Download RLST 2610 Buddhism 1. Siddhartha Gautama, Sakyamuni, was a

RLST 2610
Buddhism
1.
Siddhartha Gautama, Sakyamuni, was a prince in a
small kingdom,
• He left his home to become a wandering ascetic.
• After years of meditation, he became enlightened,
the Buddha, the awakened one, attained
nirvana, blowing out,
• and then started teaching others.
• The religious tradition based on his teachings, and
looking to him as a founder is Buddhism.
2.
The doctrine of anatma (anatta) :
• there is no soul.
• What we call our soul, is just the collection of 5
aggregates, 5 skandhas, made up of
• 1)form,
• 2)feelings,
• 3)perceptions,
• 4)psychic dispositions,
• 5) consciousness.
• Nagasena's example of the chariot exemplifies the
doctrine of anatma.
3.
Pudgala: some buddhists steered towards a doctrine
of the pudgala,
• which is like a quasi soul,
• b/c the idea of no soul was for them hard to
reconcile with the Buddhist idea of reincarnation.
4.
The 4 Noble truths:
1.There is suffering
2. Suffering is due to craving
3.Suffering can only be stopped by getting rid of
craving
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4. The way to get rid of craving is to follow the 8fold path.
5.
The 8-fold path is:
Right views, right resolve, right speech, right
conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right
mindfulness and right concentration.
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6.
Pratitya samutpada (paticca samuppada): Chain
of causation.
• 1st is ignorance,
• then karmic disposition,
• consciousness,
• name and form,
• contact,
• feeling response,
• craving,
• grasping for an object,
• action towards life,
• birth,
• old age,
• and death, then it starts all over again.
7.
The goal is to break a link in the chain somewhere.
• The easiest place to break it: ignorance, or
craving.
8.
The idea of upaya: the Buddha taught different
methods depending on the person.
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Buddhism
Mahayana
1. Mahayana is the “Greater Vehicle”
2. “Hinayana”, “the lesser vehicle is a term of derision
which they apply to those people, Theravadins and
others, who have a different ideas about the process of
nirvana. These other groups don’t call themselves
“Hinayanists” ever.
3.Nagarjuna reconceives the Middle Way to no longer
be about avoiding too much food and fasting, avoiding too
much sleep and too little
4. It becomes about how to avoid falling into either
nihilism or a positivist belief in self and after life.
5. Nagarjuna also develops the theory of 2 levels to
reality- paramarthika – the highest level and vyavahara
the level of ordinary day to day life.
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