Introduction to Buddhism (Religious Studies)

BUDDHISMReligions that Originated in South Asia

NON-THEISMFor some time scholars called Buddhism atheistic, but a more correct term is non-theistic.

Buddhists do not deny the existence of god/s, but Buddhism is not a religion that centers on god/s.

Buddhists rely on right knowledge, which is acquired by disciplining the mind and achieving enlightenment, to overcome karma and find release (nirvana) from the wheel of samsara.

WHAT IS REAL IN BUDDHISM?

Absolute Reality is non-theistic and impermanent

Everything is constantly changing (anitya)

There is no personal soul (atman) that survives death

Nothing satisfies, all is ‘suffering’ (dukkha)

This sounds very negative but in part this is because Buddhists had to define themselves by what they did not have in common with Hindu religion.

The Buddha and his followers were Hindus who rejected the Vedas, the social inequities of the caste system, and the idea that only men at the top of social ladder could escape samsara. They also rejected stark asceticism as a means of achieving moksha.

Buddhists taught that anyone could overcome the bonds of samsara by taking refuge in the Buddha, following the Buddha’s Dharma, and joining the Buddhist community (sangha). It is a Middle Path.

THE THREE JEWELSI take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the

Sangha

Buddhism is more than a philosophy; it is a religion

in four interlocking domains.

A religious community - the Sangha

Religious practice - the Buddha’s Dharma

Buddha’s discourse - it is religious because it

claims to represent the ultimate truth; it transcends

the everyday world of material being and claims this

status for itself.

The master/disciple relationship is a semi-formal

institution that guards, modifies, and transmits

Buddhist teaching, which informs Buddhist practice,

and creates Buddhist community. The community is

led by these masters who train up their novitiates to

continue this cycle. This is very similar to the

mechanism by which Rabbinic Judaism has survived

for close to 2,000 years.

BUDDHA’S SANGHA

Like the word “church” in Christianity, Sangha can refer to either

a local community of Buddhist practitioners, usually monks, or

to the universal community of all Buddhists regardless of their level of practice.

SHAKYAMUNIBuddha instituted the first

Buddhist community comprised of renunciates with whom he had

traveled. This community began the dissemination of the the Buddha’s

teaching.

THE BUDDHA

In the 6th-5th centuries BCE when Siddhartha Gautama left his family and fortune to become a renunciate in search of enlightenment, his home in Northern India was in political turmoil.

Gautama, a member of the noble Shakya tribe, joined an ascetic faction of Hindus who had rejected the Vedas and the Vedic priests in search of answers to his questions about life and suffering.

According to the legends of Buddha’s awakening, he could not find his answers in the extreme luxury of his palace life, nor could he find it in the extreme asceticism of his companions.

Siddharta continued his quest alone, but chose a Middle Path between self-indulgence and self-denial, and set his mind on meditating until he would know the Truth of how to stop suffering and escape samsara.

As he focused inward and entered deeper states of meditation, he experienced increasing levels of ‘awareness’, until at last he “saw” and understood everything. By looking inward, he had achieved enlightenment—ultimate knowledge about Absolute Reality.

The Buddha … explained his wakening to his five former companions at a deer park … near Benares. Although they had parted with him earlier … they reconciled with him and became his first disciples” (Molloy, p. 128)

THE BUDDHA’S DHARMA

Like Hindus, Buddhists teach the doctrines of samsara, karma, dharma, and rebirth.

Unlike Hinduism, there are no gods that require sacrifices or that hear prayers in Buddhist teaching.

Each person is solely and wholly responsible for his or her own destiny.

Instead of a personal dharma based on caste, Buddhists proclaim only the one Dharma taught by the Buddha for everyone.

TO THINK OR NOT TO THINK

Western Enlightenment valorized thinking, the rational, logical pursuit of the truth. The first principal of Western philosophy is that “I” am real and true. I may doubt my existence, but the fact that I can doubt proves that I exist. How can a doubt ‘be’ without a doubter?

The same basic logic underlies St. Anselm’s classic philosophical proof for the existence of God—the so-called ontological argument. So long as we can think of something greater than the last great thing we imagine to be, that greater thing must also necessarily “exist” and this “being” is therefore as real as “I” am.

-Rene Descartes

"… this proposition: I am, I exist, whenever it is uttered from me,

or conceived by the mind, necessarily is true."

Buddhism asks us to stop thinking in order to ‘know’ the truth.

If I can I cease to think, I can cease to “be” in a manner of speaking. I will then know that my “self” is the physical byproduct of thinking (and feeling). When I realize this, I will know that truth cannot be arrived at by thinking, but by deliberately disciplining the mind to stop all thought.

There is a knowing that transcends thinking.

-Majjhima Nikāya I, 130

Any form of sensation or consciousness, “… past, future, or present; internal or external; manifest or subtle...as it actually is...: ‘This is not mine.

This is not my self. This is not what I am’” .

THE PURPOSE

In the existential sense of the word, the purpose of Buddhist teaching is to enable human beings to achieve nirvana and end suffering. The first step is to internalize Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths.

In the pragmatic sense of the word, living a Buddhist life is to live a life of compassion, free from strong emotional attachments (cravings), in a state of complete mindfulness. To do this is to pursue the Buddha’s Eight-fold Path.

THE TRUTHThe Buddha taught his profound knowledge in simple language. It begins with Four Noble Truths:

1. Every experience (thinking, feeling, etc.) leads to dissatisfaction or dis-ease (suffering, dukkha).

2. Dukkha is caused by desire, by craving permanence when the truth is that nothing is permanent and everything changes.

3. There is a way to overcome this suffering or dukkha, a way out of the never-ending cycle of desire that leads to dissatisfaction that leads to more desiring and more dis-ease.

4. The way to overcome suffering is to follow the Eight-fold Path.

THE EIGHT-FOLD PATHRight Understanding—know Reality

Right Intention—have pure motives

Right Speech—say nothing hurtful/untrue

Right Action—do nothing harmful

Right Work—hurt no living thing

Right Effort—resist evil/pursue good

Right Concentration—meditate properly

Right Mindfulness—cultivate awareness

NIRVANA

Nirvana is the direct experience of non-being, where the mind ceases to hate, to crave and to be ignorant of its own impermanence

If that doesn't sound particularly "simple" to you, don't be surprised.

Nirvana is not "heaven" in the common sense of the word. It is not a place at all - it is a state of mind, a realization: Nirvana, therefore, is not a heavenly place like the Hebrew Paradise, or the Christian Heaven, or the Hindu Brahma.

http://www.thisismyanmar.com/nibbana/panadi10.htm

"Just as fire is not stored up in a particular place

but rises when the necessary conditions are

present, so Nirvana is not said to exist in a

particular place, but it is attained when and

wherever the necessary qualities are fulfilled”.

DEPENDENT CO-ARISING

If we dig a bit deeper into Buddhist explanations of Ultimate Reality, we will end up with a law rather than a divine being—the law of dependent or conditioned co-arising. Nothing, according to Buddhism, 'exists' outside the scope of this law of dependent co-arising.

One thing gives rise to another in infinite variety throughout time and space. There is no beginning to this chain of cause and effect.

Therefore, there can be no single, omnipotent God who is responsible for creating the phenomenal world ex nihilo (out of nothing).

GLOBAL BUDDHISM

Buddhism took the basic elements of a Hindu worldview that had been most successful in structuring Indian society, and built on them to create a universal religion of personal transformation that rivals Christianity and Islam in its missionary success.

If you have ever said, “It’s the thought that counts,” or spent time cultivating mindfulness, or become an admirer of Yoda and the Jedi Masters, you have encountered Buddhism. Americans of all religious backgrounds have dipped consciously and unconsciously from the wellspring of the Buddha’s Dharma.

Image credits

Buddha image. <http://threeroyalwarriors.tripod.com/heartsutra.html>

No-self. <http://jayarava.blogspot.com/2014/03/ethics-and-nonself-in-relation-to.html>

Dhamma Anatta <http://what-buddha-said.net/gallery/index.php/Buddha-Images/Sabbe-Dhamma-Anatta>

Shakyamuni under the Bodhi Tree. <http://www.prajna-galleries.com/assets/Uploads/buddhist-paintings-2/detail-grossesbild-sakyamuni-5.jpg >

Buddhadharma magazine cover. <http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/storage/2014summer/BD-SMR-14_quarter-size_no-code.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1399951554037>

Rube’s Cartoon <http://www.uxpamagazine.org/rubes-family-trip/>

Sangha (Laos, Luang Prabang). Luang Prabang Takuhatsu ~photo by Akiyoshi Maysuoka <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangha>

Image credits (continued)

The three jewels of Buddhism. < http://storder.org/dharma-bytes/climbing-zen-mountain-ii>

Buddha’s disciples. <http://phramick.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/life-of-buddha-28.jpg>

additional resources

For a definition of religion in four domains see, Bruce Lincoln. Holy Terrors. The University of Chicago Press, © 2002, 2006. <http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/481921.html>

Richard H. Robinson, Williard L. Johnson, Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff). Buddhist Religions: a historical introduction, Fifth Edition. Thomson Wadsworth, 2005.

Coseru, Christian, "Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/mind-indian-buddhism/>.