Zen Buddhism Midterm Study Guide

Brahmin priests (brahmana)

• Indian priests

• highest caste, can only be born into and they have a lot of power

• society revolved around them and their rituals

• sung hymns and burned offerings for the gods

Vedas

• sacred texts that contained instructions and mantras from the Brahmin priests about how to transform the world

wandering ascetics (sramana)

• opposed the dominant religion/social order (Vedic) of the Brahmin priests

• deliberately engaged in a difficult lifestyle in order to perfect themselves

  • ascetic practices burned away karma (ex: bed of nails, ring of fire)

  • wandered in forests begging for alms, arguing in debates, and engaging in strenuous physical (yoga) and mental (meditation) practices

cyclic existence (samsara)

• reincarnation

action (karma)

• a basic Buddhist idea that certain conduct (behavior) leads to particular rebirths

  • people are reborn because they engage in karma

liberation (moksa)

• aka nirvana, liberation from samsara is possible, if one becomes enlightened

Siddhartha Gautama

• a prince born in present-day Nepal, aka Sakyamuni

• once enlightened became “the Buddha”

Buddha

• someone who has achieved enlightenment

• “the enlightened one”

Dipamkara Buddha

• a past life of the Buddha

• a rich Brahmin named Sumati saw that Dipamkara was going to walk into a puddle of water, so he laid his hair across the puddle for Dipamkara to walk on

  • Dipamkara prophesized Sumati’s rebirth as the future Buddha

Queen Maya’s Dream

• a white flying elephant appears and circles the Queen 3 times (to show respect) and then dives into her abdomen

• the Queen is pregnant the day after the dream (without any sexual act = not tainted, pure)

Birth (of the Buddha)

• Queen Maya walks through a grove, and the trees begin to blossom

  • A branch is lowered and offers a flower to the Queen, which she accepts

    • Siddhartha then pops out of her side and takes 7 steps in each of the cardinal directions on lotus flowers

      • Then he sticks his finger up and says “I am born for supreme knowledge, for the welfare of the world- Thus this is my final rebirth”

Prediction of Asita

• Asita interprets the Queen Maya’s dream as:

  • the Queen will have a child who will either become a world conqueror or a world renouncer

Royal Childhood (of the Buddha)

• born into a very wealthy royal family

• his father wants him to love the things of this world, so he gets his son distracted by luxury and love

  • Siddhartha is good at archery, horseback riding, & sword fighting

  • he marries a distant cousin so that he’s trapped within familial responsibilities

    • this is when he starts having doubts about this life

Four Sights

• sick people

• old people

• corpse

• monk

  • after seeing the monk, the prince realizes that this is the path he must take

Ascetic Practices

• Siddhartha joins different sramana groups (meditation groups)

• denies physical instincts (only eats one grain of rice a day)

Mara’s Defeat

• Siddhartha gains followers (who previously were tiger cubs whom he gave his life to in a past life)

• a young woman offers him rice pudding, thinking that he’s a tree spirit

  • Siddhartha eats it and bathes himself - his followers think he ‘failed’ because he’s giving in

  • he comes up with a new principle: “I should follow a middle path between the extremes of self-denial and self-pleasure”

    • Siddhartha sits below a bodhi tree until he attains enlightenment

      • Mara sends his armies to the Buddha because it doesn’t want him to reach enlightenment

        • could be inner demons or actual demons

        • he accepts them through peace and love

Turning the Wheel of Dharma

• the Buddha initially didn’t think to teach but was begged by the gods

• a symbol of teaching, occurred at Deer Park

  • the wheels spin out to extend and reign over the world

  • “sets in motion” the Buddhist tradition

• his students were the 5 monks who were previously his followers

Parinirvana

• the Buddha’s passing (from eating bad pork)

• he goes to sleep in a peaceful and intentional manner

  • “All conditioned things are impermanent- practice with diligence!”

Stupa Worship

• originally built to house the earthly remains of the Buddha, now includes sacred texts

• a Buddhist temple/monastery

• reminds the Buddhist practitioner of the Buddha and his teachings

  • symbolizes the enlightened mind and the path to enlightenment

Teaching at Deer Park

• the first turning of the dharma wheel

  • includes 4 Noble Truths, No-Self, Impermanence, Dependent Arising, Karma, & Afflictions

4 Noble Truths (True Realities)

1. life is suffering

   • can be both physical & mental and has a range of intensity

2. there is a cause for this suffering

   • craving & obsession

     • humans suffer because of cravings, and craving keeps humans attached to existence

3. the cessation of suffering is the cessation of craving

   • extinguishing suffering/craving

4. the cessation of craving is achieved through the practice of the Eightfold Path {“Middle Way”)

3 Sufferings

• suffering of suffering

  • painful experiences (ex: sickness, aging, death)

• suffering of change

  • inability to accept change

• suffering of conditionality

  • the profound unsatisfactoriness of existence, caused by existence

3 Cravings

• craving for sensual pleasures

  • wealth or power

• craving for existence

  • craving for a fixed identity/existence, not accepting that life is impermanent

• craving for non-existence

  • craving to avoid pain/suffering

• 3 poisons:

  • moha (ignorance)

  • raga (greed)

  • dvesha (hatred/anger)

2 Types of nirvana

• nirvana: nirvana with remainder

  • the mind and body of the final existence

• parinirvana: nirvana without remainder

  • achieved at death when all future existence have been extinguished

Eightfold Path

Wisdom-

1. Right/Correct View

   • establishing a correct/basic view of the world

     • a view that karma is real, reincarnation is real, and that it’s desirable to get off of samsara

2. Right Resolve/Intention

   • motivated to have enlightenment

Morality-

3. Right Speech

   • how we behave towards others with our speech

4. Right Action

   • what we do with our physical bodies

5. Right Livelihood

   • engage in careers that are helpful/beneficial

6. Right Effort

   • an action where you need to make an effort/persevere in your practices

Meditation-

7. Right Mindfulness

   • the capacity to understand what is going on in this very moment

8. Right Concentration

   • bringing the force of your mental focus onto specific patterns, issues, and habits, of which will bring insight

Three (Mental) Trainings

• wisdom, morality, and meditation (from the Eightfold Path)

5 Aggregates (skandha)

1. Form

   • the physical body, which is a name for the collection of the parts of the body

2. Sensation

   • mental experiences that occur in dependence on causes & conditions

3. Perception

   • the mental capacity/moment where the mind makes distinctions/categorizations

4. Mental Formations/Volitions

   • emotional reactions or desires/opinions based on the last 3 aggregates

5. Consciousness

   • the stream of mental events

self (atman)

• in the Buddha’s day, atman was understood as a unified, continuous “inner controller” of a person’s actions

• attachment is predicated on the idea of a self

  • the desire to own yourself is the cause of suffering

No Self (anatman)

• the second main teaching of the Buddha, the doctrine of selflessness

• there is no permanent self/soul in humans

Impermanence (anitya)

• everything is impermanent and as such aren’t worth getting attached to

sutra

• new scriptures taught by the Buddha

• collection of texts that we use to interpret Mahayana religion

Wheel of Life/Becoming (bhava-cakra)

• the cycle of existence (karma, samsara)

• Mara holds the wheel

3 Marks/Characteristics (tri-laksana)

• impermanence

• suffering

• no-self

3 Root Afflictions/Fires (klesa)

• delusion/ignorance (pig)

• greed/attachment (rooster)

• anger/hatred (snake)

6 Realms of Rebirth

• hell - through hatred

• animal - through stupidity

• human - through lust

• deva (god) - through pride

• asura (titans/demigods) - through jealousy

• preta (ghost- don’t reincarnate) - through greed

12 Links of Dependent Arising (pratitya-samutpada)

• ignorance

• mental formation

• consciousness

• name & form

• the six senses

• contact

• feeling

• craving

• clinging

• becoming

• birth

• old age & death

Arhat

• a person who is taught the “Middle Path” by a buddha and cultivates it to extinguish their cravings/”fires”

  • mostly reach enlightenment only for themselves, the Hinayana Vehicle

Mahayana

• focuses on the second turning of the dharma wheel, which is considered a “deeper level” of teaching and the origin of the “Great Vehicle” (Mahayana)

  • lead to greater goal of Buddhahood (not arhatship)

  • included cultivation of compassion toward others

  • required more profound insight into the nature of reality

• new sutras, goals, cosmology, and ontology were created

Hinayana

• those who rejected Mahayana

• the small vehicle, where people (arhats) reach nirvana only for themselves

Bodhisattva

• “Buddhas in training”

  • can reach full Buddhahood

Perfection of Wisdom (prajna-paramita) Literature

• 8,000 verse (c. 100 BCE - 100 CE)

• 100,000 verse (c. 100 - 300 CE)

• Diamond Sutra (c. 300 - 500 CE)

  • reduced the # of verses to 300

• Heart Sutra (c. 600 CE)

  • 25 verses

  • includes language of negation and refrains from elaborate philosophical language

Inherent Existence (“own-being”, svabhava)

• all phenomena (dharma) are “empty” of intrinsic existence

  • every characteristic defining any entity arises dependently from things that are not the thing being identified

Emptiness (sunyata)

• Diamond Sutra: “All conditioned dharmas are like a dream, and illusion, a bubble, a shadow, like dew, and like lightning. Thus they should be perceived”

• there is no fixed, stable self, and the universe is neither fixed nor stable either

  • all phenomena lack inherent existence and are interdependent

Wisdom (prajna)

• the intuitive wisdom that reveals the truth of reality as embodied in the doctrine of emptiness and dependent-arising that frees one from suffering/samsara

Compassion (karuna)

• cultivated from helping others attain buddhahood

Skillful Means (upaya)

• the Buddha adapts his message to the level of his audience

• the Parable of the Burning House in the Lotus Sutra

6 Perfections

1. generosity

2. morality

3. patience

4. vigor

5. concentration

6. wisdom

Mencius

• Chinese philosopher of the Confucian tradition (372-289 BCE)

• “All human beings have a mind that cannot bear to the sufferings of others… If anyone were suddenly to see a child about to fall into a well, his mind would be filled with alarm, distress, pity, and compassion”

Laozi

• the founder of the Daoist philosophical school

• “Know honor, Yet keep humility, Be the valley of the universe! Being the valley of the universe, Ever true and resourceful, Return to the state of the uncarved block.”

Zuangzi

• name of the second great Daoist text, attributed to & named after the sage Zuangzi (365-290 BCE)

  • includes lively parables & paradoxes

  • explores mysterious Dao in everyday ordinary human life

  • encourages people to “sit quietly and do nothing”

• Zuangzi’s dream:

  • “Once I dreamed that I was a butterfly, and now I no longer know whether I am Zhuangzi who dreamed he was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming that I am Zhuangzi.”

    • explores themes of death, knowledge, etc. and advocates acceptance of change

Dao

• “a way or a path”

• determines all things & flows as energy of the universe

  • to experience it one must let go and “do nothing”

  • beyond words, only experienced in silence

“not doing” (wuwei)

• “do nothing, and nothing will remain undone”

  • striving less often generates more success

• what it means to follow Dao

“Human nature”

• early Buddhist philosophers were inclined to discuss concerns over “purity” vs. “impurity” rather than “good” vs. “evil”

  • impurity signaled ignorance and purity signaled wisdom

Buddha Nature

• all sentient beings possess a Buddha Nature, our innate potential for awakening

tathagatagarbha

• all beings contain within themself the virtues and wisdom of a Tathagata (a Buddha-nature), if not the Buddha himself

Yogacara School

• founded by brothers Vasubandhu & Asanga (c. 4th-5th cent.)

• taught that the external isn’t real, our minds “create the world around us”

  • awakening occurs when these consciousnesses cease functioning

• updated the 6 consciousness model → 8 consciousness model

  • visual consciousness

  • auditory consciousness

  • olfactory consciousness

  • gustatory consciousness

  • tactile consciousness

  • mental consciousness

  • mind (“ego”)

  • storehouse consciousness

Mind Only (citta-matra)

• created from the Yogacara School, same doctrines as the Yogacara School

Storehouse Consciousness (alaya-vijnana)

• Karmic “seeds” are deposited into the Storehouse Consciousness, which stores karmic latencies throughout a lifetime, or even between our lifetimes

  • when these seeds “sprout” they infuse a new moment of consciousness

Treatise on the Awakening of Faith

• a concise synopsis of both the theoretical and practical aspects of the central ideas of Mahayana Buddhism

Madhyamaka School

• “Middle Way” School, founded by Nagarjuna (c. 2nd-3rd)

• teaches the emptiness from The Perfection of Wisdom Sutra

  • all dharmas (phenomena) are empty of inherent existence

“One Mind” & “two aspects”

• The only mind you have is a Buddha mind

• two aspects are:

  • mind as suchness (ex: glass half-full)

  • mind as samsara (ex: glass half-empty)