Life of the Buddha and the Four Passing Sights

Intro to Buddhism

• Buddhists believe that individuals can overcome the misery of the world and reach their own Buddha status by a process of mental, spiritual, and moral purification

  • Problem: Suffering

  • Solution: reach Nirvana

• Buddhist canon has 3  main forms: Theravadin, Mahayana, and Tibetan

The Life of the Buddha

• Born to be a nobleman had a Mayor’s son in a north Indian state

• Rejects orthodox Hindu practices of his time, and rejects the authority of the VEDAS

• Sees the Four Passing Sights, (old age, disease, death, and a monk), and has a religious experience

• Finds the Middle Path between Hindu and asceticism and the life of the householder

  • (no to the extremes, finds the middle ground between suffering and pleasure)

• Founds his Teaching/Religion (Dharma), and establishes a monastic order

Key Concept (Teachings) Part 1

1. Existence (living) has “3 marks”

   • Impertenance (anitya/anicca)

     • Everything we do has a shelf-life, and it causes us suffering when we lose the things we love, but suffering also goes away bc everything is impermanent, including our pain

   • Suffering (duhkha)

   • No-self (no permanent individual soul) anatman

• Once u realize this u can truly be free from samsara and reach nirvana

2. Four Noble Truths: find the root cause of suffering and cure it (enlightenment)

3. Noble Eightfold Path: virtues that are practiced collectively cure the aspirants of suffering

4. Interdependent Origination: nothing is truly metaphysically independent; all things exist in relation to everything else

Key Concepts Part 2

Four Noble (Aryan) Truths

• Fundamental Buddhist Teaching

• The fundamental spiritual problem is suffering and anguish caused by ignorance, and the cure is understanding the noble truths and practicing to “wake up” to achieve enlightenment

• The Four Noble Truths

1. Duhkha (Suffering): moral and sentient existence includes change, pleasure, pain, and desire - these lead to attachment which leads to suffering and anguish

   • Suffering is normal,. samsara, the cycle of birth and death is all marked by suffering

2. Samudaya (Origin of Suffering): the origin is obsessive attachment to what we want and obsessive aversion to what we don’t want

3. ^^Nirodha ^^(Cessation of Suffering): the cure is to practice ridding oneself of such obsession

4. Marga (the Path) - Eightfold Path (Virtues): this practice is best accomplished thru right views, right intentions, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration

The Rise of Mahayana in China, Tibet, and Korea

The Buddha as “Doctor,” Psychologist and Spiritual Leader & Healer

• We can view the 4 noble truths from the perspective of early Vedic-Indian medicine:

• 1st Noble Truth: suffering, track the symptoms of sickness

• 2nd Noble Truth: origin of suffering, diagnosis based on assessment of symptoms (the problem is attachment & aversion)

• 3rd Noble Truth: cessation of suffering, ^^prognosis ^^(projection of outcomes - in this case, the prognosis is good; the Buddha offers a path to end suffering)

• 4th Noble Truth: spiritual path, prescription (for healing: enlightenment by practiing the eightfold path of virtues)

Key to Early Buddhist Enlightenment Experience

1. Understand (intellectually & emotionally) the 4 Noble Truths

2. Follow the Eightfold Path

3. Understand the impermanence of all things

4. Understand the absence of a soul-self (anatman)

5. (4) includes understanding the 5 “heaps” or elements (skandhas) of which all sentient creatures are composed: you, me, dogs, and crows, etc.

• 5 Skandhas: physical form, sensation-affection, perception, habits, consciousness

Division & Subdivision

Basic Division/Branches of Buddhism: Theravada & Mahayana

• Theravada: “way of the elders” (sometimes called Hinayana, the smaller vehicle)

  • Practiced in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and south-east Asia

• Mahayana: “the great/larger vehicle”

  • Practiced in Tibet, China, Japan, Korea, and all of America/Europe

  • Emphasizes other-help over self-effort in the form of devotion to numerous Buddhas and bodhisattvas

  • Sub division of Mahayana: Vajrayna

    • Vajrayana: Lamaism/form of Mahayana with Tantric elements and indigenous Tibetan shamanism; origins: Tibet

    • Other branches falling under Mahayana: Nichiren (Japan), Pure-Land Buddhism, more devotional in nature

Mahayana vs. Theravada

• Bodhisattva Saints of the Mahayana

  • Bodhisattvas are spiritual warriors who delay their own salvation until all sentient beings achieve enlightenment

  • Emphasis on compassion and altruism as key features that constitute Buddahood. their goal is to become future Buddhas

  • Enlightenment (nirvana) is not personal or individual; all fields of suffering must be liberated

Lamaism, Mahayana Chan/Zen, and Bodhisattvas

Prajna-Paramita Sutras

• Mahayana also focuses on “pure emptiness” (shunyata - meaning zero, or formlessness)

  • You’re not a single solid thing, but a fluid process

• In early Buddhism, everything is made up of some form of the five elements (the skandhas)

• In Mahayana-Prajna-Paramita, even these five elements are “empty”

• Every form is ultimately defined by its connection to something else - in this sense, relative and dependent

  • All things are interdependent

• All forms are empty and all emptiness can take the shapes of forms

Tibetan Mahayana (or “Lamaism” & Zen Buddhism)

• Tibetans mix indigenous religious practice with Buddhism (arriving around the 5th-7th c. CE)

• Also known as Lamaism (super religion)

• Emphasis on bodhisattva and sometimes tantra (or the quick method) for enlightenment

• Zen from Chinese, “Chan,” from Sanskrit-Indian “Dhyana’ (meditation) - practiced originally in Chinese mountain monasteries, and then in Japan

• Emphasis on “emptiness” and prajn-paramita

• Emphasis on pure freedom from intellectualism (Koan Tradition)

• Emphasis on the pure experience of emptiness and stillness

Scriptures of Theravada Buddhism

• Known as Tipitaka, the Three Baskets

• In the Pali language

• Tradition says that the early disciplines of Buddha wrote down his words on palm leaves and separated them into 3 parts (the scriptures):

  • The Vinaya Pitaka, “Discipline Basket”

  • The Sutta Pitaka, “Discourse Basket”

  • The Abhidhamma Pitaka, “Special Teaching Basket”