Buddhists Beliefs Recap Quiz

life of the buddha, the four noble truths, the teachings of the buddha, the human personality

What does the Buddha mean?

"‘enlightened one’

What was the Buddha’s name?

Siddhartha Gautama

What was the Buddha’s life like before he became enlightened?

a wealthy prince who had never known suffering

Why did Siddhartha never know suffering?

His father, the king, was told Siddhartha would either become a great king or a great holy man, but he would become a great holy man if he knew suffering. His father wanted him to be a great king so locked Siddhartha up so he would never know suffering

What were the key five events in the Buddha’s life?

• the four sights

• renunciation

• middle way

• meditation

• enlightenment

• parinirvana

What are the Four Sights?

Siddhartha saw an old man, a sick man, a dead man and a holy man. Seeing the old man, the sick man and the dead man gave Siddhartha an understanding of suffering, and seeing the Holy Man gave him a different path to try and escape suffering.

What is renunciation?

Siddhartha giving up his life as a prince in order to become an asectic

What is an asectic?

a holy man

What happened to Siddhartha after he became an asectic?

he tried practicing a life of extreme asectism, only eating one grain of rice a day

What is the Middle Way?

Siddhartha follows a middle path between extreme luxury and extreme asectism after accepting ricemilk from a girl named Sujata and realising that a life of extreme asectism wasn’t going to help him achieve ending to suffering

What is Meditiation?

concentration of the mind, which Siddhartha practices under a Bodhi Tree to achieve enlightenment

What is enlightenment?

a state of complete understanding and complete love/compassion, which gave Siddhartha insight into his past lives, the workings of karma, and the three marks of existence

What did the Buddha do after he became enlightened?

teach people on how to become enlightened and about the truth of the world

What is Parinirvana?

Nirvana without remainder, which releases you from the cycle of samasara and dissolution of the five agregates. The Buddha achieves this upon is death

What are the Four Noble Truths?

teachings given by the Buddha in his fist sermon, outlining the truth o suffering, its orgin, that it can be overcome and how it can be overcome

What do the Four Noble Truths include?

• dukkha

• samudaya

• nirodha

• magga

What is dukkha?

the truth of suffering

What are the different types of dukkha?

• dukkha-dukkha: the physical and emotional discomort and pain all humans experience in their lives

• viparinama-dukkha: the suffering of change

• sankhara-dukkha: the suffering of existence that can also be described as background suffering

What is samudaya?

the truth of the cause of suffering

What is nirodha?

the truth of the cessation of suffering

What is samsara?

the cycle of birth, death a rebirth, characterised by dukkha

What is karma?

actions have future consequences, either in this life or for our return

What are the Three Poisons?

negative mental states that cause suffering - greed, hatred and ignorance

What is Tanha?

cravings

What is nirvana?

ultimate spiritual goal in buddha, which is a state of bliss that marks the end of suffering and extinguishing of the three poisons

What is the Eightfold Path

the path that the Buddha taught leads to enlightenment, which consists of right spech, right action, right livelihood, right mindfulness, right concentration, right effort, right view and right intention

What is the Threefold Way?

a division o a the eightfold path into three key components - ethics meditation and wisdom

What is dharma?

the teachings of the Buddha

What is pratityasamutpada?

dependent origination, which teaches that everything only exists exists because of the existence of other phenomena in a complex web of cause and effect

What are the three marks of existence?

three ways in which all existence can be characterised - annica, dukkha, annata

What are other words for the three marks of existence?

lakshanas

What do the Three Marks of Existence include?

• anicca

• dukkha

• annata

What is anicca?

the impermanent nature of all things and that nothing stays the same and everything will change

What is dukkha?

suffering/unsatisfactoriness

What is anatta?

no independent or permanent self beyond the aggrefates, there is no such thing as a soul

What are the five skanhas/aggregates?

the five elements that make up the human being and add to our experience of self

What do the five aggregates include?

• form

• sensation

• perception

• mental formations

• consciousness

What is sunyata?

emptiness, in Mahayana Buddhism, the aggregates are essentially empty, as are all conditioned phenomena

What is the Buddha-Nature?

the belief that in Mahayna Buddhism that all sentient beings have the potential to become a Buddha or to become a enlightened being

What is another word for Buddha-Nature?

tatgatagarbha

What is the moral of the Buddhist story of Nagasena and the Chariot?

that there is no permanent self or soul (anatta)

Dhammapada 1 

“If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts, suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.”

Dhammapada 5

“Hatred is, indeed, never appeased by hatred in this world. It is appeased only by loving-kindness.”

Dhammapada 113

“Better than a hundred years in the life of a person who does not perceive the arising and the dissolving of the five aggregates, is a day in the life of one who perceives the arising and dissolving of the five aggregates.”