buddhism

Siddhartha Gautama was born 563 BC. in what is now Nepal. His father, a King/Lord, was told by fortune tellers that if his son remained with the world, he would become a great conqueror. If, on the other hand, he forsook the world, he would become a redeemer.
Faced with this, his father decided to steer his son toward the former destiny. Siddhartha grew up sheltered and surrounded by wealth and luxury – insulated from suffering. He married his cousin and had a child. In time, Siddhartha glimpsed the suffering and death of human beings outside the palace walls. This new awareness awakened a compassion in him and, at the age 29, he left his palace, family, and possessions with the goal of discovering the truth about life and death.

He first sought spiritual guidance from famous Brahmans (Hindu Priests). Next, he searched elsewhere and joined a band of ascetics and, for the next six years, practiced self denial and non-action in an attempt of learn the human condition. After withering to a walking corpse and nearly dying of starvation, he realized that the life of self negation was as extreme and unproductive as his earlier life of incessant luxury. He came to believe in the Middle Way – Moderation between the extremes of self denial and indulgence.
Siddhartha now devoted himself to rigorous thought and concentration. One evening, he came to the Bo Tree and resolved to sit beneath it and mediate his way to perfect truth. He feel into a deep trance and after many hours was able to detach from his senses, emotions, and desires. Next, he entered a state of pure inner consciousness and awareness and ultimately non-conscious ecstasy. Here, he grasped the cause of suffering, the pathway around suffering (the 4 Noble Truths) , and the nature of supreme peace (Nirvana). That day Siddhartha became the Buddha (the enlightened one).
He went on to share his insights and gathered a large number of disciples. Many of his teachings and the religion they formed, were a reaction against the perversions of the established religion of the time (Hinduism). Onto the religious scene – corrupt, degenerate, and irrelevant, matted with superstition and burdened with rituals – came the Buddha.

* He preached a religion devoid of authority. He challenged each individual to do his own religious seeking – “do not accept what you hear by report, do not accept tradition, do not accept a statement because it is found in books, nor because it is the saying of your teacher.”
* He preached a religion devoid of ritual and said that they were trappings – irrelevant to the obtaining Nirvana.
* He preached a religion that skirted speculation. On such matters as whether the soul is the same as the body, whether one exists after death.
* He preached a religion devoid of tradition. “Do not go by what is handed down, not on the authority of your traditional teachings”
* He taught a religion of intense self-effort. A God or Gods could not be relied upon.
* He preached a religion devoid of the supernatural. He felt that appeal to supernatural and reliance on it were shortcuts, easy answers, and simple solutions that could only divert attention from the hard, practical task of self-advance.

The most important key to understanding the path of enlightenment is the set of Buddha’s teachings know as the Four Noble Truths:

1.) Human life is suffering.
2.) The cause of suffering is craving or attachment – the selfish craving for private fulfillment. Sensations like smells, sounds, tastes, bodily and intellectual pleasures enter in through the body and give rise to craving. Sensual experiences themselves are not the causes of suffering, for they are inherently neutral phenomena, instead, it is the clinging or desire for these experiences that leads to suffering. The desire for self at the expense of all other forms of life is the problem. When we are selfless, we are free.
3.) The cure for suffering is non-attachment or the cessation of selfish craving (by overcoming the egotistic drive for private fulfillment).
4.) The Fourth Noble Truth prescribes how this can be accomplished, the way out of our suffering is the Eightfold Path.

First, it is important to point out that the Eightfold Path is not an inflexible moral law dispensed form some otherworldly Judge nor is it an unbending absolute duty. Instead, Buddha claimed that ethical decisions are dependent upon the context in which they arise. The same activity committed in two different contexts or by two different people can have two different implications.

These eight steps are preceded by a preliminary step he does not include in the list but refers to often – The right association (with others).

1.) Right Views / Right Understanding of life and life’s problem. Critical thinking and intellectual rigor is a virtue. Ignorant faith is nothing without logical thought.
2.) Right Intent
3.) Right Speech
4.) Right Conduct / Action.
5.) Right Livelihood / Occupation
6.) Right Effort
7.) Right Attentiveness / Mindfulness. “All we are is a result of what we have thought.” Self examination, self understanding, self awareness
8.) Right Concentration intense concentration helps lead to direct perception of life and what freedom from worldly suffering is actually like.

Basic Buddhist Concepts

* Buddha’s concerns were practical and therapeutic, not speculative and theoretical.

* Afterlife
He did not grant his followers descriptions or promises of the afterlife.
Instead, he wanted to introduce people to a different way of life – a life focused on obtaining Nirvana. Nirvana’s literal meaning is extinction. The extinction of the finite self. It is the end of all suffering and the elimination of every aspect of the only consciousness we have known. It does not follow that what is left will be nothing. When asked for a description of the afterlife Buddha stated that it was “incomprehensible, indescribable, inconceivable, unutterable.” It would be ignorant to imagine that our final destiny is conceivable. All we know is that it is a condition that is beyond the limitations of the mind. However, he said that Nirvana is Bliss.

To contend that there may be no immortal self is to pull a very comforting rug out from religious thinking. The idea that some part of us will continue is pleasing and satisfies our craving for immortality. But satisfying our cravings is not the path to truth. Also, living one’s life for a future reward leads to evil because such a belief is ultimately ego-centric and selfish.

* God / Creator
Buddha did not profess a God or Creator-God but it did not deny the possibility on one.

* Soul
Buddha preached that the human self has no soul – that is, we do not have a spiritual substance that retains its separate identity forever. Instead of humans aging but retaining the same soul over a lifetime, Buddha used a flame being passed from candle to candle as an analogy. It is difficult to think of the flame on the final candle as being the same as the one on the first but there is undoubtedly a connection.
This leads to karma and transmigration. Karma links earlier and later lives together the same way the flame of the first candle links to that of the last. Buddha’s position is that each life, in its present condition, is the result of the manner each minute of each day leading up to the present has been lived. The present state is the product of prior acts but throughout this causal sequence the will remains free. People remain at liberty to shape their destinies.

* Life Analogy
Buddhism often uses the image of a crossing – a voyage across life’s river. A transport from the common sense shore of ignorance, suffering, and death to the bank of wisdom and enlightenment – to the place where the distinction between time and eternity has list its force.

Two main variations of Buddhism.

Theravada / Hinaya (the little raft/path – the way of the elders) [Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia]
* Progress is up to the individual
* No god exists to help us – self reliance is our only recourse.
* The prime attribute of enlightenment is wisdom.
* Attainment requires constant commitment and is primarily for monks.
* Buddha was a saint, and teacher. Now that he has obtained Nirvana he is at perfect peace.
* Minimizes metaphysics and ritual.

Mahayana (the big raft/path) Mahayansits [ China, Korea, Japan, Tibet]
* There are teachers/priests.
* Fate of the individual is liked to that of all life.
* There is a boundless power that draws everything to its appointed goal.
* The prime attribute of enlightenment is compassion – helping others
* It is a religion for laypeople.
* Buddha was a savior – he came back to lead us to Nirvana. He continues to draw all creatures toward him and Nirvana.
* Elaborates metaphysics and rituals – multi layered heaven and hell.
* They call on the Buddha for strength.

Two smaller sects of Mahayana Buddhism:

Zen – Buddhism profoundly influenced by Taoism
Zen adopts the Taoist idea that the way of effortless harmony (with everything) is a meditative attitude that can transform daily activities into spiritual experiences.
Zen’s essence can not be impounded by words since words can deceive and mislead. Zen teachers state that Zen cannot be equated with any verbal formula whatsoever. Zen logic and description make sense only from an experiential perspective radically different from the ordinary. Zen masters are determined that their students attain the experience itself, not allow talk to take its place.
The bulk of Zen training takes place in a large meditation hall. They sit, hour after hour, day after day, seeking to awaken the Buddha-mind so that they may relate it to their daily lives. They ponder koans (problems) such as “what is the sound of one hand clapping.”

Tibetan Buddhism – Tantric Buddhism
Tibetans put Tantric devices (body based energies such as speech, vision, gestures, and sex) into practice toward their spiritual quest for Nirvana. They attempt to channel their physical energies into currents that carry their spiritual quest forward instead of derailing it.
They use Mantras – repeated words, Mudras – hand gestures or dance, and Mandalas – visualization of deities, invoking them with such intensity that they can see and merge with them.
Of the Tantric energies invoked, the one that interests the West the most is sex. They teach that sex is important and that since it perpetuates life, it must be linked to God. It must, however, be joined with love. They espouse sex as a spiritual way to obtain beatific bliss and transcendent identity.