BUDDHISM

1. In Asia, it is known as Buddha-sasana, the way of life or disci-pline, of the Awakened One, the Buddha.

2. It is also known as Buddha-Dharma, the eternal truth of the Awaken-ed One.

3. Buddhist Tradition:

a. A Buddha has appeared from time to time throughout humanhistory whenever people's knowledge of Dharma is lost and thepractice of sasana ceases altogether.

b. By tradition, this happens approximately every 5,000 years.

1. Tradition records at least twenty-four Buddhas prior to Buddah-Gautama.

2. Buddhist tradition conceives of a period of ca. 120,000years of history prior to Bhuddha-Gautama in the 6thCentury B.C.

4. Who or What was the Buddha?

* Asked by his followers are you a god, an angle, a saint. His response to each was no.

a. Buddha simply said, "I am awake." The sanskrit root word,budh, means to wake up and to know.

b. Buddha, then, means the "Enlightened One" or the"AwakendedOne".

SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA OF THE SAKYAS

1. He was born ca. 560 B.C. in northern India apporoximately 100 milesfrom the city of Benares.

2. His father was said to be a king but more likely he was our concep-tion of a feudal lord.

3. Siddhartha was his given name, Gautama was his surname, and Sakyawas the name of the clan to which his family belonged.

* He became to be known as Sakyamuni, the sage of the Sakyas.

4. He appears to have been extremely handsome for there are numerousreferences to "the perfection his visible body".

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a. At sixteen he married a neighboring princess named Yasodhora who gave birth to a son named Rahula.

b. He appeared to be destined for wealth, power, and prestige.* During his twenties, he became discontented which led to a complete break with his wordly position.

5. The Legend of the Four Passing Sights:

a. At Siddhartha's birth, it was foretold he would either unify India and become her greatest conqueror, a Cakravartin or

if he withdrew from the world, he would become a world redeemer.

b. His father was determined that his son would became a Cakravar-

tin ------------- the prince was to be shielded from contact with sickness, decreptitude, and death.

* When Siddhartha went riding, runners were sent out to clear the roads of these sights.

c. One day-an old man was overlooked, so Siddhartha came in contact with a decrepit man, broken-toothed, gray haired, crooked and

bent of body, leaning on a staff and tembling.

Importance: Siddhartha learned the fact of old age.

d. On a second ride, Siddhartha encountered a body racked with disease lying on the road; and on a third journey, a corpse. Finally on a fourth day, he saw a monk with a shaven head, orchre robe, and bowl.

* On the final day: Siddhartha learned the possibility of with- drawl from the world.

e. The Lengend emobodies an important truth.

1. It is the body's inescapble involvement with disease,decrepitude, and death that makes one despair of findingfulfillment on the physical plane.

2. "Life is subject to age and death. Where is the realm oflife in which there is neither age or death.

3. Having perceived the inevitability of bodily pain andpassage, he could not return to the pleasures of theworld and his father's home.

6. "The Great Goding Forth"

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a. Twenty-nine years old--------- he went to where his wife and

son were sleeping and made a silent good-bye to them.

b. Having left with an attendant, Siddhartha reached the edge of a

forest by daybreak where he changed clothes with his attendant who returned to explain what had happened.

1. Gautama shaved his head and went into the forest insearch of enlightenment.

2. Six years were spent in this search: "How hard to livethe life of the lonely forest dweller. ---- to rejoice insolitude. Verily,the silent groves must bear heavy uponthe monk who has not yet won to fixity of mind."

7. The "Search": moved through three phases.

* there is no record as to how long each lasted or how sharply the three were divided.

a. First, he sought out two of the foremost Hindu Masters of the day to pick their minds for the wisdom in their vast tradition.

b. Second, he joined a band of ascetics and assumed every austerity

they proposed.

1. He grew so weak that he fell into a faint, and if compan-ions had not been around to feed him some warm rice gruelhe might easily have died.

2. This experience taught him the futility of ascetism------it had not brought enlightenment, and the failure ofasceticism provided the first positive belief in Gauta-ma's philosophy.

c. The principle of the Middle Way ------------- between the ex-

tremes of asceticism on the one hand and indulgence on the other.

* it is the concept of the rational life in which the body is given precisely what it needs in the way of food and rest for optimum functioning but no more.

d. Final Phase: was a combination of vigorous thought and mystic concentration (through yoga).

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1. Near Gaya in northeast India, site of the current townof Patna, he sat beneath a fig tree which has becomeknown as the Bo Tree (short for Bodhi or enlightenmentwhich is knowledge).

2. It became known as the Immovable Spot ------ the Buddhavowed not to rise until he found enlightenment.

3. Mara (the Evil One): in an attempt to disrupt Siddhar-hartha's concentration, he appeared in the form ofDesire parading three voluptuous goddesses.

4. Mara then came in the form of Death attacking him withhurricanes, torrential rains, showers of flaming rocksthat splashed boiling mud, and finally a great darkness.

a. The missles became blossom petals as they enteredthe field of Siddhartha's field of concentration.

b. The Buddha, having been challenged by Mara, touchedthe earth with his fingertip --------------------the earth thundered, "I bear witness" with a100,000, and a hundred thousand roars.

c. Mara's army fled, and the gods of heaven descendedto wait upon the victor with garlands and perfumes.

8. "The Great Awakening"

a. Gautama's essence was being transformed, and emerged the Buddha.

b. An event of "Cosmic Importance" -------------- all living creatures rejoiced and the earth quaked six times.

c. This experience kept the Buddha in his spot for seven entire days.

* on the eighth day he tried to rise, but couldn't---------- he remined for 49 days until he opened his "glorious glance" again onto the world.

d. Mara was there with one more temptation.

1. He appealed this time to reason------------ arguing"how could speech-defying revelation be translated intowords?"

2. "How can one show what can only be found, teach what can what can only be learned?"

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3. The Buddha's Answer: "There will be some who will under-stand," and Mara was banished from his life forever.

9. A half century followed: the Buddha preached throughout India.

a. He founded an order of monks, challenging the society of the Brahmins.

b. Buddha attracted disciples who were eager to be instructed in the "way" or "path" (magga) of which he spoke.

c. Buddha's Message: was addressed to all in which they enter "a path" of full understanding of the truth.

d. The Indian Caste-System was ignored.

1. When a man entered the Sangha, the order of those whowere engaged in full-time pursuit of the Bhuddhist holylife.

2. Lay followers (upasikas) practiced the Buddhist rule oflife for their households.

e. Pattern of "Withdrawl and Return"

1. The Buddha withdrew for six years and then returned for45 years.

2. Each year was similary divided ----------- nine monthsin the world, the rainy season spent in retreat with hiswith his monks.

* daily cycle ------- public hours integrated with three times a day that he withdrew through medita- tion, so he might restore his center of gravity.

10. ca. 480 B.C.: Buddha died, at the age of 80, after eating poison mushrooms at the home of Cunda, a smith.

* Buddha said: Cunda should be told that of all the meals he had eaten during his life only two stood out as exceptional------- one was the meal that enabled him to attain enlightenment under the Bo Tree; and the other was that which was opening the final gates to Nirvana.

The Buddha: "The Silent Sage"

1. Rationalist: every problem would be subjected to the analyticalprocess of his mind.

2. There was constant pressure on the Buddha, during his lifetime, toto turn himself into a god.

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* he opposed every such attmept insisting that he was human in every respect.

* he made no attempt to conceal his temptations and weaknesses, and how difficult it was to attain enlightenment.

3. Cosmic Mission

a. He believed that the world of humanity was in desperate need of

help and guidance.

b. "He was born into the world for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, for the advantage, the good, the happi- ness of gods and men, out of compassion for the world."

4. To his followers, the Buddha remained half light, half shawdow, de-fying complete intelligibility.

a. They called him Sakyamuni, "silent sage (muni) of the Sakya (his

clan).

b. They called him Tathagata: "Thus-Come", the "Truth-winner", the

Perfectly Enlightened One.

Buddhism: the religion

1. It was in reaction against the excesses of Hinduism.

2. Six aspects of religion:

a. Authority: divine authority implies the virtue of competence, that their advice will win respect, and it will be followed.

b. Ritual: religion probably originated in celebration and concern,

and when people felt like clebrating or were deeply concerned they got together and acted together.

c. Speculation: the mind enters to find an understanding of God and the human spirit.

d. Tradition: (lessons of one's ancestors) ----------- a means for

society and culture to pass on the wisdom of the past.

e. The Concept of God's Sovereignity and Grace: "the feeling of

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absolute dependence and that one's existence is completely de- pendent upon factors beyond one's control."

1. Man's drive for simplicity, coherence, and oneness areissues in the theological concept of God's Sovereignity.

2. God's free and sustaining gifts (grace) to Man had mademan's life possible.

f. Mystery: Religion's final business is the infinite, the beyond.

The rationalist cannot see its credibility and thus does not understand it.

3. Hinduism of Buddha's Day.

a. Authority was used to insure the privilege of the Brahmin Caste.

Strict regulations were devised to insure that religious truths remained their secret possessions.

b. Ritual: endless libations, sacrifices, chants, and musicales were available if one had money to pay the priest to perform them ----------- but the spiritual essence of ritual had disappeared.

c. Speculation: disputes over whether the world had been created or not and what actually transmigrated after death --------------- arguments that could not affect man's religious life.

d. Tradition: instead of preserving and transmitting the wealth of

the past, it had become an obstacle by its insistance that Sanskrit remain the language of religion.

e. Divine Sovreignity and Grace: had lost meaning with the conclu-

sion that nothing needed to be done to effect one's salvation and that nothing could be done.

f. Mystery: had degenerated to the use of magic and divination.

4. Buddha's belief that truth might find a new freshness, strength,and vitality for Man.

5. A religion emerges almost entirely dissociated from each of thesix corollaries of religion.

a. Devoid of Authority:

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1. Aim to break the monpolistic grip of the Brahmin Caste onreligious truths.

* on his death bed he said, "I have not kept anything back."

2. The individual: Buddha said each individual is to seekhis own religious truth and not to rely on the Brahminsto tell them what to do.

b. Devoid of Ritual:

1. Buddah ridiculed Brahmanic rites and prayers and did notbelieve in their efficacy.

2. Buddha never instituted any rites of his own which ledmany scholors to characterize his teachings as rationalmoralism.

c. Devoid of Speculation:

1. Buddha flatly refused to discuss metaphysics (attempts tounderstand reality and knowledge).

2. Buddha: "Greed for views of this sort tend not to edifi-cation.

d. Devoid of Tradition:

1. He believed the past (tradition)-Hinduism had buried hiscontemporaries, and they needed to be free from its bur-dens.

2. Buddha had decided to not use Sanskrit and to do all histeachings in the vernacular (Pali) of the people.

e. Buddha preached a religion of intense self-effort.

1. Many had come to accept the round of birth and rebirth asunending.

* resigned to the Brahmin sponsored notion that the process would take a 1,000 years for one to work his way into the Brahmin Caste.

2. He also denied the idea that there is no action, no deed,no power to find a path to an end of suffering.

3. He told his followers to work out their salvation for

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themselves ------------ Buddha rejected the notion thatonly Brahmins could attain Enlightenment.

f. Devoid of the Supernatural:

1. Buddha condemned all forms of Divination ---------------an appeal to the supernatural was an attempt at shortcuts, simple solutions diverting one's attention from thehard practical task of self-advance (towardEnglightenment).

2. Was it a relgion without God? After his death, hisfollowers added all those elements that Buddha had ex-cluded.

6. Buddha's Approach To Religion:

a. It was empirical (theory that all knowledge was based on ex- perience).

1. On every question, direct personal experience was thefinal test of truth.

2. "Do not go by reasoning, nor by inferring, nor by argu- ment." A true disciple must "Know for himself."

b. It was scientific: Direct experience was final but it was aimed

at uncovering the cause and effect relationships that ordered existence.

* "That being present, this becomes: that not being present this does not become."

c. It was pragmatic:

1. In the sense of being exclusively concerned with problemsolving, refusing to be side tracked by speculation.

2. Buddha said that his teachings were life rafts, helpfulfor crossing a stream but of no further value once theother side had been reached.

d. It was therapeutic:

1. "One thing I teach," said Buddha: "suffering and the end of suffering."

2. It is just Ill and the ceasing of Ill that I proclaim.

e. It was psychological: (in a metaphysical sense).

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Not the universe and man's place in it, but Buddha began withman, his problems, his nature, and the dynamics of hisdevelopment.

f. It was democratic: he attacked the caste system opening his order to all regardless of social position.

g. It was directed to individuals:

1. He founded an order, but insisted on its importance as anaid to spiritual advancement.

2. His appeal was to the individual, that each should makehis own way toward enlightenment.

The Four Noble Truths: after leaving the Bo tree (the immovable spot), he began a walk of over a 100 miles toward India's

holy city of Benares.

* Before arriving, in a Deer Park near Sarnath, he preached his first sermon.

1. He had a congregation of only five ascetics, and his subject wasthe Four Noble Truths.

* it was a declaration of the key discoveries that had come to him as the climax of his six year quest.

2. The First Noble Truth is that life is dukka (usually translated as"suffering".

a. Dukka then means pain that seeps at some level into all finite

existence.

b. Life in the condition it has gotten itself into that is dislo-

cated. Something has gone wrong. It has slipped out of joint. As its pivot is no longer true, its condition involves execess- ive friction (interpersonal conflict), impeded motion (blocked creativity), and pain.

c. Buddha cites six occasions when life's dislocation becomes evident.

1. The trauma of birth: it is the prototype for alloccasions on which life is endangered.

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2. The pathology of sickness.

3. The morbidity of decrepitude: ie. fear of being unlovedand unwanted; the fear of financial dependence; the fearof protracted illness; the fear of being ugly, the fearof being a nusiance, a care, and a burden.

4. The phobia of death.

5. To be tied to what one abhors: ie. an incurable disease,an ineradicable personal weakness.

d. The First Noble Truth concludes with the assertion that the Five

Skandas are painful.

The five skandas: are body, sense, ideas, feelings, and con- sciousness.

3. The Second Noble Truth is tanha (the cause of life's dislocation)usually translated as "desire".

a. Problem: to start from where we are now and unequivocally let go

of every desire would be to die, and to die does not solve the problem of living.

b. Tanha is a specific kind of desire, the desire to pull apart from the rest of life and seek fulfillment through ourselves.

ie. selfishness.

4. The Third Noble Truth is the overcoming of selfish craving whichdislocates life.

* if we could be released from the narrow limits of self-interestinto the vast expanse of universal life, we would be free fromour torment.

5. The The Fourth Noble Truth advises how this cure can be accomplish-ed.

* the overcoming of tanha is through the Eightfold Path.

The Eightfold Path:

1. Buddah's approach to the problem of life in the Four Noble Truthswas that of a therapist.

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a. Assumption: there is less creativeness, more conflict, and more pain than we feel is right.

b. These symptoms (suffering-dukka) are summarized in the Fourth Noble Truth.

c. Diagnosis: the answer is given in the Second Noble Truth (the cause of life's dislocation is tanha) or the drive for private fulfillment.

* What is wrong and the answer is tanha.

* The Third Noble Truth announces that the disease can be cured by overcoming the egoist drive for separate existence.

d. The Fourth Noble Truth shows us that tanha can be overcome through the Eightfold Path.

2. Buddha taught that life is something that can be trained for likea profession.

Two Ways of Life:

a. "Wandering About" is a random, unreflective way where one is pushed and pulled by circumstance and impulse.

b. "The Path" is the way of intentional living where a system of habit formation is designed to release an individual from tanha.

c. The Eaightfold Path intends nothing less than to remake the total man and leave him a different being, a person cured of life's crippling dissabilities.

"Happiness is he who seeks may win," Buddah said, "If he practices."

3. The Eightfold Path is preceded by a preliminary step: RightAssociation.

a. Buddha recognized that man is a social animal who is influenced by example of our associates (at times more clearly than any- others).

b. Without visible evidence that success is possible, one will ultimately become discouraged.

c. Shankara: "We should give thanks everyday for the company of the holy, for as bees cannot make honey save when together neither can man make progress on the way except if he is

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supported by a field of trust and concern generated by the Truth Winners."

4. The Eightfold Path

a. Right Knowledge:

1. Man is a rational (intelligent) creature who has theability to choose (ie. "free will").

2. To Buddah though, some convictions are necessary if oneis to take up the Path.

ie. The Four Noble Truths: that suffering abounds, that it is occasioned by a drive for separate existence and fulfillment, that it can be cured through the

Eightfold Path.

b. Right Aspiration:

1. Man is advised to make up his mind (heart) as to what hereally wants.

2. If there is to be progress on the Path, consistency ofintent and determination to transcend our separatenessand identity ourselves with the welfare of all isnecessary.

c. Right Speech:

1. Language furnishes an indication of our character and alever (means) of changing it.

2. How many times do we deviate from the truth and then askourselves why we did it?

3. Lack of charity in speech should begin with watching ourspeech to become aware of the motives that prompted suchspeech.

4. Once we become aware of our speech, the need for changecan be realized.

5. Buddah's Purpose: was not moral but ontological (meta-physics --------- the theory of the nature of being andexistence.)

First a. Change toward the truth -------- deceit is bad

because it reduces one's being (essence).

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b. We deceive because of a fear of revealing to othersor to ourselves what we really are.

Second c. Change toward charity -------- when one conceals

his intent, he again impacts upon his being, hisexistence.

d. Right Behavior

1. One must understand his own behavior more objectively tobe able to improve it.

* attention should be focused on the motives that prompt- ed such behavior.

2. Buddah's Five Precepts (Buddhist variation on the secondor ethical half of the Ten Commandments).

a. Do not kill - this was also extended to animals.

b. Do not steal.

c. Do not lie.

d. Do not be unchaste.

e. Do not drink intoxicants.

e. Right Livlihood

1. Right livlihood demands joining a monastic order andparticipating in its discipline for spiritual growth(advancement).

2. For the Layman, it meant to engage in an occupation thatpromotes life instead of destroying it.

3. Professions incompatible with spiritual advance. (ie.posion peddler, slave dealer, prostitute, butcher,brewer, armament maker, tax collector, the caravandriver.

* Buddha's teachings on ocuupations were aimed at dis- tinguishing between those which were conducive and detrimental to spiritual advance.

f. Right Effort:

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1. Buddha laid tremendous importance on the will.

* virutes had to be developed, passions had to be curbed, and evil mind states to be transcended if love and detachment are to have a chance.

2. Buddha: "Those who follow the way might well follow theexample of an ox that marches through the mire carryinga heavy load. He is tired, but his steady gaze, lookingforward, will never relax until he comes out of the mire,and it is only then he takes a rest.

3. Buddha had more confidence in the steady pull than thequick spurt.

"He who takes the longest strides does not walk the fastest."

g. Right Mindfullness:

1. Buddha believed that the mind had a great deal of in-fluence over our lives.

"All we are is the result of what we have thought."

2. It was ignorance, not sin, that struck Buddha as theoffender ---------- sin is prompted by a more funda-mental ignorance.

3. To confront sin, one must be continually alert through aprocess of self examination.

* One's greatness only exists in proportion to his self- knowledge.

4. Thoughts and feelings are not a permanent part of us---------- they are to be taken intellectually andemotionally.

* Buddha recommends to keep the mind in control of hissense instead of allowing the reverse to ocurr.

5. The Seventh Step calls one to a steady awareness of whathe is about and what is happening to him.

h. Right Absorption:

1. Realization or decision to abandon the world and giveone's life to spiritual adventure (the real reality).

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2. It is a new mode of experience; a transmutation into adifferent kind of creature with another world to live in.

3. A realization where (in its true state) the mind rests.

Basic Buddhist Concepts

1. Problems:

a. Buddha: never wrote about his teachings ----------------------

there is a period of a century and half before the first written record of Buddha.

b. The quantity of material that has come down based on 45 years of

teaching has created a problem of interpretation.

c. Partisan shcools (sects) had appeared by the time these texts appeared.

* Some wanted to minimize his break with Hinduism others wanted to focus on it. Whose views were they?

2. Nirvana: it literally means "to blow out or to extinguish."

a. It is the highest destiny of the human spirit and its literal meaning is extinction.

b. It is the boundary of the finite self that is to be extinguish-

ed.

Buddha: "Bliss, yes bliss, my friends is Nirvana."

c. Is Nirvana God?

"We are told that Nirvana is permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, unbecome, that it is power, bliss and happiness, the secure refuge, the shelter, and the place of unassailable safety; that it is the real Truth and supreme Reality; that it is the Good, the supreme goal and the one and only cosummation of our life, the eternal, hidden and incomprehensible Peace.

d. Nirvana is not God defined as personal creator but it is close

enough to the concept of God as Godhead to warrant the name in that sense.

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Buddha: "There would be no deliverance from the born, the made, the compounded."

3. Doctrine of Anatta (no soul).

a. Atta is Pali for the Sanskrit Atman or soul (which Buddha deni-

ed).

b. Concept of Atman in Buddah's Day.

1. A spiritual substance in accord with the dualistic out-look of Hinduism.

* 2. Believed to retain its separateness throughout eternity.

c. Buddah denied both concepts of the soul (Atman).

d. The denial of the soul as a spiritual substance seems to be the main point of distinction between his concept of transmigration and the Hindu View.

1. Buddah did not doubt that reincarnation in some sensewas a fact, but he was uncomfortable with Brahmanicinterpretation of the concept.

2. Buddah used the image of a flame passing from one candleto the next ------------ the flame of the last candlecannot be the same as the first.

* The connection is a causal one in which influence was transmitted by chain reaction, but not substance.

3. Buddha did accept the concept of Karma.

e. Buddha's View of Transmigration:

1. There is a chain of causation threading each life tothose which have led up to it and others which willfollow.

* Each life is in the condition it is in because of the way the lives which have led into it were lived.

2. In the midst of this causal sequence, man's will remainsfree.

* the consequences of acts will not determine what he must do.

* Man's will remains free able to effect his destiny.

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3. The causal sequence does not assume the idea of a mentalsubstance that is passed on from life to life.

* There is no underlying spiritual substance.

4. Buddha challenged the implications of permancence contained in theidea of substance.

5. He believed in the transitoriness of all finite things and therealization of the perpetual perishing of every natural object.

6. The Three Signs of Being:

a. Impermanence - he listed as the first.

b. Others were suffering and the abscence of a permanent soul.

7. "Does man continue to exist after death?"

a. Skandas are the forces holding life together.

b. Ordinary men leave strands of finite desire that can only be re- alized in other incarnations. (in this sense man lives on.)

c. Arhat: (one who has achieved Nirvana) has extinguished all such

desires.

Does he contiue to exist?

1. The idea of reborn and not reborn does not apply.

2. If he was reborn, one would have assumed a continuationof personal experiencing which Buddah did not intend.

3. If Buddah said that the enlightened one ceases to exist,one would assume that he was consigned to total extinc-tion which Buddah did not intend.

* It is a return to a pure, invisible condition that ex- isted before the visible appeared.

* The ultimate destiny of the human spirit is a condition in which all identification with the historical experiece of the finite self disappears while exper-

ience itself remains.

d. As long as the spirit remains tied to a body its freedom from the particular, the temporal, and the changing cannot be com-

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plete.

If increased freedom brings increased being, it follows that total freedom should bring total being.

Big Raft and Little Raft

1. What questions divided Buddhism?

a. Are men independent or interdependent?

1. The self is an independent center of freedom and intia-tive.

* "I got where I am by myself."

2. The separateness of their beings seems scarcely real-----they are impressed by the web that binds all life toget-her.

b. What is the relationship of Man to the Universe?

* Is the universe friendly, is it helpful toward man as he reaches out for fulfillment?

* Is it indifferent, or even hostile to the human quest?

c. What is the best part of man, his head or his heart?

1. Would you rather be loved or respected?

2. Would you seek wisdom over compassion?

2. These are the questions that divided the early Buddhists, and areprobably the questions that have divided us since we realized ourown humanity.

a. One group said man is an individual; whatever progress he makes

will be through his own doing, and wisdom above all will carry him to this goal.

b. The other group said that man's destiny is dissolubly meshed with his fellows, grace is a fact, and love is the greatest thing in the world.

3. Other Differences

a. The first group insisted that Buddhism was a full-time job. (it

didn't expect everyone to make Nirvana his central goal.)

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If Nirvana is the goal, one would have to give up the world and become a monk.

b. The second group did not rest all its hope on self-effort, and

was less demanding.

* It held that its outlook was as relevant for the layman as for the professional, that in its own way it applied as much to the world as to the monastery.

4. Each called itself a yana (a raft or ferry) and proposed to carryman across the sea of life to the shore of enlightenment.

a. Mahayana (the big raft): the second group pointing to its doctrine of grace and its ampler provision for laymen, claimed to be the larger of the two.

b. Hinayana (the little raft)

1. They preferred to speak of their brand of Buddhism asTheravada, the Way of the Elders.

2. They claim to represent the original Buddhism as taughtby Gautama.

c. Mahayanists counterclaim that they represent the true line of successsion.

1. Their first emphasis is on Buddha's life instead of his teachings.

2. They point out that Buddha did not slip off to Nirvana byhimself, but gave his life for (as) the help of others.

5. The Two Schools: differences.

a. Theravada Buddhism considers man an individual, his salvation is

not contingent on the salvation of others.

Mahayana Buddhism says life being one, the fate of the indivi- dual is linked with the fate of all.

1. They believe this is implicit in Buddha's doctrine ofAnatta. (being or things have no ego entirely of theirown.)

2. "We are what we are because of what others are."

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b. Theravada holds that man is on his own in this universe. Free-

dom is achieved through self-reliance and self effort.

Mahayana - maintains that grace is a fact and its power is grounded in Nirvana and dwells in each of us.

c. Thervada - the key virtue was bodhi (wisdom), with the abscence

of self-seeking emphasized more than the active doing of good.

Mahayana - the key virtue is karuna (compassion), unless it eventuates in compassion, wisdom is worthless.

d. Thervada - centers on monks and monastaries which are the spiritual focus of the lands where it predominates.

* Renunciation of the world is held in high esteem and even men who do not intend to become monks are expected to live as

monks for a year or two.

Mahayana - is a religion for laymen. Even priests are expected to make the service of laymen their primary concern.

e. Theravada - the ideal was Arhat, the perfected discipline. On

one's own effort he seeks the goal of Nirvana.

Mahayana - the ideal was the Bodhissattva, "one whose essence (sattva) is perfected wisdom (bodhi).

* One who has brought himself to the brink of Nirvana renounces his prize so that he may return to the world to help others reach Nirvana.

f. Theravada - Buddha was essentially a saint, a supreme sage, a man among men whose personal influence ceased upon entering Nirvana.

Mihayana - Buddha is a world savior who continues to draw all creatures to him.

g. Other Differences

1. The Theravadins looked upon speculation as a useless dis-traction, the Mahayanas elaborated a cosmology with in-numerable heavens, hells, and descriptions of Nirvana.

2. The Theravadins only accept meditation as acceptable

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prayer.

The Mahayanas have added supplication, petition, andcalling upon Buddha by name.

h. Theravada remains conservative in their almost fundametalist adherence to early Pali Texts. Mahayana was liberal by accepting later texts as equally author- itative, less strict in interpreting disciplinary rules, and held a higher regard for the spiritual possibilites of women and less gifted monks as well as laymen.

* i. The religion that began as a revolt against rites, speculation,

grace and the supernatural, ends with all these back in the pic- ture. Its founder who was an atheist in respect to a belief in a personal god is transformed into a God himself.

6. The Mahayana School became the dominant Buddhist Influence.

a. Asoka (ca. 272-232) - he not only founded the Big Raft but com-

mended it to his subjects.

b. He attempted to extend it over three continents. He found Buddhism as an Indian Sect, and left it a World Religion.

c. Deeper Reasons for Mahayana Success:

1. Grace, compassion, and mutuality are words against whichself-effort, individualism, and even wisdom ring hard andcold.

2. There is nothing in the outlook of Teravda that can rivalthe spiritual figures of the Bodhisattavas (mercy andcompassion, with an atmosphere of trust and love, and apersonal and devotional religion).

d. Big Raft------------ has expanded to Mongolia, Tibet, China,

Korea, and Japan.

Little Raft-------- remains confined to Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia.

The Secret of the Flower

1. Theravada has held together as a single unified tradition whileMahayana has divided into five main schools --------- ie. onestresses faith, another study, another relies on efficacious for-mulas while a fourth assumes a semi-political color.

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2. The Fifth School: is Mahayana's intuitive school which is alive inthe Zen Buddhism of Japan.

* Zen is the Japanese counterpart of the Chinese ch'an which, in turn, is a translation of the Sanskrit dhyana meaning meditata- tion that leads to insight.

3. Why study Zen Buddhism:

a. Many students of religion believe it is the purest form of spirituality in the Far East.

b. It provides an opportunity to look at religion as it has appear-

ed among the Japanese.

4. Zen Buddhists claim to trace their perspective back to Gautama him-self.

a. Gautama's teachings that found their way into the Pali Cannon were those the masses seized upon. * Certain followers who were more perceptive caught from their master a higher angle of visions.

b. Buddha's Flower Sermon: on a mountain top with his followers using no words, Buddha raised a golden lotus.

c. Mahakasyapa was the only one who understood the point which caused Buddha to name him his successor.

d. This wisdom was transmitted in India through 28 Patriarchs and

carried to China in A.D. 520 by Bodhidharma. Spreading from there to Japan in the Twelth Century.

5. Zen is concerned with the limitations of language and reason, andmakes their trascendence the central intent of its method.

6. Three Limitations of Words:

a. They build up a false world where other people are reduced to stero-types, and actual feelings are hidden.

b. Even when their description of experience is in the main accur-

ate it is never adequate.

c. Highest modes of experience transcend the reach of words.

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7. Zen tradition maintains that Buddha was the first to make thispoint in the flower sermon by refusing to identify his discoverywith any verbal expression.

* Bodhidharma reaffirmed the point by defining the treasure he had brought from India as "a special transmission outside of the scriptures."

a. This appears to be contradictory since most religions claim to

special transmissions through the scriptures.

b. Zen Attitude: the questioning student is trying to fill the lack

(emptiness) in their lives with words and concepts instead of experience.

8. Zen is designed to help the student crash the word-barrier, tostartle his mind out of the conventional sluggishness intothe heightened, more alert perception that will lead to Englighten-ment.

9. Zennists have become staunch advocates of education believing thatreason can actually help awareness toward its goal.

a. Zen logic and description makes sense only from an experiential

perspective radically different from the ordinary.

b. Zen masters are determined that their students attain the ex- perience itself, and not allow talk to take its place.

10. Zen survival and transmission has rested on a specific state of awareness transmitted from mind to mind.a. It is this "transmission of Buddha-mind to Buddha-mind" that

constitutes the special transmission of Bodhidharma cited as Zen's Essence.

b. This inward transmission was symbolized by the handing down of

Buddha's robe and bowl from patriarch to patriarch.

* Eighth Century A.D.: the sixth patriarch in China ordered it discontinued believing it confused form with essence.

c. It is a succession of enlightened men who received the exact mind state that Buddha succeeded in awakening in Mahakasyapa.

* A Zen master claimed to have taught 900 students; 13 completed their Zen training, and 4 were given the inka (permission)

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stamped as roshis (Zen masters) to teach.

11. Zen training can be approached through three terms: zazen, koan, and sanzen.

12. Zazen: literally means seated meditaton.

a. The bulk of Zen training takes place in large meditation halls

where monks devote endless hours to sitting silently on two long, raised platforms extending the length of the hall on either side, their faces directed toward the center.

b. Their position is the lotus posture (taken from India) with eyes

half opened, their gaze falls unfocused to the floor a few feet before them.

c. They sit seeking to develop their intuitive powers (thought to

center in the abdomen), and then to relate their intuitive dis- coveries to the immediacy of their daily lives.

13. Koan: in a general sense means problem but it is more like a riddle.

a. It cannot be dismissed as absurb, he must bring the full impact

of his mind on the problem until he comes up with an answer for his master.

b. In Zen we are dealing with a perspective that is convinced that

reason is inherently limited and in the end must yield to an- other mode of knowing that can grasp reality more accurately.

c. Reason can prevent the full realization of truth, and Koans are

designed to transcend this limitation.

d. The koan's purpose is to agitate the mind to impatience, to loosen the mind into discontent with conventional reason in which the mind has been locked up to that point.

e. Then having brought the mind (subject) to an intellectual and emotional impasse, it counts on a flash to bridge the gap be- tween second and first hand experience.

* This continues until the structure of ordinary reason collapses, clearing the way for sudden intuition.

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14. The Sazen: is a consultation where the trainee meets, twice daily on the average, with his Zen Master concerning meditation.

a. These meetings are always brief where the trainee states his koan and the answer which he has formulated.

b. The role of the Master is threefold.

1. When the answer is correct, the master validates it.

2. The rejection an answer is of extreme importance, so thestudent will put it permanently behind him.

The Ninth Century Rules of Hyskujo:

a. An opportunity to make close personal examination of

the student.

b. To arouse him from immaturity and to beat down his false conceptions and to rid him of his prejudices.

3. The master is to keep the student's energy roused tototal application upon his task.

15. What is the purpose or result of zazen, koan, and sanzen.

a. The first important step is an intuitive experience called satori.

b. It brings joy, a feeling of oneness with all things and a heightened sense of reality.

c. In Zen, satori is only the point of departure. Zen training begins in earnest after satori has been achieved with the reali- zation that the student must experience further satoris as he proceeds.

16. The heart of Zen Training lies in introducing the eternal into the now, in widening the doors of perception to the point where the delight and wonder that characterize the satori experience can carry over to the ordinary events of man's day to day living.

* Until you can perform your duties however large or small with the perception that each is equally a manifestation of the in- finite in its particular time and space, the business of Zen remains unfinished.

17. The Condition of Life that Zen seeks to attain:

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a. Life and the awareness that forms its core are experienced to be

distinctly good.

1. The welfare of others becomes as important as one's own.

2. The dualisms of self and object, of self and others aretranscended.

b. The Life of Zen does not draw the individual away from the world

but returns him to it with a new perspective.

1. A realization that all distinctions are inconsequential.

2. "All is one, one is none, none is all."

* A oneness that is empty and complete.

c. With the perception of the infinite in the finite there comes an

attitude of total agreeableness.

* One has passed beyond the opposites of good and evil, pleasure and pain, preference and rejection.

d. When the dichotomies between self and other, finite and in- finite, and acceptance and rejection are transcended, the dichotomy between life and death also disappears.

1. One will not feel that one's individual death brings anend to life. (one lives from endless past and will liveinto an endless future).

2. Then the realization of Eternal Life (bliss) has beenachieved.

The Image of the Crossing

1. Diversity within Buddhism: Little Raft, Big Raft, and Zen -------are they aspects of a single religion.

2. Variations Within a Single Religion

a. Claims a single founder from whom they derive their teachings.

b. Image of the Crossing: the experience of crossing a river on a

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ferryboat (metaphor).

c. Remember the Geography of the Far East: a land filled with rivers that must be crossed on one's journey.

3. Buddhism is a voyage across the river of life.

a. A transport from the common-sense shore of non enlightenment, spiritual ignorance, desire, and death to --------------------- to the bank of wisdom which brings liberation.

b. The differences within Buddhism are no more than the variations

in the kind of vehicle (yana) that is used.

4. Buddhism's Three Vows

a. The Buddha: one takes refuge in the fact that there was an ex-

plorer who made the trip and proved to us that it was possible.b. The dharma: one takes refuge in the vehicle of transport,

this boat to which we have committed our lives in the conviction that it is sea-worthy.

c. The sangha: one takes refuge in the Order, the crew that is navigating this trip and in whom we have confidence.

5. The Crossing

a. The two shores, human and divine, appear distinct as life and death, day and night.

b. When the crossing has been made, this dichotomy (dualism) does

not remain.

c. The world of the divine is where the traveler stands.

1. Nirvana and emptiness have become one.

2. The distinction between time and eternity disappears.

Buddhism and Hinduism

1. Buddhism exists in all Asian lands except India.

2. Buddhism was, in a sense, accomodated within Hinduism.

a. Up to ca. A.D. 1,000 Buddhism continued in India as a

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distinct movement.

b. 1500 years of her history: the differences with Hinduism soften-

ed as Hinduism admitted the need for the reforms of Buddha.

c. Buddhism becoming more like Hinduism as it broadened into Mahayana.

3. Hinduism renewed an emphasis on kindness to all things, on non-killing of animals, the elimination of caste barriers in religiousmatters.

4. The influence of Bodhisattva can be seen in the Hindu devotionalclassic Bhagavatam by Ranti Deva.

" I desire not the Lord the greatness which comes by the attain- ment of the eightfold powers, nor do I pray him that I may not be born again; my one prayer to him is that I may feel the pain of others, as if I were residing within their bodies, and that I have the power of relieving their pain and making them

happy."

5. Buddha was affectionately (on these points) reclaimed as " a rebelchild of Hinduism", her great reformer, and an actual incarnationof God.

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