Transcript Rebirth Buddhism

Buddhism
“Everything that arises also passes away, so
strive for what has not arisen.” - Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama
566-486BCE or 484-404BCE
• Born in Kapilavatthu (near
modern day Lumbini, on the
border of Nepal and India)
• Siddhartha was a prince and
his father a king (or feudal
lord)
• Lived a sheltered life of
luxury and wealth.
The Four Passing Sights
• The intent of Gautama’s father was to shield him from
contact with old age, sickness, and death. But he was
unsuccessful.
• Venturing outside the palace walls, Gautama first
encountered an old man, then – on a second journey - a
diseased person, on a third ride a corpse, and finally – on
a fourth journey, a monk with a shaven head who had
renounced the world in search of freedom.
• Gautama thereby came initially to know the conditions of
old age, sickness, and death, and the possibility of
transcending the suffering associated with these
conditions of life.
Two Quests
The Ignoble
Quest
The Noble
Quest
The Ignoble Quest
A person who is
What
are like
liablethings
to sickness,
sorrow,this?
old age, and
Transient
Things
death attaches
to
Material
things
liable to the
Possessions
same.
The Noble Quest
A person who is
liable to sickness,
sorrow, old age, and
death, having seen the
danger in this, seeks
the unailing,
sorrowless, unaging,
and deathless.
This unsurpassed
escape from bondage
is nibbana (nirvana).
Nibbana
• Literal Meaning: “to be
blown out.” (Sanskrit:
Nirvana).
• What is blown out?
Ignorance (Avijja)
Craving (Tanha)
Suffering (Dukkha)
Rebirth (Samsara)
Embarking upon the noble quest at age 29,
Siddhartha Gautama began studying
meditational techniques under well-known
teachers Alara Kalama and Uddaka
Ramaputta.
Mastering Meditation
• Under his gurus, Gautama experientially entered higher
levels of consciousness as part of the discipline of raja
yoga, first the level of consciousness called “no-thingness” and then the level of consciousness called “neither
perception nor non-perception.”
• His gurus acknowledged in each case that, having achieved
these higher states of consciousness, Gautama had realized
the same truth as his gurus.
• “So you know the Dhamma [teaching] that I know, and I
know the Dhamma that you know. As I am, so you are; as
you are, so am I.” – Alara Kalama
Despite his meditation mastery,
after many years Siddhartha still
felt unsatisfied.
“This dhamma (teaching) does not
lead to aversion, nor to dispassion,
nor to cessation, nor to calmness, nor
to higher knowledge, nor to
awakening, nor to nibbana. . . .So I
turned away from and abandoned this
dhamma, having not attained enough
by this dhamma.”
Buddha, Discourse on the Noble Quest
Siddhartha joined a group of
ascetics and practiced
various forms of self-denial.
At times he ate only six
grains of rice a day. He
nearly dies.
He thereby learned the
futility of practicing selfdenial. He still felt
unsatisfied.
• Gautama’s journey brings him to Gaya in northeast India,
where he sits to meditate under a ficus tree (the Bo Tree) to
meditate.
– Kama – god of desire – tempts Gautama with sensual
pleasure.
– Mara – Lord of Death – subjects Gautama to physical
threats, e.g., intense wind, rain, flaming rocks.
– Mara retreats after Gautama touches the earth and it
trembles with a powerful earthquake.
• Red blossoms fall from the Bo Tree and Gautama
has three realizations in the course of the night:
(1) His many past lives
(2) The law of karma linking all past lives
(3) The law of dependent arising:
“everything that arises also passes away.”
• Gautama became the Buddha - the awakened one
“So – being myself liable to
birth…old
age…sickness…death…sorrow…imp
urity…, I attained nibbana…the
unborn…the unaging…the
unailing…the deathless…the
sorrowless…the morally pure,
unsurpassed security from bondage.
The knowledge and vision arose in
me: ‘My liberation is unshakable.
This is the last birth. There is now no
The Buddha taught his fundamental
insights throughout the Ganges
Valley for the next 45 years.
1. Three Marks of Existence
Anicca (Impermanence)
Anatta (No Self)
Dukkha (Lack of Satisfaction)
2. The Four Noble Truths
3. Nirvana and the Eightfold Path
Buddhist Traditions
The Three Schools of Buddhism
Theravada (South Asian Buddhism)
Mahayana (East Asian Buddhism)
Vajrayana (Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia)
Three Principal Historical Periods
• 5th – 1st Century BCE: Early Indian
Buddhism, origins of Theravada
• 1st Century CE: Mahayana emerges and
spreads to Southeast and East Asia.
• 5th Century CE: Origin of Vajrayana and
spread of Buddhism to the Himalayan
region.
Exploring Dukkha
Suffering or Lack of Satisfaction
“The Dart of Painful Feeling”
• Human persons experience two kinds of feelings:
bodily feelings and mental feelings.
Unpleasant Bodily Feeling => Aversion => Painful Mental Feeling
• The painful “mental feeling” arises in the form of sorrow,
lament, and grief, born out of aversion to painful bodily
feeling. This is dukkka – suffering or lack of satisfaction. It
is a mental response to what is unpleasant.
• This arises because delight in sensual pleasure is sought as
the escape from unpleasant bodily feeling. “The uninstructed
worldling does not know any escape from painful feeling
other than sensual pleasure” (Bodi, p. 31).
Attachment and Detachment
• Pleasant and unpleasant bodily feelings are temporary –
they arise and then pass away. Attachment to them,
whether aversion to the unpleasant or craving for the
pleasant, leads to dukkha (lack of satisfaction).
• The “instructed noble disciple,” by contrast, having
understood the origin and passing away of bodily feelings,
is not attached. There is no aversion. Hence, he does not
experience the painful mental feeling and is thereby free
from dukkha.
• Dukkha is thus born as a particular mental response to
bodily sensation.
“Vicissitudes of Life”
• The world turns by eight conditions: gain/loss,
fame/disrepute, praise/blame, pleasure/pain. Dualities.
• The uninstructed worldling does not understand that these
conditions are inescapable and also impermanent (anicca).
“He does not know them as they really are” (Bodi, p. 33).
• The uninstructed worldling becomes attached to the
dualities: elated when he encounters gain, fame, praise,
pleasure, and dejected when he encounters loss, disrepute,
blame, and pain.
“Being thus involved in likes and dislikes, he will not
be freed from birth, aging, and death, from sorrow,
lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair; he will not
be freed from suffering” (Bodi, p. 33)
“But, monks, when an instructed noble disciple comes upon
gain, he reflects on it thus: ‘This gain that has come to me is
impermanent (anicca), bound up with suffering (dukkha),
subject to change.’ And so he will reflect when loss and so
forth come upon him. He understands all these things as they
really are. . . .”
“Thus he will not be elated by gain and dejected by loss;
elated by fame and dejected by disrepute; elated by praise
and dejected by blame; elated by pleasure and dejected by
pain. Having given up likes and dislikes, he will be freed
from birth, aging, and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain,
dejection, and despair; he will be freed from suffering
(dukkha), I say” (Bodi, p. 33)
The Four Noble Truths
Suffering
“Dukkha”
1. Life is dukkha - suffering or lack
of satisfaction.
This is a general claim about a fundamental
pattern in human life, not a claim that every
moment is experienced as dukkha.
Attachment
“Tanha”
2. The origin of suffering is
attachment to or craving (tanha) for
identity and permanence.
Craving + fact of impermanence = Dukkha.
Dukkha is rooted in the contradiction between (i)
our wishes and expectations and (ii) the way the
world actually is.
Dispassion
Or
Non-Attachment
3. Non-attachment or the cessation
of craving is the means of
dissolving dukkha.
If craving for identity and permanence is
the cause of suffering, remove the craving
and you remove suffering.
The Path to
Cessation
4. There is a path to nonattachment or cessation.
“The middle path” between
excessive indulgence and
excessive self-denial. This is
called the eightfold path.
The Eightfold Path
1. The Right View: Know the four noble truths.
2. The Right Intention: “Intention of renunciation, intention
of non-ill will, intention of harmlessness.”
3. The Right Speech: “Abstinence from false speech,
abstinence from malicious speech, abstinence from
harsh speech, abstinence from idle chatter.”
4. The Right Action: “Abstinence from the destruction
of life, abstinence from taking what is not given,
abstinence from sexual misconduct.”
5. The Right Livelihood: Avoid occupations that
harm other living beings.
6. The Right Effort: Mentally striving for mastery over evil
unwholesome thoughts, from which intentions, actions, and
living arise.
7. The Right Mindfulness: Lending attention to every state
of body, mind, and feelings, and thereby experiencing the
origination and dissolution of states of body, mind, and
feelings.
8. The Right Concentration: Penetrate deeper levels of
consciousness through inward examination, passing from
inner security and happiness to complete equanimity
beyond all dualities.
The Eightfold path leads to the cultivation of six
perfections:
Wisdom
Morality
Charity
Forbearance
Striving
Meditation