Transcript Buddhism

Buddhism
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Life of the Buddha
6th century b.c.e.
Shakya Clan
Warrior Caste
Lumbini – Northern India
Father = Shuddhodana
Mother = Maya
Siddhartha means:
“he through whom
everything
wonderful is
accomplished”
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Legend
• Asita, a widely respected hermit came to see
the child.
• He said: “either the child will become a king
whose chariot wheels would roll everywhere
or the greatest sage who would set the wheel
of good law throughout the world.”
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Family Life
• Wife:
• Son:
Yasodhara
Rahula
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4 passing sights
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Sickness
Old Age
Death
Sannyasin
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The Noble Eightfold Path
1) right understanding
2) right intention
3) right speech
4) right action
5) right livelihood
6) right effort
7) right concentration
8) right mindfulness.
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Deer Park Sermon
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Buddhist Teachings
The Dharma
The Dhammapada
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The Three Jewels
• I take refuge in the Buddha
• I take refuge in the Dharma
• I take refuge in the Sangha
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The Sangha
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The Five Precepts
Basic Moral Code
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Refrain from taking life
Refrain from Stealing
Refrain from sexual misconduct
Refrain from lying
Refrain from alcohol
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Three Main Divisions
• Theravada Buddhism
– “doctrine of the elders”
– Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand
• Mahayana Buddhism
– “Great Vehicle”
– Zen Buddhism
– Pure Land Buddhism
– Northern India, China, Japan
• Vajrayana Buddhism
– “Diamond Vehicle”
– Tibetan Buddhism
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Theravada
Doctrine/Teaching of the Elders
• No written records on early development of
Buddhism. Earliest scriptures written about
400 years after Siddhartha.
• Theravada emphasizes a solitary life,
detachment, seclusion for the sake of spiritual
goals.
• Followers believe that this is the most
authentic form of Buddhism.
• 100 million followers worldwide
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Theravada
• Ashoka: spread Buddhism. Son
and daughter went to Sri Lanka
as monk/nun and converted
everyone. Also opened 10
original stupas which has the
Buddha’s remains.
• Scriptures: 3 parts known as
the Tipitaka or Three Baskets.
• Arhat: “worthy one”; saint;
attained the ideal of spiritual
perfection.
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Sri Lanka
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The square base represents earth
The hemispherical dome/vase represents
water
The conical spire represents fire
The upper lotus parasol and the crescent
moon represents air
The sun and the dissolving point represents
the element of space.
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Sri Lanka
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Myanmar
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Angkor Wat, Cambodia
12th century
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Mahayana Buddhism
• “great vehicle”
• Many different branches:
– China – Pure Land
– Japan – Zen
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Mahayana Buddhism
The Bodhisattva
The nature of the Bodhisattva is apparent from a teaching story in
which three people are walking through a desert. Parched and
thirsty, they spy a high wall ahead. They approach and
circumnavigate it, but it has no entrance or doorway. One climbs
upon the shoulders of the others, looks inside, yells "Eureka" and
jumps inside. The second then climbs up and repeats the actions of
the first. The third laboriously climbs the wall without assistance and
sees a lush garden inside the wall. It has cooling water, trees, fruit,
etc. But, instead of jumping into the garden, the third person jumps
back out into the desert and seeks out desert wanderers to tell them
about the garden and how to find it.
The third person is the Bodhisattva.
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Samantabhadra
• Represents great practice,
which helps us create more
discipline in our daily life.
• Riding and elephant –
symbolizing the mind, since the
elephant is the wildest of all
animals when out of control and
the most docile when trained.
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Ksitigarbha
Vowed to remain in hell, helping
all being to be released from
hell – will only attain
Buddhahood when hell is
emptied.
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Maitreya
• Future Buddha
• Symbol of great
benevolence
• Happy Buddha
• Universal tolerance
towards all beings
brings joy.
• Large belly = prosperity
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Avalokitesvara
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Pure Land = Kuan Yin
Tibetan = Dalai Lama
Compassion and love.
She can hear all suffering in
the world – will come to aid
anyone who is suffering
• Many arms = immense power
to help all people
simultaneously
• Vase = limitless compassion
to aid all suffering
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Manjusri
• Represents great
wisdom – universal
morality
• Lion = through
wisdom one can
tame one’s nature
no matter how
wild.
• Sword = destroying
ignorance
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Sutra
• a classic religious text of Buddhism, especially
one regarded as a discourse of the Buddha
• Literally, "thread" or "string."
• A scripture containing the teachings of
Buddha.
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Well-known Sutras
New body of scriptures emerged around the1st century b.c.e – 1st century c.e.
– Heart Sutra: regarded by many as the essence of
true wisdom – best known/most popular
– Diamond Sutra: focuses on the nature of
emptiness. Can be read in 40 minutes - often
memorized
– Lotus Sutra: emphasizes the grace of the eternal
Buddha and councils enduring faith
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The Diamond Sutra:
Often repetitive dialogue regarding the nature of perception. The Buddha often uses paradoxical
phrases like "What is called the highest teaching is not the highest teaching".
Buddha teaches Subhuti that what makes a Bodhistattva so great is that the Bodhisattva does
not take pride in his work to save others, nor is his compassion calculated or contrived. The
Bodhisattva practices sincere compassion that comes from deep within, without any sense of
ego or gain.
A famous four-line verse appears
at the end of the sutra,
a list of vivid metaphors for impermanence:[5]
Thus shall you think of this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
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The Heart Sutra
Mahāmantro, mahā-vidyā mantro, ‘nuttara mantro samasama-mantraḥ“
The current Dalai Lama Dalai explains the mantra as both an instruction for practice and
as a device for measuring one's own level of spiritual attainment, and translates it as go,
go, go beyond, go thoroughly beyond, and establish yourself in enlightenment.
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Lotus Sutra
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Sunyata
• Emptiness
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Pure Land Buddhism
• China 2nd century c.e.
• China, Japan (called Jodo), Korea, Vietnam
• Nirvana has become increasingly difficult to
attain – need help!
• Amitabha “Infinite Light”
• Pure Land is where one has a better chance of
attaining nirvana.
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Amitabha
(O mi to fo)
“bless you with infinite life and light (wisdom)”
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Medicine Buddha
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Shakyamuni Buddha
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Hsi Lai Temple
3456 Glenmark Drive
Hacienda Heights, CA
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Arhat Garden
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Zen Buddhism
Chan (in Chinese)
• Zazen: seated meditation
– Concentration
– Koans
– Shikantaza (just sitting)
Once the mind is able to
be unhindered by its
many layers, one will
then be able to realize
one's true Buddha nature
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Page 144
• “We deceive ourselves through becoming
attached to the pleasures of this world and
the diversity of objects we think we see. But
we also deceive ourselves through becoming
attached to the desire to escape attachment
to the world. We are trapped by both out
normal consciousness of the world and out
desire to be liberated from it.”
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A Koan can get you Satori
• It consists of a story, dialogue, question, or
statement; the meaning of which cannot be
understood by rational thinking.
– One widely known kōan:
"Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound
of one hand?"
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Bodhidharma
• Did he really exist?
• To China in 520 c.e.
• Wall-gazing Brahman
– I’ve meditated and
can’t get up!
– Tea anyone?
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Bloodstream Sermon
(6th century c.e.)
Buddhas don't save Buddhas.
If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won't see the
Buddha.
As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you'll never see
that your own mind is the Buddha.
Don't use a Buddha to worship a Buddha.
And don't use the mind to invoke a Buddha.
Buddhas don't recite sutras.
Buddhas don't keep precepts. And Buddha's don't break precepts.
Buddhas don't keep or break anything.
Buddhas don't do good or evil.
To find a Buddha, you have to see your nature.
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Meeting with Emperor Wu of Liang
Emperor Wu took an interest in Buddhism and spent a
great deal of public wealth on funding Buddhist
monasteries in China. When he had heard that a great
Buddhist teacher, Bodhidharma, had come to China, he
sought an audience with him. When they met,
Emperor Wu had asked how much karmic merit he had
gained from his noble support of Buddhism.
Bodhidharma replied, "None at all." The Emperor
asked, "Then what is the truth of the teachings?"
Bodhidharma replied, "Vast emptiness, nothing holy."
So the emperor asked, "Then who are you standing in
front of me?" Bodhidharma replied, "I do not know,"
and walked out.
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Vajrayana
Tibetan Buddhism
• Tibetan Buddhism includes a pantheon of Buddhas, bodhisattvas,
and Dharma protectors.
• Arya-bodhisattvas are able to escape the cycle of death and rebirth
but compassionately choose to remain in this world to assist others
in reaching nirvana or buddhahood.
• Dharma protectors are mythic figures incorporated into Tibetan
Buddhism from various sources (including the native Bön religion,
and Hinduism) who are pledged to protecting and upholding the
Dharma. Many of the specific figures are unique to Tibet.
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• Tibet remained independent until the early
1900s, when it was occupied first by Britain and
then China. The Tibetans reasserted their
independence from China in 1912 and retained it
until 1951, when it was "liberated" by China.
• Today, Tibet is still occupied by China. The Dalai
Lama, the spiritual and political leader of the
Tibetan people, lives in exile in India, and Chinese
officials outnumber Tibetans in their own
homeland.
• Lhasa
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Buddhist Scriptures
• Between the 11th and 14th centuries, the Tibetans
translated every available Buddhist text into Tibetan.
Today, many Buddhist works that have been lost in their
original Sanskrit survive only in Tibetan translation.
• The most famous Tibetan Buddhist text is the Bardo Thodol
("liberation through hearing in the intermediate state"), popularly
known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Bardo Thodol is a
funerary text that describes the experiences of the soul during the
interval between death and rebirth called bardo. It is recited by
lamas over a dying or recently deceased person, or sometimes over
an effigy of the deceased.
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Four School in Tibetan Buddhism
• Nyingmapa "School of the Ancients“is the oldest of the Tibetan
Buddhist schools and the second largest after Geluk.
• Kagyüpa ("Oral Transmission School"; also spelled Bka'-brgyud-pa)
is the third largest school of Tibetan Buddhism.
• Sakyapa is today the smallest of the four schools of Tibetan
Buddhism.
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Gelugpa
“yellow hats”
• youngest of the Tibetan schools, but is today the
largest and the most important. It was founded in the
late 14th century by Tsongkhapa, who "enforced strict
monastic discipline, restored celibacy and the
prohibition of alcohol and meat, established a higher
standard of learning for monks, and, while continuing
to respect the Vajrayana tradition of esotericism that
was prevalent in Tibet, allowed Tantric and magical
rites only in moderation."
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Practices are centered on achieving concentration
through meditation and arousing the bodhisattva
within.
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His Holiness The Dalai Lama
• The Dalai Lama is the head of the dominant school of
Tibetan Buddhism, the Gelugpa (or Yellow Hats). From
1642 to 1959, the Dalai Lama was the spiritual and
temporal leader of Tibet. Until the Chinese takeover in
1959.
• The current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the 14th in a
line of succession that began with Gendün Drub (1391–
1475), founder and abbot of Tashilhunpo monastery
(central Tibet). He and his successors came to be
regarded as reincarnations (tulkus) of the bodhisattva
of compassion Avalokiteshvara.
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Dharamsala
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The Panchen Lama
The Panchen Lama is the second highest ranking figure in
the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai
Lama. The Panchen Lama bears part of the responsibility
for finding the incarnation of the Dalai Lama and vice versa.
The current Dalai Lama identified Gedhun Choekyi Nyima
as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama on May 14,
1995. The People's Republic of China did not recognize this
choice, naming Gyancain Norbu to the office of Panchen
Lama instead. The whereabouts of the original Panchen
Lama are currently unknown. Many observers believe that
upon the death of the current Dalai Lama, China will direct
the selection of a successor, thereby creating a schism and
leadership vacuum in the Tibetan independence
movement.
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Gyaincain Norbu
(PRC)
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Mandala
• Mandala “ essence" + "having" or "containing", also
translates as "circle-circumference" or "completion"; is
a concentric diagram having spiritual and ritual
significance in both Buddhism and Hinduism. In
Tibetan Buddhism, mandalas have been developed
into sand painting. They are also a key part of
meditation practices.
• According to David Fontana, its symbolic nature can
help one "to access progressively deeper levels of the
unconscious, ultimately assisting mediator to
experience a mystical sense of oneness with the
ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its
manifold forms arises."
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Prayer Wheel
• a cylindrical “wheel” (Tibetan: 'khor) on a
spindle made from metal, wood, stone,
leather, or even coarse cotton.
• Traditionally, the mantra Om mani padme
hum is written in Sanskrit externally on the
wheel. spinning such a wheel will have much
the same meritorious effect as orally recting
the prayers.
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"Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings" edited by Marcus Borg,
Jesus: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31
Buddha: "Consider others as yourself." Dhammapada 10:1
Jesus: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." Luke 6:29
Buddha: "If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a
knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil words." Majjhima Nikaya
21:6
Jesus: "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did
not do it to me." Matthew 25:45
Buddha: "If you do not tend to one another, then who is there to tend you?
Whoever would tend me, he should tend the sick." Vinaya, Mahavagga 8:26.3
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