Download Buddha`s Life (563-483 B.C.E.) Buddha`s teachings (over a period of

Buddha’s Life (563-483 B.C.E.)
The Buddha - his names:
Siddhartha (given name, meaning ‘every wish fulfilled’) Gautama (family name; or Shakyamuni (tribal name used in
Tibetan [Vajrayana ]Buddhism).The word 'Buddha' means “one who is awake”. It is both the name of a human
being, and a general noun denoting someone who is in an ongoing a state of being enlightened - being fully awake.
A buddha is someone who has direct knowledge of the nature of things, i.e. in touch with the truth, or Dharma in
Sanskrit .
Life of Gautama (also Gotama) Buddha
A sheltered life at first - born into a royal family. Buddha was born at Lumbini on India's border with Nepal.
Because no life of Buddha was written until 500 years later it is hard to disentangle legend from historical fact.
Allegedly he was miraculously produced from his mother's side without pain. He could speak from birth. His father,
a king, heard a prophecy that his son would become a great sage rather than a great ruler if he was aware of the
suffering of the world. To prevent that he kept his son secluded in his palace. Gautama, therefore, was a member of a
privileged class in India.
The four sights: aging, illness, death, & a monk. He was curious about life and asked challenging questions of his
charioteer, Channa, on three decisive trips out of his sheltered home environment. He was struck by the reality of old
age, sickness and death, and impressed by a monk's response to these realities -doing good works, avoiding doing
harm, and meditating. He left home at 29.
Ascetism. After traveling for six years to study under the greatest teachers, and practicing for a awhile ascetic
practice like fasting, he resolved not to move from under the Bodhi [wisdom] Tree until he had attained his goal of
enlightenment.
Enlightenment came one night during May at full moon: he realised the origins of evil - the cause of all suffering,
and the way by which it could be overcome. Buddha woke up to the realisation that happiness lay in equanimity freedom from attachment to having our desires fulfilled and fearing frustrating states. Nirvana is remaining in this
state reliably, permanently . His enlightenment was a kind of spiritual death - a deluded way of seeing things, with a
corresponding rebirth in which he was awakened to a new reality. His first temptation was to enter into Nirvana, to
be as it were, his own Buddha. However, he thought out of compassion for all other sentient beings that he should
preach the way of deliverance from suffering, or salvation to others. He taught across Northen India and Nepal for
forty more years and died at eighty.
Buddha and Buddhism is concerned not with the elimination of desire but with freedom from attachm ent to desire.
Buddha died to his desire in the sense that he realised that there was nothing to be realised and ultimately no one to
realise it. This is it. W ith this insight he obtained release from the cycle of birth death and rebirth - samsara. He
reached the region of the deathless - nirvana.
Buddha’s teachings
(over a period of 45 years from 35 years of age to 80 to when he died)
The Four Noble Truths - we should know:
1. Our suffering [dukkha] - manifest suffering, subtle (changing) suffering, pervasive suffering (caused by our
aggregates).
2. the cause of suffering: craving
3. the cessation of suffering
freedom from a. attachment (craving replaced by inner peace: ‘wanting what you have’ replaces
pre-occupation with ‘having what you want’, b. aversion (patience transforms anger) and c. ignorance
(confusion about the nature of reality gives way to wisdom - realising the way things really are!).
4. The eightfold path:
ethics: 1.speech - not lying, gossiping, avoiding harsh speech, preferring gentle speech
2. action - avoid killing, stealing, sexual misconduct; foster welfare of all sentient beings;
3. livelihood: avoid occupations that bring harm to others; favor ones that bring peace.
meditation: 4. mindfulness: practice the art of being aware of your own reactions
5. concentration: to develop more subtle states of awareness that develop wisdom and
insight into the true nature of things, e.g meditating on compassion or equanimity.
6. Effort: favoring positive states of mind and removing attention from negative states of
mind.
wisdom:7. right understanding - knowledge of the four noble truths
8. right intention - bodhichitta- the spirt or mind of enlightenment - wishing to become
enlightened, i.e. a Buddha (one who is awake) - as the most effective way of freeing all
sentient beings from suffering.
Buddha’s conclusions:
1. Experience exists as a mental continuum since beginning-less time.
2. The self does not exist - it is a delusion arising from our own self grasping & self cherishing.
3. Suffering occurs when our ‘I’ clings to pleasure and shuns frustration and pain.
4. By ‘watching’ our mind [being mindful] we can reduce our suffering.
How suffering is reduced according to Buddhism:
By reducing our self cherishing, we reduce our delusion of being separate, which in turn increases our compassion,
and makes it easier to engage in ‘right action’ or virtue like giving time, energy materials, fearlessness, etc. This
further reduces our negative karma. W e develop equanimity [peaceful abiding], and among other things obtain a
more favorable rebirth. W e become more stabilised in the state of Nirvana - Sanskrit for ‘permanent inner peace’.
Foundations of Buddhist Thought
1. Everything is in process - ever changing combinations of five aggregates: matter, sensations, perceptions, mental formations
and consciousness.
2. Identity -what is implied by the pronouns "I" and "you" are just worldly conventions, the product of conceptual thought.
3. Death. Death merely breaks apart the temporarily bonded aggregates, but the aggregates continue their flow.
4. Awakening - development of awareness. there is no underlying self, soul, no permanent identity. This involves a shift in our
thinking like this shift: from thinking the glass is half empty to seeing it as half full. Buddha most significantly claimed "I am
awake" to what is ultimately true or real. He did not say as a Hindu might "I have realised Atman" -the Great Soul since - for the
Buddha - there is no soul to realise. There is merely the experience of blissful peace, of nirvana, which C5th CE Indian Buddhist
scholar Nargajuna described as the perception or realisation of the ‘emptiness’ of ultimate reality - nothing has substance in and
of itself, everything only exists in relation to everything else. Out of this growing awareness of the emptiness makes it easier to
increase our compassion (the wish for all sentient beings to be free from suffering) and loving-kindness (the wish that they be
happy, i.e. have permanent inner peace.
5. Freedom from suffering is more important than questions about death. Ignorance is a more important idea in Buddhism
than the concept or evil. Buddha was concerned to be practical. Asking about the ultimate origin of everything is a little like [a]
asking where the flame of a fire went when the flame went out, or [b] like - when you have an arrow in your back - asking who
sent it rather than getting the arrow out first of all! Liberation comes from non attachment to desire - is what we should aspire to;
then worries about death and even evil ceases to be such pressing issues.
Buddhist approaches to suffering
1. The primacy of consciousness: mind has always existed.
2. Everything changes in samsara - the cycle of karma [cause and effect]
3. Suffering is the fundamental characteristic of samsara.
4. Self -grasping and self cherishing is the root of suffering.
5. By developing Bodhi-chitta, the spirit or mind of Enlightenment - the desire to seek Liberation for the sake of all
sentient beings - we can reduce and eventually obtain release from samsara.