The Dharma

1. The Dharma

2. Buddhism is often described as a non-theistic religion. • There is no personal God who creates everything and to whom prayers can be directed. • Buddha was not a god, he was a human being who attained full Enlightenment. • Buddha did not focus on descriptions of ultimate reality, the nature of the soul, life after death or the origin of the universe. • Spoke of his teachings as a raft to take us to the farther shore. • Nirvana is the farther shore, the goal of spiritual effort. • http://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html

3. Basic Facts of existence • In his very first sermon, Buddha set forth the “Four Noble Truths” around which all his later teachings revolved around. • Life inevitably involves suffering, is imperfect and unsatisfactory. • Suffering will cease if all desires cease. • There is a way to realize this sate: The Eightfold Path.

4. The Noble Truths • First Noble Truth is the existence of dukkha, which means suffering or frustration. • Second Noble Truth is that dukkha has its origin in desire. • The Third Noble Truth is that dukkha can cease if desire ceases. • The Fourth Noble Truth is that only through a life of morality, concentration and wisdom can desire and therefore suffering be extinguished

5. Eightfold Path • Right understanding • Right thought • Right mindfulness • Right concentration • Right speech • Right action • Right livelihood • Right effort. • Those behaviors, or disciplines, are sometimes further distilled into three principles: wisdom, morality, and meditation. • It is designed to lead Buddhists between the extremes of pure materialism and pure rationality.

6. The Wheel of Birth and Death • There is no eternal soul to be reborn. • One changing state of being sets another into motion: every event depends on a cause. • Central cause in this process is karma—our acts of will. • The impressions of our good and bad actions help to create our personality moment by moment. • When we die, this process continues, passing on the flame to a new life that reflects our past karma. • The process of being born and then dying is called samsara-continues until we reach nirvana.

7. Nirvana • The only way to end the cycle in which desire feeds the wheel of suffering is to end all cravings and lead a passion—free existence that has no karmic consequence. • The utter extinction of aging and dying. • When one who has reached nirvana dies, they enter a deathless, peaceful, unchanging state that cannot be described—individuality disappears.

8. Buddhism South and North • As soon as he attracted a small group of disciples, the Buddha sent them out to help teach the dharma. • This missionary effort spread in all directions; this lead to the religion’s development as a global religion. • Many Buddhist sects have developed as the Buddha’s teachings have been expanded upon and adapted to local cultures in different areas.