BUDDHISM



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 human

history whenever people's knowledge of Dharma is lost and the

practice 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. 120,000

years of history prior to Bhuddha-Gautama in the 6th

Century 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"Awakended

One".

SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA OF THE SAKYAS

1. He was born ca. 560 B.C. in northern India apporoximately 100 miles

from 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 Sakya

was 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 numerous

references to "the perfection his visible body".

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 finding

fulfillment on the physical plane.

2. "Life is subject to age and death. Where is the realm of

life in which there is neither age or death.

3. Having perceived the inevitability of bodily pain and

passage, he could not return to the pleasures of the

world and his father's home.

6. "The Great Goding Forth"

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 in

search of enlightenment.

2. Six years were spent in this search: "How hard to live

the life of the lonely forest dweller. ---- to rejoice in

solitude. Verily,the silent groves must bear heavy upon

the 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 gruel

he might easily have died.

2. This experience taught him the futility of ascetism------

it had not brought enlightenment, and the failure of

asceticism 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).

1. Near Gaya in northeast India, site of the current town

of Patna, he sat beneath a fig tree which has become

known as the Bo Tree (short for Bodhi or enlightenment

which is knowledge).

2. It became known as the Immovable Spot ------ the Buddha

vowed 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 of

Desire parading three voluptuous goddesses.

4. Mara then came in the form of Death attacking him with

hurricanes, torrential rains, showers of flaming rocks

that splashed boiling mud, and finally a great darkness.

a. The missles became blossom petals as they entered

the field of Siddhartha's field of concentration.

b. The Buddha, having been challenged by Mara, touched

the earth with his fingertip --------------------

the earth thundered, "I bear witness" with a

100,000, and a hundred thousand roars.

c. Mara's army fled, and the gods of heaven descended

to 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 into

words?"

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

what can only be learned?"

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 who

were engaged in full-time pursuit of the Bhuddhist holy

life.

2. Lay followers (upasikas) practiced the Buddhist rule of

life for their households.

e. Pattern of "Withdrawl and Return"

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

45 years.

2. Each year was similary divided ----------- nine months

in the world, the rainy season spent in retreat with his

with 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 analytical

process of his mind.

2. There was constant pressure on the Buddha, during his lifetime, to

to turn himself into a god.

* 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

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 are

issues in the theological concept of God's Sovereignity.

2. God's free and sustaining gifts (grace) to Man had made

man'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 the

six corollaries of religion.

a. Devoid of Authority:

1. Aim to break the monpolistic grip of the Brahmin Caste on

religious truths.

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

back."

2. The individual: Buddha said each individual is to seek

his own religious truth and not to rely on the Brahmins

to tell them what to do.

b. Devoid of Ritual:

1. Buddah ridiculed Brahmanic rites and prayers and did not

believe in their efficacy.

2. Buddha never instituted any rites of his own which led

many scholors to characterize his teachings as rational

moralism.

c. Devoid of Speculation:

1. Buddha flatly refused to discuss metaphysics (attempts to

understand 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 his

contemporaries, and they needed to be free from its bur-

dens.

2. Buddha had decided to not use Sanskrit and to do all his

teachings 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 as

unending.

* 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

themselves ------------ Buddha rejected the notion that

only 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 short

cuts, simple solutions diverting one's attention from the

hard practical task of self-advance (toward

Englightenment).

2. Was it a relgion without God? After his death, his

followers 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 the

final 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 problem

solving, refusing to be side tracked by speculation.

2. Buddha said that his teachings were life rafts, helpful

for crossing a stream but of no further value once the

other 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).

Not the universe and man's place in it, but Buddha began with

man, his problems, his nature, and the dynamics of his

development.

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 an

aid to spiritual advancement.

2. His appeal was to the individual, that each should make

his 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 was

the 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 all

occasions on which life is endangered.

2. The pathology of sickness.

3. The morbidity of decrepitude: ie. fear of being unloved

and unwanted; the fear of financial dependence; the fear

of protracted illness; the fear of being ugly, the fear

of 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 which

dislocates life.

* if we could be released from the narrow limits of self-interest

into the vast expanse of universal life, we would be free from

our 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 Truths

was that of a therapist.

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 like

a 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: Right

Association.

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

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 the

ability to choose (ie. "free will").

2. To Buddah though, some convictions are necessary if one

is 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 he

really wants.

2. If there is to be progress on the Path, consistency of

intent and determination to transcend our separateness

and identity ourselves with the welfare of all is

necessary.

c. Right Speech:

1. Language furnishes an indication of our character and a

lever (means) of changing it.

2. How many times do we deviate from the truth and then ask

ourselves why we did it?

3. Lack of charity in speech should begin with watching our

speech to become aware of the motives that prompted such

speech.

4. Once we become aware of our speech, the need for change

can be realized.

5. Buddah's Purpose: was not moral but ontological (meta-

physics --------- the theory of the nature of being and

existence.)

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

because it reduces one's being (essence).

b. We deceive because of a fear of revealing to others

or to ourselves what we really are.

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

his intent, he again impacts upon his being, his

existence.

d. Right Behavior

1. One must understand his own behavior more objectively to

be 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 second

or 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 and

participating in its discipline for spiritual growth

(advancement).

2. For the Layman, it meant to engage in an occupation that

promotes life instead of destroying it.

3. Professions incompatible with spiritual advance. (ie.

posion peddler, slave dealer, prostitute, butcher,

brewer, armament maker, tax collector, the caravan

driver.

* Buddha's teachings on ocuupations were aimed at dis-

tinguishing between those which were conducive and

detrimental to spiritual advance.

f. Right Effort:

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 the

example of an ox that marches through the mire carrying

a heavy load. He is tired, but his steady gaze, looking

forward, 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 the

quick 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 the

offender ---------- sin is prompted by a more funda-

mental ignorance.

3. To confront sin, one must be continually alert through a

process 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 and

emotionally.

* Buddha recommends to keep the mind in control of his

sense instead of allowing the reverse to ocurr.

5. The Seventh Step calls one to a steady awareness of what

he is about and what is happening to him.

h. Right Absorption:

1. Realization or decision to abandon the world and give

one's life to spiritual adventure (the real reality).

2. It is a new mode of experience; a transmutation into a

different 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.

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 sense

was a fact, but he was uncomfortable with Brahmanic

interpretation of the concept.

2. Buddah used the image of a flame passing from one candle

to the next ------------ the flame of the last candle

cannot 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 to

those which have led up to it and others which will

follow.

* 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 remains

free.

* the consequences of acts will not determine what he

must do.

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

3. The causal sequence does not assume the idea of a mental

substance that is passed on from life to life.

* There is no underlying spiritual substance.

4. Buddha challenged the implications of permancence contained in the

idea of substance.

5. He believed in the transitoriness of all finite things and the

realization 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 continuation

of 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-

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 are

probably the questions that have divided us since we realized our

own 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.)

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 carry

man 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 as

Theravada, the Way of the Elders.

2. They claim to represent the original Buddhism as taught

by 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 by

himself, 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 of

Anatta. (being or things have no ego entirely of their

own.)

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

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

prayer.

The Mahayanas have added supplication, petition, and

calling 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 which

self-effort, individualism, and even wisdom ring hard and

cold.

2. There is nothing in the outlook of Teravda that can rival

the spiritual figures of the Bodhisattavas (mercy and

compassion, with an atmosphere of trust and love, and a

personal 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 while

Mahayana has divided into five main schools --------- ie. one

stresses faith, another study, another relies on efficacious for-

mulas while a fourth assumes a semi-political color.

2. The Fifth School: is Mahayana's intuitive school which is alive in

the 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, and

makes 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.

7. Zen tradition maintains that Buddha was the first to make this

point in the flower sermon by refusing to identify his discovery

with 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, to

startle his mind out of the conventional sluggishness into

the heightened, more alert perception that will lead to Englighten-

ment.

9. Zennists have become staunch advocates of education believing that

reason 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)

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.

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 the

student 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 to

total 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:

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 are

transcended.

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 an

end to life. (one lives from endless past and will live

into an endless future).

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

achieved.

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

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 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 religious

matters.

4. The influence of Bodhisattva can be seen in the Hindu devotional

classic 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 rebel

child of Hinduism", her great reformer, and an actual incarnation

of God.

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