Historians generally agree that Siddhartha Gautama was born in a princely family in northern
As a young man he gave up life in the palace and set
out to escape samsara. After several difficult years
of study and practice, he “woke up,” not only to the cause of suffering but to
its final cessation.
He then wandered the roads of
Historically – we know only a few key facts
King Shuddhodana and Queen
Maya in an area in southern
member of the Shakya
tribe
clan name was Gautama
given name was Siddhartha
common to refer to him as Siddhartha Gautama
or Shakyamuni –
“The Sage of the Shakya Tribe”
Rich body of stories about the Buddha
begin with his previous lives
jataka or birth
stories
convey simple moral lessons
in a technical sense, these stories are
not about the Buddha but about a “future Buddha”
episodes widely represented in Buddhist art and
have had an important influence on the way Buddhists imagine an ideal human
life
1. birth announced by
miraculous signs – he would be a chakravartin –
“turner of the wheel”
either a great king - turns the wheel of conquest
or a religious teacher - turns the wheel of the dharma
in early thirties traveled outside the
palace and saw four sights: a sick person, old person, corpse, and ascetic
began following a path of sever fasting and
self-discipline unproductive
adopted a mode of discipline known as the
Middle Path – avoiding extreme of self denial and self-indulgence
self-indulgence refers not just to the way people live,
but also to the way they think, including the way they think about themselves
the self is not so important that you need
to hold on to it, nor is it so trivial that you can just throw it away
Bodh – to awaken or the bud out
Buddha – awakened from the dream of ignorance, wisdom
and has blossomed
he also achieved the state of the goal
that Buddhists call nirvana
Nirvana means “to extinguish” or “to blow out”
Nirvana involves a sense of freedom and calm
Buddha walked to Sarnath
turned the wheel of his dharma by preaching
at the age of about eighty, he lay down
between two trees and passed gently from the realm of death and rebirth
parinirvana or complete
extinction
body was cremated and his relics were
enshrined in reliquary mound or stupas
Buddha was a human being who tried to confront the
fundamental problems of suffering and death
he located himself in a tradition of
Indian asceticism
ALL is suffering
this is not pessimistic and does not devalue
human life
Buddhists say he was not pessimistic but realistic
claim about suffering leads not to pessimism
but to a realistic assessment of life’s difficulties and finally to a sense of
liberation and peace
during his life time Buddha had been a focus
of veneration and a source of authority
what was left to fill the void he left?
2 bodies of the Buddha
1-for those who wanted to worship
the form body – initially comprised the
relics of the Buddha’s cremation
over time, any physical sign or
representation of the Buddha came to play the same role
2-for those who wanted to follow the Buddha’s example,
he left behind his dharma
the teaching that expressed the content of
his awakening and showed the way for others to achieve this
Dharma
Discourse on the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta – traditional summary of first sermon
Four Noble Truths
The truth of dukkha
The truth of the arising of dukkha
The truth of the cessation of dukkha
– nirvana or nibbana
The truth of the path that leads to nirvana
dukkha and nibbana is Pali
3 types of suffering
dukkha-dukkha – physical
suffering
viparinama-dukkha - suffering due to change – all things change a
pass away
samkhara-dukkha – suffering
due to conditioned states – illusion
Three marks of existence
Everything is suffering
Everything is impermanent
Nothing has any self, or “all is no self” anatta
“no self” means that no
permanent identity continues from one moment to the next
what make up the human personality?
five “aggregates”
five aggregates are only momentary – but
they group together to give the illusion of permanence like the flow of a river
or the flame of a candle
what is reborn
the stream or flame of consciousness – binnana
causal continuity between moments in the flame
it is impossible to say that it is the “same” flame - person from one moment to the next
from a Buddhist point of view, it is simple
realistic to accept that the human personality and all of reality is constantly
changing
the cause of suffering is not the change,
but the human desire to hold on to things and keep them from changing
The Path to Nirvana
The truth of the arising of suffering
“twelvefold
chain of dependent arising” – paticca-samuppada
the most important links in this chain is
ignorance to birth
ignorance leads to desire
desire leads to birth
glossy advertisement – illusions, desires
the most fundamental form of ignorance is
that “I” constitute a permanent ego that needs to be fed by new and desirabnle experiences of new and desirable objects
Third Noble Truth is cessation or nirvana
start to cultivate an awareness of no self –
strip away the desire that feeds the fire of samsara
will take many lifetimes
get on the boat
Nirvana means to blow out
the blowing out of desire
ignorance and of life itself – samsara
nirvana comes at two moments – the moment of
awakening and at the moment of parinirvana when the
fire of personality finally flickers out
nirvana with residues
nirvana without residues
the view of nirvana as cessation stands in
sharp contrast to the Jewish, Christian and Islamic concept of God who created
the world out of nothing
God once faced “nothing” and made something come to be
The Buddha did the opposite – he faced something and
found a way to nothing
nirvana is not just the cessation of life – it
is a quality of mind or a state of being
The Fourth Noble Truth is the Path
eight categories
right undering
thought
speech
action
livelihood
effort
mindfulness
concentration
traditionally grouped into three
sila or moral
conduct
samadihi or mental
concentration
panna or wisdom
sila
no killing, stealing, lying, abuse of sex,
drinking intoxicants
Monks observe five more – cannot eat after 12 noon,
sleep on soft beds, handle gold or silver
Buddhist practitioners engage in mental concentration
– samadhi – to focus and clarify the mind
the cultivate wisdom – panna - or the understanding of no self
these three modes of discipline are meant to
avoid the karma that will lead a person to difficult and dangerous forms of
rebirth
meant to cultivate the qualities of wisdom
and detachment that eventually lead to nirvana
The Buddhist Monastic Community
Samgha or sangha
the triple refuge or three jewels
I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the
dharma. I take refuge in the samgha.
We have talked about the Buddha and dharma.
Buddha wandered from town to town
monks, nuns, and lay supporters
the ideal lay person
generosity is not included as one of the five
moral percepts, but for lay people it is fundamental
community began as a group of wanderers, soon
settle into a pattern
rainy season – at first just temporary
dwelling places
became settled monasteries – vihara
problem of authority after death of the Buddha
senior monks convened a council to recite the
Buddha’s teaching and create an authoritative body of doctrine and discipline
Ananda recited the Buddha’s doctrinal
teachings – Sutta-pitaka “basket of discourses”
Ukpali recited the Buddha’s rules and
regulations – vinaya-pitaka “basket of discipline”
everntaully a third
basket Abhidhaman – systematic reflection on Buddha’s
teaching
three baskets – tripitaka
Buddhist scripture although not written down for
several centuries
contents often quite simple and pragmatic