The history of Buddhism and culture .pptx

History of buddhism

1. Buddhism Lecture 3

2. Religion or a way of Life? One function of the Buddhist tradition in the study of religion is to call into question the easy equivalence of “religion” with “belief in God .” Religion has often been defined as a system of belief in God or gods. Yet early Buddhists professed no such belief. The Buddha was understood to be a pathfinder only—a human being who had woken up. He achieved this feat by his own effort, without any miraculous assistance Should it banished from the category of religions or a religion could exist without a supernatural power?

3. BUDDHIST HISTORY The Buddha movement migrated out of North India in the wake of the Buddha’s death. In the third century BCE, it made its way south into modern-day Sri Lanka. Around the time of Jesus, it moved north into China, where it mixed with the other two of China’s “Three Teachings”: Confucianism and Daoism In eighth century CE it had taken root as well in Korea, Japan, and Tibet . Buddhists moved, they transformed their tradition, often remarkably, adopting new norms and organizational forms and adapting to new circumstances, cultures, and even climates

4. This massive Bodhi Tree marks the spot in Bodh Gaya in the northeastern Indian state of Bihar where, according to the Buddhist tradition, a former prince named Siddhartha Gautama was enlightened and became the Buddha (“Awakened One ”). Between 2004 and 2014, tourism to Bodh Gaya , which UNESCO billed as “the holiest place of Buddhist pilgrimage in the world,” grew tenfold, from 170,000 to 1.7 million Three other sacred places intimately associated with the Buddha’s life: Lumbini (where he was born), Sarnath (where he gave his first sermon), and Kushinagar (where he died). But Bodh Gaya remains the main attraction—“the navel of the earth and the center of the Buddhist world.

5. The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western World written by a Chinese monk named Xuanzang Story with the Diamond Throne- This carved stone seat marks the place where the Buddha-to-be became the Buddha— his enlightenment was made by this place, which is and always has been the still-point at the center of our shaken and suffering universe. “When the earth quakes, this spot alone remains stable,” Xuanzang testified. As the Buddha-to be was on the cusp of enlightenment and the whole earth shook, the Diamond Throne remained “calm and quiet, without agitation .

6. Pilgrims also line up and file dutifully past a gilded statue of the Buddha housed inside the temple. Signs near the Bodhi Tree guide visitors along a Buddhist analog to Jerusalem’s Stations of the Cross—locations where “the Lord Buddha” supposedly spent each of the seven weeks after his awakening and before moving on to nearby Sarnath , where he delivered his first sermon and gathered his first disciples Debate over Religious Buddhism and Original Buddhism Elsewhere in Bodh Gaya, customers buy textiles in a Tibetan refugee market and patronize establishments such as “Buddha Juice Corner,” “Buddha Toyota,” and “ Buddha Hair Cutting Sailoon .” In fact, Bodh Gaya is so busy with spiritual tourism nowadays it takes a leap of faith to imagine that anyone was ever enlightened here.

7. In the Indian religions of release, trees and temples are close kin. In fact, many sacred sites in India likely got their start around a tree rather than inside a temple. Today, many Hindus see the gods in trees: Brahma (the creator) in roots ; Vishnu (the sustainer) in trunks ; Shiva (the destroyer) in boughs . Popular stories draw particularly close ties between the Hindu god Krishna and the banyan tree . A banyan in Jyotisar in India’s Haryana state is said to be the tree under which Lord Krishna delivered to the warrior Arjuna his message on war and duty now preserved in the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita.

8. Born into the Kshatriya, or warrior, class, this prince carried the family name of Gautama. His first name was Siddhartha, which means “he who fulfills his purpose.” Eventually, he grew dissatisfied with his beautiful house and his beautiful wife. He started to ask, “How did I get here?” And he started to wonder what it might be like to wander beyond the confines of his palace and out into the wider world.

9. Determined to grant his son’s wishes yet equally determined not to propel him toward a life as a wandering monk, the father of the Buddha-to-be organized a carefully orchestrated tour of a nearby park. He saw to it that the appointed route was swept clean of all unpleasantness. Nonetheless , Siddhartha encountered a balding man, wrinkled and stooped over a stick . “What is that?” he asked, because he had never seen old age. His charioteer answered, “ That is an old man. All human bodies decay and grow old. No one is exempt from old age .” On a second tour, he encountered a man hollowed out by disease . “What is that?” he asked, because he had never seen illness . His charioteer answered, “ That is a sick man . All human bodies decay. No one is exempt from sickness.”

10. On a third tour , Siddhartha saw a man who seemed too still to be merely asleep. “What is that?” he asked, because he had never seen death . His charioteer answered, “That is a corpse. All human bodies decay and grow old and expire. No one is exempt from death .” On his fourth and final tour, Siddhartha’s midlife crisis deepened when he saw a holy man seated in meditation. “Who is that?” he asked. His charioteer answered, “That is a renouncer, a holy man who has left behind work and family in order to seek release from the ravages of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth .” Prompted by these “Four Sights,” Siddhartha vowed that he, too, would become a renouncer . That night, at the age of twenty-nine, he said a silent goodbye to his wife and son

11. Then he and his charioteer sneaked away from his home under cover of darkness. The charioteer rode with him to the edge of the palace grounds. Siddhartha shaved off his hair and exchanged his princely finery for the modest robes of his charioteer . Then he wandered into the woods, homeless and alone . The story does not end here, of course . This holy man formerly known as a prince joined a group of five fellow renouncers . Alongside them, he practiced all sorts of austerities. He slept in cemeteries. He perfected difficult breath control exercises He hardly ever ate, and when he did, he ate hardly anything. He became famous among renouncers for his discipline . As he later told a disciple, “When I tried to touch the skin of my belly, I took hold of my backbone, and when I tried to touch my backbone I took hold of the skin of my belly.

12. Still, he had not awakened from the illusions that give rise to human suffering . So he struck out on his own on a “Middle Path” between his old life of luxury and his new life of renunciation. He ate and slept just enough to keep his body and mind alert. After six years on the road, he made his way to Bodh Gaya, where, at the age of thirty-five , he sat beneath the Bodhi Tree and vowed not to get up until he had achieved enlightenment The Buddha (“Awakened One”), as he was now called, considered returning to a life of solitary wandering. He knew that he had achieved enlightenment by his own effort (no God involved) and through his own experience (without divine revelation). He also knew that, as soon as he tried to translate that effort and experience into words, both would evaporate into the hot, humid air.

13. He considered resuming his wandering without speaking a word of his awakening to anyone . However, having compassion on the rest of us, mired as we are in a world of suffering, he made his way to Sarnath , outside of present-day Varanasi in northern India, where he found the group of five renouncers he had left years before . He delivered to them his first and most famous sermon—the “first turning of the wheel of dharma.” There are Four Noble Truths, he said to the men who would become the first monks of this tradition: suffering exists , suffering has a cause , suffering can be eradicated , and the way to the eradication of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path . For decades the Buddha wandered around India, making disciples of people from all castes and weaving them together into a community of monks and nuns At the age of eighty, in a small town called Kushinagar , a devotee offered him a meal that caused him to fall gravely ill. Now a stooped and wrinkled man, the Buddha lay down on his right side between two trees, which immediately bloomed. He laid his head on his right hand

14. As death approached, he instructed his followers to cremate him and place his remains in a dome-like shrine called a stupa. He then ordained his last disciple, a wanderer named Subhadda . When his dear friend Ananda asked him how monks should remember him after he died, he said monastics and laypeople alike should make pilgrimage to the places of his birth, his enlightenment, his first sermon, and this place of his passing into parinirvana (“final nirvana ”). As for his successor, he said there should be none. His teachings and his rules of monastic discipline should suffice: “You should live as islands unto yourselves, being your own refuge, with no one else as your refuge, with the dharma as an island, with the dharma as your refuge, with no other refuge.” His last words were: “All conditioned things are of a nature to decay—strive on untiringly

15. Buddhists are often divided into three main branches Mainstream Buddhism or Theravada (“Way of the Elders”) Mahayana (“Great Vehicle”) Buddhism of East Asia Most Tibetan Buddhists) view Vajrayana Buddhism as an expression of the Mahayana impulse that uses new strategies to arrive at classically Mahayana ends

16. Theravada There is no such thing as a solitary, unchanging soul, they argued, or, for that matter, a solitary, unchanging self. What we mistakenly call “I” or “me” is interdependent and ever-changing—an unstable flow of phenomena we mistake for the true self. Just as a chariot is composed of many parts, the illusion of a self/soul is a composite consisting of five skandhas (“aggregates”): matter feelings perception conditioning factors consciousness Buddhism has been described as a “see for yourself ” tradition that encourages us to take the prescription the Buddha offers and see if it does, in fact, cure us

17. Theravada (“Way of the Elders ”): Oldest surviving branch of Bhuddism According to mainstream Buddhists, to be wise was to understand the “three marks of existence ” as a sentient being, namely: dukkha (suffering), anicca (impermanence), anatta (no soul ) Reading is fundamental They use scriptures, Suttas are based on (Oral teachings of Buddha) Palikana Less religious rituals than other forms of Buddhism They believe Buddha to be human figure He left his Dharma and Sangha to let other people achieve enlightenment themselves Sri L anka, Myanmar, Laos, Thiland and Cambodia

18. Mahayana Buddhism Mahayana Buddhism began around the time that Christianity and rabbinic Judaism arose Buddha began to make pilgrimages to stupas- As these pious pilgrims gathered, they told stories about the Buddha, and as their stories became larger than life, the legends of the Buddha grew and grew until he started to look and act like the Hindu gods who were becoming popular at roughly the same time There are stories of the miraculous acts of the Buddha in the early Buddhist scriptures known as the Pali canon . . In fact, the sangha itself was restricted to monks and nuns. In contrast, Mahayana Buddhists refused to restrict enlightenment to monks and nuns who renounced family and social obligations. They offered the religious goal and Buddhist identity to laypeople with families and jobs

19. This democratization of the Buddhist tradition was a huge part of the appeal of Mahayana tradition in India The Mahayana tradition resolved these difficulties by making it possible for householders (non-monks and non-nuns) to be full Buddhists and to achieve nirvana by reliance on the compassion of others . The lofty aspirations of the bodhisattva are elegantly captured in the oft-repeated Bodhisattva Vow : Sentient beings are numberless ; I vow to liberate them all. The afflictions are inexhaustible; I vow to extinguish them all. The Buddhist teachings are infinite; I vow to master them all . The Diamond Sutra- explores the paradox that bodhisattvas vow to lead all beings from samsara to nirvana while, in actuality, there is no ultimate difference between samsara and nirvana The Lotus Sutra- One of the most radical sutras, it calls into question many of the most celebrated events in the life of the Buddha, including his enlightenment and death. The Buddha was not awakened under the Bodhi Tree because he had already been awakened long before. And he is immortal, so he only appeared to die.

20. In famous story of Lotus Sutra, the Buddha is likened to a father standing outside a burning house with his children inside . Mahayana SchoolsMahayana Buddhism wasn’t principally about texts or philosophy. It was (and is) first and foremost about devotion. Whereas early Buddhists had insisted that each of us must achieve nirvana on our own merits, Mahayana Buddhists said that help was available from others

21. Mahayana (“Great Vehicle ”) Younger Theravada More texts and more teachings It emphasized helping others rather than attaining nirvana for oneself Bodhisattva is a center of belief for Mahayana. Bodhidsattva are enlightened beings stay in the cycle to help others achieve Nirvana People would pray like they do in other religions Nepal, Mangolia , Korea, Japan, Tibet, Vietnam, China Zen Buddhism and Pure Buddhism

22. Siddhartha realized by end of desire he could end suffering . We only suffer because we things to be in certain way Accept the change and free from desire his mind and sense purified, he was filled with joy and compassion for everything on earth under that Bodhi tree. He achieved Enlightenment or Nirvana . A awakened one or a Buddha How did he achieve all this? He laid out some lengthy guide lines

23. Four Noble Truths Life is Suffereing (Life is Dhukka ) Suffering is a fact of life Dissatisfaction: Human claim to temporary things Human Transition from young to old to death Change in circumstances, things change that you don’t want to change To get what you want Things not meeting your expectations Unfulfilling life

24. Solution to the Suffering The name for this spiritual liberation is nirvana, which refers literally to “blowing out” (a candle, for example) but in this case what is extinguished is ignorance, craving, and suffering itself Buddhists also describe nirvana more positively as ultimate peace, highest happiness, stillness, and bliss There is a path to the elimination of suffering. This path is the Middle Way between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification

25. 2. Dhukka is caused by Desire Humans desire and cling to possession of things, power, people and life itself. End is disappointing because all things end People want things they don’t currently have and want to cling to things they currently have, they don’t want to change We want to our looks to stay the same forever and we want our loved ones to stay the same forever Suffering has a cause, namely, craving You can’t have a permanent relationship nor could you catch a stream in unpermanent world Desire fuels suffering in the same way as wood fuels the fire, Stop feeding it Secret of happy life is enjoy what you have and don’t want what you don’t have

26. The goal of the Buddhist tradition is the eradication of suffering, which is accomplished through various techniques, from solitary meditation, chanting, and visualization to forms of worship that resemble deity devotion in popular Hinduism One typically becomes a Buddhist by taking refuge in the Three Jewels: I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the dharma (“Buddhist teaching ”). I take refuge in the sangha (“Buddhist community”).

27. 3.There is a end to suffering Since we cause suffering and we can also cure it You can’t have all the thing but you can change your responses

28. 4. Noble Eightfold Path Buddhist Noble eightfold path leads to suffering or middle way Is a eight way guide to deprogramming desire addicted brain Think of it as wheel

29. Noble Eight Fold Path Right View: Life is Dukkha Desire causes Dukkha Dukkha can end 8- Fold path ends suffering 2. Right Thought: Don’t let negative thoughts greed, fear or anxiety cloud your mind Fill your mind with positive ones like love, kindness and compassion

30. 3. Right Speech: Focus on positive words and stay away from negative words like gossip, hurtful words and lies They will cause you others to suffer 4. Right Action: Buddha taught philosophy of Ahimsa(Non violence) Endless love for all life Lies with Truth Meanness with genorsity Constant anger with love Evil with good

31. 5. Right livelihood: Avoid jobs that involve death, weapons, slavery, d rugs or any kind of exploitation Livelihood isn’t just about occupation; be a honest and kind parent, a friend and a partner 6. Right Effort: Right Thought Welcoming and creating good thoughts and pushing away bad thoughts (Violence, greed, hatred and anxiety) all begins as a negative thought. Use your mind garden positively and water them with good thoughts so they grow, “ I Believe in You!” A Garden full of kind and compassionate flowers will grow

32. 7. Right Mindfulness: Paying pure attention in every moment Remain in the present moment without judging or labelling your experiences and without letting distracting thoughts bring you out of the present If you’re eating ice cream, eat ice cream. Don’t let other thoughts distraught you from enjoying your ice-cream Mindfulness helps you understand your mind and body so you can see what causes positive and negative reactions in each moment 8. Right Concentration: Right concentration is like a laser and what people might recognize as meditation It lets your mind focus on one thing while mediating whether that be thoughts or breath Focus without distraction so you can gain insight into reality

33. Budha taught eight hold path would free people from suffering. Following this path doesn’t mean you give up your life, abandoning friends and family, and to stop feeling all emotions. Happiness comes from clearing your mind of desire and replacing it with joy and compassion for all things. Instead of trying to control what happens, you accept what happens, and enjoy every moment as it is.

34. Core Beliefs Karma: Natural law like a gravity. Its system of cause and effect. Intention matters in Karma “If you want to know about your past life, look at your present body. If you want to know your future life, look at your present mind.” Every person can change their life better Rebirth: Samsara Nirvana: It’s not heaven but it’s a State of mind. Buddha reached Nirvana but he lived for another 45 years. Blow out from the cycle of Samsara Heaven and hell in Buddhist tradition

35. Lived Buddhism One typically becomes a Buddhist by taking refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha (the “Three Jewels ”) Lay Buddhists may vow to adhere to Five Precepts, though they are free to take one, two, three, four, or all five: to abstain from taking life to abstain from taking what is not given to avoid sexual misconduct to abstain from false speech to abstain from alcohol Meditation remains a central Buddhist practice.

36. Meditation

37. Metta (“loving-kindness” or “friendliness”) meditation begins with cultivating loving-kindness for oneself. It then moves on to cultivating loving-kindness for someone you love. Feel your love and affection for that person in your heart. Then direct that feeling outward: May you be filled with lovingkindness . May you be safe from inner and outer dangers. May you be well in body and mind. May you be at ease and happy- Dalai Lama Practices Metta Meditation

38. Visualization Closely related to meditation is visualization. The simplest form of visualization is meditating on an ordinary object. A flower or a soccer ball will do. Look at it. Study it. Observe its features until you can lower your eyelids and see it in your mind’s eye without the object itself being present . This visualization practice is said to teach a variety of Buddhist truths, including emptiness. It also endows the practitioner with the powers of the buddha or bodhisattva invoked

39. Chanting Chanting of some form is practiced in virtually every Buddhist school, sometimes as a preparation for meditation and sometimes on its own. Buddhist chanting draws on ancient Indian traditions concerning the power of sacred sounds and is often conducted in ancient languages such as the Pali of early Buddhist texts . They also chant for material goods such as cars and houses—a practice seen by some as crass and nonBuddhistic . It should be noted, however, that there is a long tradition in the Buddhist world of casting spells for goals less lofty than nirvana—chants against snake bites, for example, or for protection against wild animals

40. Devotion and Pilgrimage From Bodh Gaya to Boston, Buddhists use images of buddhas and bodhisattvas much like contemporary Hindus use images of their deities. Theravada Buddhists typically describe these devotions as reverence and Mahayana Buddhists as worship, but the mechanics of the practice—bowing, offering, chanting—are quite similar . T he Buddha instructed his disciples to visit four sacred places after his passing: Lumbini , where he was born, Bodh Gaya, where he was enlightened, Sarnath , where he preached his first sermon, Kushinagar , where he entered parinirvana In one extraordinary pilgrimage, the “marathon monks” of the Enryaku Temple atop Mount Hiei in Japan run great distances

41. CONTEMPORARY CONTROVERSY: BUDDHISM AND VIOLENCE Buddhism is widely depicted in the modern West as a model of tolerance and nonviolence, particularly in contrast with Christianity and Islam. “Do not kill” is a Buddhist precept for monks and laypeople alike, and ahimsa (“nonviolence”) is a key Buddhist value. But no religion survives for centuries without being able to wage both war and peace, and Buddhism is no exception In China in 515, a monk named Faqing led fifty thousand soldiers into a war he described as a messianic battle against the temptress Mara on behalf of the “Great Vehicle.” Any soldier who killed an enemy would become a bodhisattva, he promised, and anyone who killed ten would achieve enlightenment. “Warrior monks” were also active in medieval Japan, engaging in fierce rivalries between temples and otherwise acting as the “teeth and claws of the Buddha.”

42. Sri Lanka’s Buddhist majority engaged in a decades-long civil war against the Tamil Tigers guerilla organization that did not abate until 2009. In 1959, a Buddhist monk assassinated Sri Lankan prime minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike. In Myanmar today, an ultranationalist Buddhist monk is called “the Buddhist bin Laden” for inciting violence against that country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

43. Acala , Destroyer of the Evil: The important aspect of Buddhist teachings is that use the teachings that work for you in your unique life circumstances Dalai Lama, “ If you find that teachings suit you, apply them to your life as much as you can, if they don’t suit you, just leave them be”

44. Arrow Sermon Sutta Pitaka (“basket of discourses”), Vinaya Pitaka (“basket of monastic discipline”), Abhidhamma Pitaka (“basket of higher teachings ”). The Buddha seems to have been intriguingly uninterested in the sorts of questions often associated with theology Wander Solitary- Rain retreats- ” they constructed shelters, which became buildings, which became monasteries- monastics followed strict rules and regulations about what to wear, what to eat, and how to avoid sexual improprieties He made nuns subservient to monks, however, by insisting that even the most junior monk be considered senior to the most senior nun, and by ensuring that nuns followed additional rules