Post on 17-Jan-2018
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Basic Ideas of Buddhism
Buddha Grew Up in India The religion of his
birth was Hinduism However, he had
some difficulty with certain elements that by his time had become associated with Hinduism The Caste System Ritual
With The Caste System By Buddha’s time, the caste system
was hereditary Buddha did not feel it was wise to
reward based on birth (though he had been himself)
He also did not feel it was good to reject the talents of certain people simply because they had been born to a certain family
With Ritual Buddha felt it had
become too important; that Hindus cared about performing rituals properly more than they cared about honoring their gods
This is Often Extended To how Buddha feels
about organized religion in general
Buddhism is extremely tolerant of other faiths
However, it seems to value the individual practitioner more than it does the doctrine
The Problem with Religion According to the
Buddha, the problem comes when a given faith claims to have the Truth
Buddha says, “It is not proper for a man to say, ‘This alone is Truth, and everything else is false’”
Truth is Everywhere And deciding that you have the only
truth closes you off from receiving others
The church leader who says he knows the Truth is, according to Buddha, wrong
Church-goers who follow that faith as though it is the only Truth are also wrong
Buddha Compares This To a blind man
attempting to lead other blind men
They may, in fact, get where they are going
But none of them, not even the one in front, can truly “see”
To Avoid This We must not get too
attached to our ideas Attachment to a
given group of ideas leads one to think of other ideas as either inferior or blasphemy
This closes us off from what others can teach us
Buddha Even Feels This Way About himself He frequently tells
his followers that his way is ONE way, not THE way
To find Truth, each individual has to walk his own path
Buddha’s Teachings are a Raft
If a man is walking and comes to a river that is difficult to cross, he builds a raft
When he has crossed the river, he does not pick up his raft and take it with him
He leaves it behind, and perhaps others will use it
This is What Buddha Has Done His life and his
teachings provide us a way to follow
But you don’t have to come to Truth that way, just as a different man might find other ways to get himself across the river
Buddhism as Religion Much of what
might be called “Buddhism” is left over from Hinduism The gods Reincarnation
Or borrowed from/ merged with Taoism Respect for all
living things
But Buddha Doesn’t Really Care Buddhism is not that
concerned with a lot of elements of other faiths
Instead, Buddha’s life work and his teachings were all focused on one compound question: Why do people suffer,
and what can be done to stop suffering?
This Leads Us To Noble Truths
The Buddha’s central teachings are confined within an idea known as the Four Noble Truths
Again, these form a “raft” we can use to gain Enlightenment in our own lives
The First Noble Truth All of life is dukkha This Pali word is often translated as
“suffering” It is that, but it also can mean
emptiness or unsustainability or impermanence or imperfection
To call it “suffering” makes Buddhism seem far more pessimistic than it is
All Kinds of Joy in Buddhism Buddhism as a
faith is a very joyful religion
There is much to be happy about
And you should not deny yourself moments of happiness
But dukkha Suggests that
your moments of happiness are impermanent—they won’t last
That’s not pessimistic as much as it is realistic
All of Us Feel This The happiest among us can find ways
in which we feel we could be ‘more’ happy
We all are subject to change We all get sick from time to time All of us are going to die So this impermanence is merely a
part of the human condition
And That Can Cause Suffering Sooner or later, we
lose those things that are close to us
Our favorite shoes wear out, or our cool car breaks down, or our boy/girlfriend breaks up with us
Three Types of dukkha Dukkha as ordinary suffering
Those moments in life (birth, sickness, death, etc.) that merely happen and are unpleasant
Dukkha as change Those moments in life when we had
been happy, but something happens to take that happiness away
The Third Type Dukkha as conditioned states—this
one is a mindjob This suffering comes from the fact that
we perceive ourselves to be individual selves due to our consciousness
Buddha says we’re not—we’re merely a collection of our thoughts and perceptions, all of which constantly change
According to Buddha Part of what
causes ‘suffering’ is that we think things happen to us
They don’t—they just happen
If A Tree Falls in the Forest And no one is around
to hear it, does it make any sound?
Of course not Sound is a sense
perception of consciousness—if no conscious life form is in the vicinity, the tree is silent
Our Conscious Perception Tricks us into
believing that we have a Self or a Soul—some enduring part of us
We don’t Like everything else,
our conscious mind is impermanent, and will eventually fade away
This can take several lifetimes, however
According to Buddha There is no Unmoved
Mover behind the movement
There is no thinker behind the thought; thought itself is the thinker
Clinging to the idea of our ‘selves’ causes us pain
The Second Noble Truth The origin of
dukkha comes from our own desires
Desire itself is not bad; it is what we desire and the manner in which we desire it that leads to dukkha
Craving and Clinging According to Buddha, we crave
certain things that do not help us attain Enlightenment
The easiest example is money Buddha had grown up a rich prince He found Enlightenment as a
begging monk
This Can Be Especially True In the West A capitalist society
places great emphasis on whether its members have the right ‘things’
We worry about what car we drive, or phone we buy, or whether our computer is as cool as it can be, or what clothes we wear
But All of Those Things Don’t Last Again, the world
is impermanent, as are all things in it
We cling to things as though they will last forever
When they don’t, we suffer
Same is True of Relationships
Marriages don’t last; they end in divorce or they end in death, but either way they end
You can’t be BFF’s in Buddhism—this too will pass away
An Important Point The things we
desire are the very things that cause us suffering
Those things we value most are those things that hurt most when they disappear
The Third Noble Truth It is possible to
free ourselves from dukkha
We do this by eliminating our own craving and clinging to an object or person or idea
This One Gets Tricky The Third Noble Truth is often spoken
of as an attempt to cultivate dispassion That is, we can avoid suffering if we make
every attempt not to care about any given thing
That’s not what we mean After all, a person with no emotion toward
others isn’t a Buddhist; he’s a sociopath
So What Does This Mean? It means that we
recognize that all things are going to change or fall away
Doing so, we avoid suffering when we honor those things in the time that we have them
In the Film One of the experts spoke about a glass
I like this glass, it’s pretty, it hold water admirably, it has a nice tone, etc.
The glass will eventually be lost or break Ordinarily, that will cause suffering
To avoid suffering, think of the glass as already being broken Every time you use it will seem like a miracle
Think of a Loved One. . . We crave those we
love, and cling to them
When they are lost to us, this is one of the greatest causes of our suffering
But like all things, our great loves are not permanent
But Begin With Their Leaving…
And suddenly every moment spent with them is precious
When you know you’re going to lose someone, you’ll work harder to honor them while they are here
Then, When They Do Leave We suffer less because we honored
them more when they were here We’ll miss them, and their loss hurts But it had to happen, because all
things are impermanent Even when they are gone, it is better
to honor the time we had with them than lament their departure
How Do We Achieve This? We follow the steps along the
Fourth Noble Truth, which is known as the Noble Eightfold Path
But we’ll do that tomorrow