Chapter 4 Notes: Buddhism

Buddhism is one of the world’s oldest and most significant religions. It spread through most
of Asia, influencing their cultures, but it had its beginning in India.
Siddhartha Gautama would come to be known as the Buddha or the Awakened One. He
was born the son of a prince of the Shakya tribe in what is today Nepal, and Siddhartha’s mother,
Maya, died a week after his birth and he was raised by his aunt. A sage inspected him and saw
special marks on his body, indicating he would become an illustrious person, but Siddhartha’s
father was warned that his life could take two paths; one where he would become a great king,
and another where he would become a great spiritual teacher if exposed to suffering.
Siddhartha disobeyed his father’s command to not leave the royal grounds, visiting a town
nearby, and witnessed the suffering of an ordinary life. He was moved by the “Four Passing
Sights” which were a crooked and toothless old man, a sick man, a corpse taken for cremation,
and a wandering holy man who had no possessions but seemed at peace. The suffering he just
encountered prompted him to question the meaning of human life and threw him into a severe
depression.
Siddhartha escaped and went out into the world with nothing but questions—this event is called
the “Great Going Forth.” He sought out a teacher, traveling from each one learning techniques of
meditation and discussing philosophy, but was ultimately unsatisfied. He adapted a path of
moderation—a middle way between self-indulgence and asceticism. Siddhartha sat under a
sacred tree and meditated until he reached a state of profound understanding, called his
Awakening, or Enlightenment (bodhi). He arose and said that he was now a person who had
woken up, and from this came his new name: the Buddha, a title taken from a Sanskrit word
meaning “to wake up.” After many years of travel from town to town sharing his knowledge, the
Buddha’s final instruction was to “trust your own insights and use self-control to reach
perfection and inner peace.”
We must rely on the basic trustworthiness of both the oral traditions and the many written texts
that pass on his teachings. At the core of basic Buddhism are the Three Jewels—that is, the
Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The Buddha is thought of as an ideal human being
whom other human beings should imitate, being a constant model of self-control and
mindfulness. The Dharma means the sum of Buddhist teachings about how to view the world
and how to live properly. The Sangha is the community of monks and nuns. The Buddha’s
teachings were also practical, only concentrating on what was useful. He concentrated on two
questions about existence: how to minimize suffering and how to attain inner peace.
The Three Marks of Reality are the foundation of the Four Noble Truths and the Noble
Eightfold Path.
 Change: Buddha recommends that we look at life as it really is, and the first thing we
notice is life’s constant change. When we truly experience impermanence, we see that all
of reality is in motion all the time; Buddha says the wise person expects change, accepts
it, and savors it, and while joys do not last forever, neither does sorrow.
  No Permanent Identity: The second mark of reality is that each person and each thing is
not only changing, but that it is made up of parts that are also constantly changing.
Buddha refuses to accept the Hindu notion of timeless, unchanging reality, in favor of the
view that a label is not the reality. Just as a car is not just a car, but made up of metals,
rubber, and paint, so are people, and realizing this is the second mark of reality.
 Suffering: This refers to the fact that life, when lived conventionally, can never be fully
satisfying. The Buddha concluded that to live means inescapably to experience sorrow
and difficulty, and those who say Buddhism pessimistically focuses on suffering do not
see the hopeful purpose behind that focus. Though it is not escapable, each person can
decide how to respond to suffering.
The Four Noble Truths are a linked chain of truths about life by following the n=Noble
Eightfold Path.
1. The First Noble Truth: To Live Is to Suffer
Having a body means that you can be tired and sick. Having a mind means that you can be
troubled and discouraged. To live means to experience anxiety, loss, and sometimes anguish.
Although the message sounds dark, this truth urges us to be realistic, not melancholy; it is also
hopeful if you recognize why suffering comes, then you can lessen it.
2. The Second Noble Truth: Suffering Comes from Desire
Buddha saw that suffering comes from wanting what you cannot have and from never being
satisfied with what you have. Everyone has desires, but because life is always changing, you will
never be permanently satisfied. The result of desire is discontent, dissatisfaction, and misery.
3. The Third Noble Truth: To End Suffering, End Desire
To our modern way of thinking, the Buddha’s recommendations may seem stark. Nevertheless,
he left his home, family, and possessions because he believed that any kind of attachment will
bring suffering. Buddhists recognize though that not everyone can be a monk or nun, so this third
truth is moderated for laypeople. It is interpreted as a recommendation that you should aim less
for happiness and more for inner peace. The essence of this truth is this: You cannot always
change the outside world, but you can change yourself and the way that you experience the
world.
4. The Fourth Noble Truth: Release from Suffering Is Possible and Can Be Attained
by Following the Noble Eightfold Path
The ultimate goal of Buddhism is nirvana. This term suggests many this: end of suffering, inner
peace, and liberation from the limitations of the world. Upon attaining nirvana, a person has self-
control, meaning that they are no longer driven from inside by raging emotional forces or from
outside by the unpredictable events of life. To reach nirvana it is recommended to follow the
Noble Eightfold Path.
The Noble Eightfold Path: The Way to Inner Peace
The eight “steps” of the path form a program that Buddha taught will lead us toward liberation
from the impermanence and suffering of reality. These recommendations are to be practiced
together to face life objectively, to live kindly, and to cultivate inner peace.
1. Right understanding is where you recognize the impermanence of life, the mechanism
of desire, and the cause of suffering.
2. Right intention is where your thoughts and motives are pure, untainted by emotions and
selfish desires.
3. Right speech is where you speak kindly and honestly, in positive ways, avoiding lies,
exaggeration, and harsh words.
4. Right action is where your actions do not hurt any other being that can feel hurt,
including animals; you avoid stealing and sexual conduct that would bring hurt.
5. Right work is where your job does no harm to yourself or others.
6. Right effort is how, with moderation, you consistently strive to improve.
7. Right meditation (mindfulness) is where you use the disciplines of meditation (dhyana)
and focused awareness to contemplate the nature of reality more deeply.
8. Right contemplation is where you cultivate states of blissful inner peace (samadhi).

Buddhism adopted the Indian worldview of ahimsa (non-harm). For Buddhism, ahimsa is
fundamental. The ideal holds that to cause suffering to any being is cruel and unnecessary, life is
already hard enough. Ahimsa discourages causing not only physical pain but also psychological
hurt or the exploitation of another. A compassionate person does everything possible to avoid
causing suffering.
The Buddha rejects the notion of a soul but accepted some notion of rebirth. Buddhism holds that
while there is no individual soul, the elements of personality that make up an individual can
recombine and thus continue from one lifetime to another. Closely related to the notion of rebirth
is karma. Because Buddha rejected the existence of a soul, explaining how karma works is more
difficult; Karma is thought to accompany and affect the elements of personality that reappear in
later lifetimes.
In Buddhism, the everyday world of change is samsara, a term suggesting decay and pain.
Liberation from samsara is attained in nirvana, nirvana being thought of as existence beyond
limitation, and people in the modern world associate nirvana with a psychological state because
it invokes joy and peace.
Buddhism might have remained an entirely Indian religion if it were not for a king named
Ashoka, who flourished and made a political use of Buddhist moral values. Ashoka decided to
spread the principles of nonviolence throughout India and beyond, resulting in the creation of the
three great branches of Buddhism: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana.
Theravada Buddhism: The Way of the Elders
Of all the conservative Buddhist schools, one survived to the present day: Theravada. It takes its
name from the goal of passing on Buddha’s teachings unchanged. Theravada monks originally
passed on the teachings in oral form, but eventually wrote them down. It is doubtful that the
teachings have remained relatively unchanged, but its true that Theravada has a deliberately
conservative orientation.
The heart of Theravada is its community of monks. Although the Theravada does teach that
laypeople can attain nirvana, the life of the monk offers a surer path; this notion being enshrined
in the ideal of the arhat, a person who has achieved nirvana. Theravada monks receive regular
donations and go out daily to receive their food, living closely to the laypeople. Theravada
Buddhism commonly performs "temporary ordination,” lasting for an entire rainy season,
considered to be an effective way to “make merit” for oneself and their family.
Monasticism permeates society and everyday life in Theravada Buddhist communities. In
addition to the so-called canonical scriptures, folktales have been influential in these Buddhist
communities, the most famous being the Jataka Tales. Like Aesop’s fables, early forms of the
stories may have influenced those tales and similar collections in other countries; the tales are
often put within a Buddhist context.
The Theravada collection of the Buddha’s teachings is called the Pali Canon; this mass of
material is call Tripitaka, meaning “three baskets.” The name comes from the fact that the
writings were divided according to their subject into three groups. The first collection, called
vinaya, outlines the procedural rules for monastic life. The second collection, called sutra,
comprising the sayings of the Buddha in the form of sermons and dialogues. A third collection
developed later, is called abhidharma, meaning “the works beyond the elementary teachings,”
and it systematized the doctrine presented randomly in the sutras.