Chapter 11: Theravada Buddhism
Theravada was the first truly organized Buddhist tradition and is the only one from this time period to survive to the present-day, so we’re focusing on it first even though it has since been eclipsed by Mahayana in terms of followers and historical influence
historical context: Buddhist thought
Buddha wasn’t interested in dogma and shit, so once he died, his followers risked fragmentation of the tradition—buncha lone sadhu and buncha ppl in a buncha Orders, all with little communication with the others.
thus, to avoid this fragmentation, ~1 year after Buddha died, the movement’s leaders (said to be ~500 arhat (“awakened one/s”) in attendance) came together in what is called the First Great Council [of Anuradhapura] with the goal to establish an authentic monastic code and a firm philosophical foundation to ensure everyone was following the Buddha’s teachings properly.
occurred in Rajagriha, the capital of the Magadha kingdom, at that time North India’s most dominant kingdom (and a place where Buddha had spent much time teaching)
Second Great Council met about a century later in Vaisali to talk through some internal divisions, particularly about whether or not Awakening was something that folk acquired (i.e., which folk reached by working hard to fundamentally change themselves) or if it was something that was uncovered (i.e., which lies dormant in every person and which folk can work hard to find within themselves). majority view at the time was that it was acquired.
almost all the leading Buddhist monks/scholars gathered in Sri Lanka in 80 BCE at the Grand Council to formalize the Buddhist tradition and to put together a “fundamental corpus of documents that faithfully preserved Buddha’s teaching, including his teaching regarding the proper organization and discipline of the Orders within the sahgha” (p. 251); met for several months and created the Pali Canon, which still serves as the foundational text for the Theravada tradition (considered a kind of “orthodox” Buddhism).
(also, general reminder that “Buddhism” isn’t as concrete or distinct as “-ism” would make it seem; there’s a lot of internal division and a lot of overlap with other traditions, especially Jainism and Hinduism (two of the other great Dharmic traditions), and Buddhist thinkers were very much a part of the general Indian culture of the age, not something completely separate and easy to distinguish. in other words, it’s all fluid!)
historical context: (geo)politics
in Buddha’s time, northern India was segmented into a buncha different kingdoms; however, around that time, the Persian Empire formed just east of India, and in the 4th century, Alexander the Great consolidated Greece and absorbed the Persian Empire into his own, even conquering some of the very westernmost parts of India in 326 BCE. he oversaw a few raids in northern India, but no full conquests, and so the Indian kingdoms gneerally survived.
however! Alexander the Great died a surprising and early death, and his empire was split up between a buncha warlords! this was still a threat to northern India, as its kingdoms were generally smaller and wouldn’t have had the military power to necessarily resist conquest. as such, Chandragupta Maurya, a powerful king in the north of India, decided it was time to consolidate, and he annexed a shit-ton of the other kingdoms just 5 years after ol’ Alex died. he consolidated most of the north of India (esp. the western parts), even pushing a little west into the Persian Empire. Alexander the Great’s successor, Seleucus Nicator, decided to just make peace and call it a day, so the story says Chandragupta sent Seleucus 500 elephants nd Seleucus sent Chandragupta his daughter to be his wife. thus Chandragupta founded the Mauryan dynasty, ruling for 23 years.
Chandragupta’s son, Bindusara, would also rule for 23 years, but he wasn’t about that conquering shit, and he instead built up the wealth of the royal court.
his son, though, Ashoka, was ruthless and bloodthirsty like his grandpa, and upon ascending to the throne in 274, he went about conquering the rest of northern India to complete Granddad’s vision. succeeded in consolidating all of northern India, but the story says that when he had accomplished that goal, he looked around and was like “wow look at the carnage! now i feel bad :(” because cunt :) so he decided he wanted to ~make things right~ (impossible). he called one of the great Buddhist monks of the era to teach him about the Dharma, was won over by it, and he and his whole court “were consecrated to the Buddhist way of life” (p. 256).
he then made a pilgrimage to Lumbini, where Buddha was born, and had a memorial stone pillar erected there and carved with quotes from the Buddhist sutras (discourses, supposedly straight from the Buddha’s mouth); went on to make buncha these all over the empire (called Rock Edicts; 35 still exist today), as well as to (supposedly) fund a bunch of monasteries (supporting some 64k monks) and create 80k stupas (shrines to the Buddha’s memory and teachings). said he went personally to the sites to check their progress. also built a buncha quality roads with drinking water and inns at regular intervals, outlawed hunting for sport and sacrificing animals, encouraged (and (slowly) adopted) vegetarianism, and also financially supported a buncha hospitals for both humans and nonhuman animals.
some degree of debate on how sincere his conversion was, but the author says “well he even went vegetarian!! surely he wouldn’t go that far just for public image?!?!?!?” which is a cold-ass take because going vegetarian is not that hard or extreme????? smh
some also argue that the quotes he put on the pillars weren’t necessarily there to encourage Buddhism so much as to lay out a uniform code of conduct for this new, large empire so he could try to create some sense of cohesion and perhaps loyalty (fair speculation)
also sent a buncha Buddhist missionaries all over the world, finding little to no success in most places but having enormous success in Sri Lanka, which would become one of the kind of central hubs of Buddhist thought in time (thus why the Grand Council met there)
said that the king of Sri Lanka, King Tissa, attempted to ally himself with Ashoka by sending him a large and beautiful black pearl that had been found off the coast, saying it was the most perfect thing he knew of in the world, and that Ashoka sent his son, Mahinda, as a Buddhist missionary in return, saying that Buddhism was the most perfect thing he knew of in the world; the king was apparently psyched about Buddhism, and he and the court converted immediately. Mahinda established a men’s Order and had his sister, Sanghamitta, come out to establish a women’s Order; said she brought and planted a cutting from the Bodhi Tree under which Buddha had his awakening, and its descendent is supposedly the pipal tree in Anuradhapura.
Ashoka died in 232 after 28 years of reign, and at that point, Buddhism entered into a gneeral decline in northern India; will return to that at the end of the chapter
Pali Canon
first real documentary history of Buddhism; everything from the 4 centuries between Buddha’s death and this being written was all oral tradition
scholars generally consider it to be a very authentic presentation of Buddha’s teachings despite this gap
written in Pali, a derivative of Sanskrit; folk at Grand Council believed it was the language Buddha had spoken
(note: most Mahayana texts use Sanskrit instead, so terms are often spelled/transliterated differently, which can cause some confusion)
(in my notes as in the book, the Pali comes first in bold, then the Sanskrit in italics in parentheses)
describes the First and Second Great Councils, as explained above
broken down into 3 categories called tipitaka (tripitaka), meaning “three baskets,” and each of which contained various palm-leaf books:
the suttas (sutras), “sayings and discourses believed to have been handed down directly from the lipis of Buddha” (p. 260); most well-known is Dhammapada (Dharmapadda)
the vinaya (____), “the rules of organization and everday life for the members of the Orders” (p. 260), also believed to have more or less come straight from the Buddha; serves as basic rules in Theravadin tradition and consists of the Five Dedications:
no killing: don’t harm sentient creatures (i.e., both human and nonhuman animals), try generally take food from plants that are naturally produced (eg nuts, berries) and whose harvest won’t harm the plant, and show love and compassion for all living things
“Like Jain monks, one of the few simple possesions of a Theravadin monk was a small piece of thin cloth, which [they] could use to strain liquids before drinking. After all, there might be some tiny living critters in the liquid” (p. 261).
no stealing: as in Yoga Sutras, not just stealing as we generally think of it, but specifically renouncing all but the most vital material goods (because hoarding = bad), as well as avoiding envious thoughts and the like. only possessions are, generally speaking, 2 robes (so you had a spare to wear when one was being cleaned/drying), a pair of sandals, a begging bowl, and (in modern days) an umbrella. even then, those things also often belonged to your monastery, so they weren’t really “yours,” per se.
no lying (including to oneself)
no unlawful sex: idk why they specify “unlawful” because this teaching, also like Yoga Sutras, just says monks can have no sex whatsoever as it’ll both distract them from their meditation and studying and it’ll foster attachment
no alcohol (or other mind-altering substances), as they, too, can distract from your studies and detract from your meditation (cuz decreases concentration)
the abhidhamma (abhidharma), which “contains the collected wisdom of several centuries of commentary. These were works of a more speculative and philosophical nature, and were held in high respect. Such writings were later than Buddha’s lifetime, but were important interpretations of the tradition, and added to its full development” (p. 260).
goal was “to preserve and promote” the Buddha’s teachings on how humanity could free itself from ignorance and thus from suffering, in order “to provide a nourishing context within which any person who wished to make the effort could strive to become an arahant” (arhat; p. 260, boldface added), i.e. a fully awakened person.
general belief of Theravada (per vinaya) was that only monks could realistically achieve nirvana (because it was necessary to renounce all worldly connections and fully dedicate oneself to meditation and studying the Dharma and shit), but that regular people could still generate positive karma by helping the monks in their mission, eg by doing the great honour of providing them food >:/
“We must not think of these rules as some kind of moral code handed down from a divine authority. These were very practical, time-tested guidelines derived from the teaching of Buddha and centuries of experience” (pp. 260-1) ok bestie whatever you say
“Only by living every day in perfect accord with the Dharma, which is to say, living in accord with the ideals of the Eightfold Path, can one hold [their] balance on the razor’s edge and avoid falling into the fatally destructive impulses of ‘lust and hatred and confusion’” (p. 261).
other notes on Theravada Buddhism
translates to “teachings (doctrine) of the elders”
considered the orthodox Buddhist tradition
general daily routine:
get up early
go into town with begging bowl and walk around all ceremonial-like while villagers spoon rice and veggies and shit into your bowl
bring food back to monastery to share equally amongst monks; eat in silence; use all food (nothing to be wasted); often only one meal per day, taken in the morning so that the rest of the day can be totally dedicated to one’s study and meditation
meditation can even last for seveveral days at a time at various points in the year
spend the rest of the day studying and meditating (usually meditate as a group)
monkhood is not necessarily a lifelong commitment, and can last for different lengths of time for different people; eg, in Thailand, it’s customary for young men to spend a little time in a Buddhist monastic order before settling into a career and starting a family, and folk spend anywhere from a few months to many years to a whole lifetime there
they note here that “at its core Theravada has always been a powerful secular movement, based on the very practical teachings of Buddah, which aims solely at helping a person become an arahant, a fully awakened [person]” (p. 264); the West sees it as a religion, but it’s really not quite that despite its monasticism, its order, etc.
they now remind us that Buddhism was originally an offshoot of Hinduism, and it retained much of Hindu teachings, including meditation. the key difference is essentially that the Hindu Yoga Sutras said that samadhi was the culmination of meditation, wherein the vritti of the mind fades to static and the Atman can recognize itself in that state of stillness (by focusing on a single object); contrarily, Buddhist meditation posits that the true culmination is dhyana, where instead of reaching a state of stillness, one can sit in the chaos of the mind but maintain a sense of separation wherein they’re simply observing the workings of the mind rather than identifying with any of it.
the important Theravadan philosopher Buddhaghosa (“voice of Buddha”) wrote a commentary on the Pali Canon in the 5th century called Visuddhimaga:
lays out 2 types of meditation:
samatha meditation: aimed to quiet the mind by focusing on a single object; says samatha meditation is the only version of meditation appropriate for the novice, and can still serve as a good stepping stone to dhyana even for the experienced meditator
refers to the Five Hindrances: “desire for sense pleasure, hatred, anxiety. laziness, and doubt” (p. 266); says that samatha meditation is the way to counter them, encouraging folk concentrate on an image of the opposite of whatever mental image is distracting them from their meditation (eg, if you’re distracted by sexual thoughts, picture a disgusting rotting corpse :) hope that helps!)
vippasana (vipasyana) meditation: aimed to sit in the chaos of the mind (without being attached to any of it) by focusing on whatever is racing through the mind; AKA Insight or Mindfulness Meditation in the Eurowest; said it’s the one of the two types of meditation that can lead to awakening
important for the way it disrupts folks’ attachment: per Buddhaghosa, attachment is a sequence wherein environment → basic sense experience → conscious perception of sensory experience → recognition of sensory experience → emotion → hair-trigger, conditioned response. says it can stop you from automatically performing that conditioned response by letting you just observe the emotion without immediately acting on it.
would also go on to greatly influence Tiantai, Chan, and Zen Buddhism (and Mahayana Buddhism to a much lesser extent)
make a note that, as with Buddhism, Hinduism is also not quite a religion per the Eurowestern understanding of the term, despite its deism and such; there’s no precise doctrine, no central authority or regulatory body, etc, so it’s not at all monolithic.
also note that Hinduism has generally been very welcoming of other traditions, eg Buddhism and Jainism
historical context pt 2: after Ashoka’s death, Buddhism entered a state of decline in northern India (though it remained strong in Sri Lanka), such that at the time of the Pali Canon’s writing, it was in genuine danger of disappearing there. this was partly due to a resurgence of Hindu tradition, but also due in part to the fact that it didn’t really have much appeal to poor and rural communities, since it was “lofty and esoteric” and thus reserved almost exclusively to well-educated upper-caste affluents (p. 268). it was from this context that Mahayana Buddhism branched off, trying to give new life to Buddhist tradition through a new interpretation of the Dharma.