo married two Buddhist wives from abroad,
  bringing Buddhism into Tibet for the first time
• In the following century, Indian Buddhist teacher
  Shantarakshita brought Buddhism to Tibet in a
  more systematic fashion
• Occult and tantric forms of Buddhism prevailed in
  Tibet various schools emerged, including
• Nyingmapa, old-school Buddhists who embraced
  trantic practices found in Hinduism
• Gelugpa, protest movement against Nyingmapas
  laxity and sexual abuses. Advocated celibacy and
  vegetarianism.
• Gelugpa lama seen as reincarnated shortly after
  death. Elaborate search rituals results in new
  lama.

31
The Present Dalai Lama

• The Dalai Lama is a part of the Gelugpa lineage
  of Tibetan Buddhism.

32
Buddhism in the West

• In addition to waves of Asian migration to the
  U.S. beginning in the nineteenth century,
  non-Asians have also taken an interest in
  Buddhism - particularly during the 1960s.
• Nichiren Shoshu Sokagakkai had been an example of
  organized forays by Buddhists into America.
  Similar to its counterpart in Japan. Salvation
  through chanting
• Today, a wide range of Buddhist traditions that
  developed throughout Asia are evidenced in the
  American landscape

33
Worldview

• Absolute belief in gods was not essential to
  release from suffering. Theravadins deny deities
  but Mahayanists believe they are essential.
• World alleviation of suffering meant detachment
  from the world.
• The problem for humans was suffering produced by
  ignorance of the impermanence of the world. The
  solution was knowledge using the Four Noble
  Truths.
• There was no life after death, though something
  carries over.

34
Worldview

• Community ethics includes the symbiotic
  relationship between monastics and laity the
  latter are expected to abstain from
• theft
• intoxication
• inappropriate speech
• injury to others
• A strong concern for an end-time of history is
  not widespread in Buddhist materials, although
  some Mahayana Buddhists anticipate the appearance
  of the next Buddha to incarnate Maitreya

35
Worldview (cont.)

• The eight-spoked wheel is a symbol used to
  suggest the Noble Eightfold Path
• Some Buddhist laity recite a vow of refuge in
  three things
• the Buddha
• the Dharma, i.e., Buddhist teachings
• the Sangha, i.e., the community of Buddhists (or,
  more specifically, monks and nuns)
• In some parts of Asia, young laymen take on the
  role of a Buddhist monk for a finite period of
  time

36
Worldview (cont.)

• Buddhism, in a wide variety of environments, has
  coexisted with other forms of religious practice
  it has even elicited an interest in active
  dialogue and engagement, as was pursued by the
  late Catholic monk Thomas Merton

37
Women and Buddhism

• Although Mahayana Buddhism has allowed for the
  ordination of women as nuns, theyve held a
  second-class status relative to monks
• non-Asian women who have converted to Buddhism,
  such as Tsultrim Allione and Jiyu Kennett Roshi,
  have introduced innovations in the possible roles
  for women leaders in Buddhism