Buddhism Essay, Research Paper

I. INDIA BEFORE BUDDHISM

1. Caucasian Migration into India

In prehistoric times when great migrations were taking place over the face of the earth, successive waves of Caucasian nomads migrated into several areas of the world: Indo-Iranian and Eastern Europe. Those that pushed into the continent of India subdued the native race which had attained a high level of civilization as early as 3000 B.C. Blessed by the rich and fertile river valleys of the Punjab, the conquering Aryans established the Vedic civilization by 1000 B.C.

2. Second State of Settlement

After 1000 B.C., the Aryans moved eastward into the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges Rivers. In this period thought was added to Vedic poetry and myth, the rituals were organized, the suzerainty of the conquering race strengthened, and the caste system based upon color distinction was established.

3. Changes within Traditional Society

By the 7th Century, however, the pyramid of the social structure with the Brahman priest class at top, followed by the Kshatriya ruling class, the Vaisya merchant class, and the Sudra laboring class, showed distinct signs of disintegration. The population shifted further east into the heart of India and intermarriages between races took place, the acceleration of commerce and consequent growth of cities led to the rising economic power of the merchant caste, and the ruling caste overshadowed the priest class in cultural and administrative affairs.

4. Developments in Thought

In philosophy and religion the literature of the time, known as the Upanishads, revealed a freedom of thought lacking in earlier Vedic literature. Thinkers with progressive ideas emerged on the scene, stimulated by men of the ruling class rather than the traditional priesthood. On the other hand, free-thinkers repudiated traditional authority, skeptics found a large following, and materialists preached their doctrines as never before.

II. LIFE OF BUDDHA

1. Birth

Into such a transitional society was born a prince to the ruling house of the Sakya clan. The year was 483 B.C. Traditionally, it is said that the prince was born in the garden of Lumbini in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. He was given the name Siddhartha, and his family name was Gautama. His father was King Suddhodana, and his mother, Queen Maya, whom he lost soon after his birth.

2. His Environment

Prince Siddhartha enjoyed the courtly life, received the best possible education and was showered with the luxuries of living. Yet he was not satisfied with his life and began to take interest in religion and philosophical thought. Two immediate realities may have stimulated his inherently spiritual tendency. One was the loss of his mother at birth, and the other was the precarious position of the weak Sakya kingdom, which was at the mercy of powerful neighboring kingdoms. Prince Siddhartha’s thoughts turned to the fragility of human achievements, the sufferings of the lower castes, the impermanence of life, and upon the meaning of old age, illness, and death.

3. Great Renunciation

Prince Siddhartha married a beautiful princess, Yasodhara, and soon had a son, Rahula. Having fulfilled his duty by bringing into the world an heir to the crown, the Prince renounced the family life, so he would be free to pursue answers to the many questions of life. He was 29 years of age at the time of the Great Renunciation.

4. Abandonment of Asceticism

The Prince joined the spiritual teachers of his time, mastered their disciplines, and relentlessly practiced asceticism. But none could open the path to enlightenment. After six years of self mortification and austerities when his body was emaciated and exhausted, he realized the meaninglessness of asceticism. Thus he abandoned the traditional practices and decided to seek his own path to enlightenment. This was the second Great Renunciation.

5. Enlightenment

Having renounced both the family life and the ascetic practices, the Prince was free to go forth in his own quest for enlightenment. Traveling to Buddhagaya, he sat under the Bodhi Tree. There with the sharpness of insight accessible only in the middle way of meditation, he penetrated into the true nature of things. In the early dawn of December 8th, the Prince realized enlightenment. He was 35 years of age. The people gave him the title of Buddha, the Enlightened One, and revered him as Sakyamuni, the sage of the Sakyas.

6. Life and Death

The Buddha gave his first sermon at Benares to five ascetics who had practiced with him earlier. This is called the turning of the wheel of Dharma. Following this initial conversion, he traveled throughout northern India for 45 years teaching the rich and poor, the powerful and lowly, beggars and sages with deep compassion for all, with tempered wisdom and cool logic. The Buddha passed away peacefully at Kusinagara at the age of 80.

III. THE CONTENTS OF ENLIGHTENMENT

1. Right Living

The Buddha never formulated the contents of his enlightenment into a doctrine or a dogma. He emphasized right living, against right belief which is the acceptance of doctrine or dogma. The answers to the problems of life were not to be found in concepts, doc trine or dogma, but to be found in truths to be lived, practiced or expressed.

2. Value of Individuality

The Buddha, therefore, taught his teachings according to the needs of each individual. This is in accordance with reality, since each man is unique and different from others. The goal of Buddhism is to discover the highest ideal in each given reality, rather than to squeeze everything into one ideal which is, an abstraction from reality.

3. Sermon at Benares

At the first sermon given at Benares following his enlightenment, the Buddha is said to have taught the Four Noble Truths. This is the basic worldview common to all Buddhist schools.

4. Life is Duhkha

Duhkha describes in one word the human predicament we know variously as frustration, agitation, anxiety, unrest, insecurity, pain and suffering. “Not getting what one wants.” This latter is the inevitable and universal duhkha of old age, illness and death which are the promises of birth. The eight basic duhkhas of life are (1) birth, (2) old age, (3) illness, (4) death, (5) not getting what one wants, (6) having to live and work with people we may dislike, (7) the separation from loved ones in life or death, and (8) the frustrations arising from the limitations of the physical and mental makeup of man.

5. Cause is Blind Desire

The source of duhkha is the blind desire deep in oneself. Desire itself is neutral, but when propelled by blindness, it creates blind desire which in turn creates blind action which results in discontent. Greater discontent gives rise to greater blindness of desire and the meaningless samsaric cycle is accelerated.

6. Purpose of Life is Nirvana

Nirvana is perfect peace and fulfillment. It is to grow from a selfish, blind desire into a selfless, pure desire. This is the natural unfolding of the Buddha nature in all life; duhkha is the unnatural and unhealthy state which hinders this self fulfillment.

7. The Fourth Noble Truths

This is the way to eliminate blind desire and its consequence, duhkha, and reach the perfect peace of nirvana. The first way taught by the Buddha was the Noble Eightfold Path, and the subsequent history of Buddhism in many lands and diverse schools is the development of the way to achieve this end. The Eightfold Path stresses Right View which is to be cultivated by Right Thought, Right Speech, and Right Action. This results in Right Living which is to be successfully realized through constant Right Effort. Right Effort is to be guided by Right Mindfulness and total result is Right Meditation which is also the point of departure for Right View. The way taught in the Fourth Noble Truths develops into many forms, but they are all characterized by the Three Characteristics.

8. Three Characteristics of Existence

1. LIFE IS IMPERMANENT

Nothing in life lasts forever. Dreams are realized, hopes are crushed, people die, mountains shift into valleys, the flowers bloom, the seasons swiftly pass. This fact teaches us three things:

(a.) Not to pass time away idly but wisely make use of given time;

(b.) Change in the form of tragedies presents opportunities for self reflection and makes us seek real, unchanging values;

(c.) Since nothing is set permanently in this world, we can make something out of our lives by effort and hard work.

2. ALL THINGS ARE WITHOUT EGO

Change is possible because nothing has a permanent nature, substance, or ego. To believe in the permanence of things or self is like trying to hold on to bubbles forever. This is impossible but is the very thing we try to do in life. The consequence is duhkha. “All things are without ego” also means that we must be “free” from ego which is an illusion whose expressions?envy and jealousy, hate and anger, pride and false humility?create duhkha in our living.

3. NIRVANA IS PERFECT PEACE

When man lives in accord with the truth that life is impermanent and that all things are without ego, he lives in oneness with Dharma, the natural order inherent in life. This is nirvana, or perfect peace. To live against Dharma is duhkha which is sometimes added to the above three to form the Four Characteristics of Life.

IV. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BUDDHISM

1. Universal (Compassion and Tolerance)

Among the world religions Buddhism is most universal in scope. This is primarily due to the teaching of great compassion based upon the unity of life. Historically this is evident in the stress made by the Buddha on (1) the impermanence of life; (2) non-ego of things; (3) blindness of man; and (4) duhkha or existence, which were realistic descriptions of the status of the oppressed castes and that negated the pre-Buddhistic religion of the chosen few which taught the direct opposite: permanence of life, expressed in the rigid caste system; the affirmation of ego of the conquering race; the wisdom for the limited few who were permitted to perform sacrificial rituals; and the bliss of unity with Brahman restricted to the upper castes. In Mahayana Buddhism this universal scope is revealed in the teaching that all men, animals and life possess Buddha-nature and that all life will ultimately realize Buddhahood.

2. Rational (Against Metaphysics and Superstitions)

The Buddha refused to answer metaphysical questions on the grounds that they are insoluble, and even if soluble, not pertinent to man’s well-being. To one who asked questions about creation, life after death, heaven and hell, and so forth, the Buddha said “You are like the man shot by a poison arrow who refused to have the arrow pulled out until he knew who had shot the arrow, of which tribe he was a member, how tall he was, the ingredients of the poison, and the maker of the bow and arrow. Before all the answers could be given, the poison will kill you. Your task is to pull out the poison arrow now, then you can seek for the answers.” The Buddha was opposed to superstitions which misled people. He criticized the prevailing practice of bathing in holy waters in order to go to heaven. The Buddha said that if men could purify their hearts merely by bathing in holy waters, the fish and turtle would have gone long ago to heaven. Rather than such superstitious beliefs he taught men to practice right living.

3. Personal (Importance of Individual)

The Buddha stressed individual practice and the dignity of man in action. In India where the value of man was determined by caste and family lineage, he spoke out for the value of the individual to be determined by what he thought, said, and did. Thus, Upali, a barber of the outcastes, was made one of the top disciples of the Buddha. Many such instances are found in Buddhist history. Another indication of this fact is that the Buddha encouraged the use of local dialects so that all peoples could hear the teachings, rather than limiting the writings and speeches to the language of the upper castes.

4. Supreme Optimism (Meaning of Karma)

Buddhism is not pessimistic or fatalistic but is a supreme optimism based upon a realistic understanding of life. Karma means “action” and based upon one’s action, happiness can be cultivated. The popular understanding that karma means cause and effect is not the essential meaning of Buddhist Karma. This idea of mechanical cause and effect was a popular belief which the Buddha used sometimes only with reservation. Karma as taught by the Buddha stressed an attitude toward life based upon thought which cannot be mechanically determined. The past may determine the present, but thought which is based on dependent origination determines the future.

V. THE RISE OF MAHAYANA BUDDHISM

1.The Compiling of Scriptures

After the passing of the Buddha, the priests gathered to collect his teachings into scriptures. The first to be compiled was the sutra which contained the teachings, and then vinaya, the rules of conduct, were put into writing. As time passed, conservative priests who were very strict in interpreting the exact words of the Buddha, formulated the abhidharma, the studies and interpretations concerning the teachings. These three?sutra, vinaya, and abhidharma?form the scriptures of Buddhism.

2.The Beginnings of Mahayana

It took less than a hundred years after the Buddha’s decease when a formidable liberal opposition appeared on the scene. This was the beginning of Mahayana Buddhism, the great vehicle of salvation, whose nucleus consisted of progressive priests and devout lay followers dissatisfied with the conservative priests who were tabbed Hinayana, the little vehicle, or Theravada, the school of elders.

VI. THE UNITY OF LIFE

1.The Basis of Unity

The principal teaching of Mahayana Buddhism, the unity of life, is based upon the idea of non-ego in early Buddhism. The world, as it is in its true form, is equality and unity. Blind desire, affirming the ego, differentiates this world into a plural world of many-ness from which arises conflicts, misunderstandings, and frictions within man himself and among men equally motivated by blind desire. The elimination of blindness leads to pure desire, sometimes called selflessness, meaning loss of ego. This is unity of life, and the contents of Buddhahood.

2. Emptiness (Sunyata)

One aspect of this reality is emptiness, which means non-ego and lacking in permanent substance. Emptiness does not mean nothingness, but rather the fullness of possibility. Whenever a negative expression is used in Buddhism such as emptiness, selflessness, or extinction, it always refers to the elimination of the undesirable, that is empty of ego, less of selfishness, and extinction of blindness.

3. Dependent Origination

The other aspect of this reality made possible by emptiness is dependent origination. Birth is not the appearance of something which never was; it is simply a manifestation of already existing things but in different combinations. It is really no-birth. Since the enlightened one sees no-birth in life there is no-death, merely the dispersing of conditions. The understanding of this is the Middle Way of practice and living the life of a Bodhisattva.

4. True Individuality

The ordinary person who pursues conventional goals in life, who does not reflect on the meaning and significance of his existence, has not attained true individuality. The man who has realized the unity of life, emptiness, and dependent origination in his being is the authentic individual. Such a real person is a Buddhist and a true human being.

VII. THE SCHOOLS OF MAHAYANA BUDDHISM

1. Interpretations

When Sakyamuni Buddha taught the path to enlightenment, he did so with one golden voice. But the different capacities of men interpreted his message in various ways. The priests of penetrating insights said that the cardinal spirit of Buddhism was the teaching of non-ego, others said it was emptiness. Still others said it was dependent origination, bodhi, nirvana, or satori. None of them were exclusive but merely differences in emphasis.

2. The Schools

Based upon the different scriptures which taught Nirvana, Bodhi, Pure Land, Dharma, and so forth, there arose schools or sects of Buddhism in China and Japan. The principal schools in Japan total 13, with many subdivisions. The most famous are the philosophical Kegon and Tendai schools, the esoteric Shingon school, meditative Zen school, the pietistic Jodo and Shin schools, and nationalistic Nichiren school. Unlike the Mahayana branch, the Theravada branch of Buddhism practice in Southeast Asia does not have schools or sects in the same sense.

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