Buddhism: What is Essential? What does it mean to be human?

Buddhism:What is Essential?What does it mean to be human? Week 4 ARHU 302: World Religions

Today’s Slide show • Life of Buddha • Core of Buddha’s thought • Results of Buddha’s impact: Big Raft and Little Raft

Beginnings • 5th century (400s) BCE . . . “Founder”: Siddhartha Gautama • “The Buddha” on Amazon Prime – great biography • Short, great book

Buddha bio • Born: Northern India, near Tibet • Social Class: Wealthy Kshatriya family • Religious Context: Vedic - Brahmanical Hinduism where there was • Varnashrama Dharma • Sacrificial Worship • All these ideas of samsara, moksha, karma, meditation, yoga, asceticism

Siddhartha’s awakening to reality • Protected little Siddhartha could not see reality for what it truly was • He disobeyed his father and went out to see the world outside of his “comfort zone” and had 4 Passing Sights • Old man: reality of age • Sick man: reality of disease • Corpse: reality of death • Sanyasin: renunciation as a path to peace He asked himself: “Life is subject to age and death. Where is the realm of life that is not subject to age and death?”

Siddhartha leaves his home, renouncingprivilege and possessions, wife & son • 6 years of questioning • Seeks spiritual teachers (common path – many many teachers) Asceticism: the use of physical techniques and constraints such as vigils, fasting, intentional poverty, sexual restraint, and other austerities in order to cultivate inner, spiritual and/or mental self-control, enlightenment, and/or freedom from anxiety.

His Major Qs: • Why is there suffering? • Why do humans die? • Do the Gods exist? • Is there a soul, and if so, what is its nature? • How can we avoid suffering?

The middle way  awakening • Neither indulgence nor denial • Meditation under the Bodhi Tree: I won’t get up until I know • Then rooted there for 6 days Many tried to turn HIM into a God

Perception of the “grand design” of the system of rules governing reality. • Karma • Anitya - Change • Anatman – “No-Self” • Duhkha – Suffering • All compounded things decay. • Work out your own salvation with diligence.

Buddha’s “religion” • No authority • Devoid of ritual • Skirted speculation • Devoid of tradition • Intense self effort • Devoid of the supernatural

empirical rather than faith-based: It is a practice. “Arising on the ground of the preceding cause”: All events, objects, ideas depend for their existence on the conditions which preceded them. This principle of “how everything works” provides the basis for Buddhist thought on the nature and origin of Suffering . This is the fundamental precept of Buddhism. ALL rests on this! Buddhist theory basics PratītyasamutpĀda:Dependent Origination http://www.buddhism-guide.com/buddhism/pratitya-samutpada.htm

How things happen; conditions lead to other conditions • How to be free from suffering; “What is it that brings about the cessation of death? The cessation of birth?” • Also a psychological mapping of the working of the human mind • Pragmatic • Psychological • Egalitarian • Directed at individuals A CAUSAL Theory

The 12 links of the chain of dependent origination

Ignorance depends on Karma. • Karma depends on consciousness. • Consciousness depends on name and form. • On name and form depend the 5 organs of sense. • On the 5 organs of sense depends contact. • On contact depends sensation. • On sensation depends desire. • On desire depends clutching. • On clutching depends existence • On existence depends birth. • On birth depends old age and death, sorrow, and despair.

Views of the self: Atman vs. Anatman • ATMAN (Vedic and Puranic texts) – The permanent, unchanging, immortal component of human personality which leaves body at death • ANATMAN (Buddhism) – “Non-Self” • ALL THINGS are conditioned, constructed, subject to impermanence, including “the self” • Humans seem stable/consistent on the surface of things, but this is only a sense-based construction of our imagination • REBIRTH: NOT “transmigration” of an eternal soul, but merely a “reconstituting” of your previous elements – the continued “working out” of the karmic forces that produced “you” through time

The Buddhist Community • Buddha – an ideal human being whom others should emulate; a great teacher. • Sangha – an order of monks and nuns wandering, begging, teaching. community

The Human condition: Samsara & Anitya • Samsara – “Wandering” • Anitya – “Change” • All beings are wandering through cycles of death & rebirth • We are constituted and reconstituted as a collection of aggregates (Skandhas) during our lifetimes, produced by the chain of Dependent Origination (Pratityasamutpada) • This cycle is characterized chiefly by the experience of Duhkha – “Suffering”

Dukha – Suffering Caused by craving • Existence in Time leads to suffering • The essence of time is change • We become attached to things that change, hoping they will be permanent; we believe • Sensual pleasures will bring lasting happiness. • We attach to the illusion of our own permanence, and so we fear death. • Avoid change & suffering; desire to end the suffering we experience. Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother series. Woman [Florence Thomson] with children in a tent. Nipomo, California. 1936. Credits: Dorothea Lange; The Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Life as it is typically lived is unfulfilling and filled with insecurities The trauma of birth The pathology of sickness The morbidity of decrepitude The phobia of death Being tied to what one dislikes To be separated from what one loves

The Four Noble Truths • All Life is Suffering (Duhkha) • Suffering comes from Desire/Attachment • The way to end suffering is to cease desiring • The Eightfold Path is the means to cease desiring

The 8-fold path

Buddha wrote nothing • He retired 3 times a day and for 3 months annually to “noble silence” • Gifted with a preternatural insight into characters • Felt he had a cosmic mission to perform • Nirvana means “to blow out” “to extinguish” … Deprived of fuel, the fire goes out. This is Nirvana. What is extinguished? THE BOUNDARIES OF THE FINITE SELF. • What remains? Incomprehensible, indescribable, inconceivable, unutterable • IS NIRVANA GOD? • Some conclude: since Buddhism professes no God, it cannot be a religion • Others conclude: since Buddhism is obviously a religion, religion does not require God

Will remains free • Throughout the causal sequence the WILL remains free • To Buddha, the mind is more basic than matter Regard this phantom world As a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, A flash of lightning in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp—a phantom—and a dream (p. 117)

Life after death of the body? • P. 118 • Some problems are posed so clumsily by our language as to preclude solution by their very formulation. • Extinguish a fire – did it go north, south, east, or west?

The goal of Buddhism: Nirvana • The Extinction of everything that defines the person as subject to birth, death, and suffering (skandhas) • The elimination of “thirst” upon Bodhi (“awakening”) • Thus the cause for future rebirth is destroyed • “Extinguishment” / “To Put Out”/ “Blow Out”/ “Cool Down” • Release fromthirst ofunquenchabledesires and painof cycle of Samsara (birth and rebirth) Nirvana is “Total Death” – Release from the cycle; one achieves Nirvana in life and then departs from the cycle at the moment of death

Overnight sensation (not like Hinduism) • He died at 80: 45 years of teaching • Overnight the religion of Buddhism arrives • Pretty much the Removal of the 6 aspects of the “typical” religion: • Authority • Ritual • Speculation • Tradition • Grace – as if some “reality” is “on your side.” No. • Mystery TABOR says: Hinduism more oriented to the glory of Brahman; Buddhism more oriented to the accepting then erasing the stupidity that is being human

Buddha was Asked: who – what - are you? • Are you a God? No • Are you an angel? No • Are you a human? No • … then who are you? I am awake

Simplicity of Buddha  it all got complicated Buddhist community emerged out of the Buddha’s collection of followers; councils and collections of commentaries developed the Buddha’s ideas into a complex tradition, which fragmented with opinions about interpretation and ritual practice

“break offs” – within 100 yrs– all religions “split” • ALSO different individualtypes: independent or interdependent • Some of us believe “it’s up to us” – “I did it” – despite this and that • Others among us believe in “the collective” “No (hu)man is an island” • Belief systems about “the universe” • Is the universe “friendly” • Is the universe “indifferent” … or even “hostile” • What is the ‘best part’ of the human being? • Head • Heart • Finally some thought Buddhism was • A full-time job • Just part of life THIS ALL LED TO TWO “SECTS”  ”

Mahayana – the Big Raft, the Great Souled. Buddha was a supreme sage and then ELABORATE cosmologies replete with many-leveled heavens and hells. Korea, Japan, Tibet • Hinayana – the little raft. The way of the Elders. Buddhism as taught by Buddha • AND many Hinayans prefer to call it “Theravada”– progress is up to the individual, his or her understanding and application. Humanity is “on its own”: no Gods to help.Self-relianceWisdom is profound insight into the nature of reality.It is the very humanness of Buddha that is the foundation. SOUTH ASIAN COUNTIRES (Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia)

Which “wins”? Inwardly, no competition. Outwardly (#s) mahayana Theravada – Little Raft • HBs are emancipated by self-effort, w/o supernatural aid • VIRTUE: Wisdom • Attainment requires constant commitment and is mostly for monks and nuns • Buddha a supreme teacher • Minimizes metaphysics • Minimizes ritual • Practice centers on meditation Mahayana – Big Raft • Human inspirations are supported by divine powers and the grace they bestow • VIRTUE: Compassion • Religious practice is relevant to life in the world • Ideal: the Bodhisattva • Buddha a savior • Elaborates metaphysics, ritual, petitionary prayer

Most important • Find/discover it in you; it is already in you NOT • Create it, build it, “bring it in”, add it from somewhere My guy: Moojihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU8fUeydGW4 or www.mooji.org CURRENTLY 9pm Saturday

The end: next week is zen

The Skandhas/Kandhas – “Aggregates” END PRODUCT: YOU!

Buddhism: What is Essential? What does it mean to be human?