Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit; in Pāli, Siddhattha Gotama), who lived between approximately 563 and 483 BCE. Originating in India, Buddhism gradually spread throughout Asia to Central Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, as well as the East Asian countries of China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan.

To shun all evil.

To do good.

To purify one's heart.

This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

--Dhammapada, XIV, 5

Buddhism largely consists of the doing of good action, the avoidance of bad action, and mental training. The aim of these practices is to put an end to suffering and achieve enlightenment; either for oneself, or for all beings. Enlightenment leads to touching or abiding in nirvāṇa (Sanskrit: "Extinguishing.")

Buddhist morality is guided by principles of harmlessness and moderation. Buddhists frequently use meditation to try to gain insight into the fundamental operations of human psychology and the causal processes of the world.

While Buddhism does not deny the existence of supernatural beings (indeed, many are discussed in Buddhist scripture), it does not ascribe power for creation, salvation or judgement to them. Like humans, they are regarded as having the power to affect worldly events, and so some Buddhist schools associate with them via ritual.

What is a Buddha?

Buddha is a word in the ancient Indian languages Pāli and Sanskrit which means "one who has become awake". It is derived from the verbal root "√budh", meaning "to awaken."

The word "Buddha" denotes not just a single religious teacher who lived in a particular epoch, but a type of person, of which there have been many instances in the course of cosmic time. (Similarly, "American President" refers not just to one man, but to everyone who has ever held the office of the American presidency). The Buddha Gautama, then, is simply one member in the spiritual lineage of Buddhas, which stretches back into the dim recesses of the past and forward into the distant horizons of the future.

Gautama did not claim any divine status for himself, nor did he assert that he was inspired by a god or gods. He claimed to be not a personal saviour, but a teacher to guide those who choose to listen. A Buddha is any human being who has fully awakened to the true nature of existence, whose insight has totally transformed him or her beyond birth, death, and subsequent rebirth, and who is enabled to help others achieve the same enlightenment.

The principles by which a person can be led to enlightenment are known as the Buddhadharma, or simply the Dharma. Dharma in this sense of the rather complex term means, "law, doctrine, or truth." Anyone can attain what the Buddha attained regardless of age, gender, or caste. Indeed, Buddhists believe there have been many solitary buddhas (Pāli pacceka-buddha; Sanskrit: pratyekabuddha) who achieved enlightenment on their own but did not go on to teach others. According to one of the stories in the Sutta Nipāta, the Buddha, too, was afraid to teach humans because he despaired of their limited capacity for understanding. The Vedic (early Hindu) god Indra, however, interceded, and requested that he teach despite this. That the historical Buddha did so is thus a mark of special compassion.

Origins

Legend has it that the Buddha to be, Siddhārtha Gautama, was born around the 6th century BCE. His birthplace is said to be Lumbini in the kingdom of Magadha, in what is now Nepal. His father was a king, and Siddhārtha lived in luxury, being spared all hardship.

The legends say that a seer predicted that Siddhartha would become either a great king or a great holy man; because of this, the king tried to make sure that Siddhartha never had any cause for dissatisfaction with his life, as that might drive him toward a spiritual path. Nevertheless, at the age of 29, while being escorted by his attendant Channa, he came across what has become known as the Four Passing Sights: an old crippled man, a sick man, a decaying corpse, and finally a wandering holy man. These four sights, as they are called, led him to the realization that birth, old age, sickness and death came to everyone, not only once but repeated for life after life in succession for uncounted aeons. He decided to abandon his worldly life, leaving behind his wife and child, his privilege, rank, caste, and to take up the life of a wandering holy man in search of the answer to the problem of birth, old age, sickness, and death. It is said that he stole out of the house in the dead of night, pausing for one last look at his family, and did not return there for a very long time.

Indian holy men (sādhus), in those days just as today, engaged in a variety of ascetic practices designed to "mortify" the flesh. This belief was taken to an extreme in the faith of Jainism. It was thought that by enduring pain and suffering, the ātman (Sanskrit; Pāli: atta}, "soul." became free from the round of rebirth into pain and sorrow. Siddhārtha proved adept at these practices, and was able to surpass his teachers. However, he found no answer to his problem and, leaving behind his teachers, he and a small group of companions set out to take their austerities even further. He became a skeleton covered with skin, surviving on a single grain of rice per day, and practiced holding his breath. After nearly starving himself to death with no success (some sources claim that he nearly drowned), Siddhārtha began to reconsider his path. Then he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season's plowing, and he had fallen into a naturally concentrated and focused state in which time seemed to stand still, and which was blissful and refreshing. Perhaps this would provide an alternative to the dead end of self-mortification?

Taking a little buttermilk from a passing goatherd, he found a large tree (now called the Bodhi tree) under which he would be shaded from the heat of the mid-summer sun, and set to meditating. This new way of practicing began to bear fruit. His mind became concentrated and pure, and then, six years after he began his quest, he attained Enlightenment, and became a Buddha.

Historically speaking, there are questions about this story. First, there are other narrative versions of his life that do not exactly match - one has it that the Buddha leaves home in the "prime of his youth", his parents weeping and wailing all the while. Second, we know from other sources that the country of Magadha, where he was born, was an oligarchic republic at that time, so there was no royal family of which to speak. However, regardless of the details of his early life, the evidence strongly indicates that the Buddha was indeed a historical person living in approximately the same time and place in which he is traditionally placed.

See also: Earliest Buddhism

Principles of Buddhism

The Three Jewels

Buddhists seek refuge in what are often referred to as the Three Jewels or Triple Gem. These are the Buddha, the Dharma, and the "noble" (Sanskrit: arya) Sangha or community of laypeople and monks who have become enlightened. While it is impossible to escape one's karma or the effects caused by previous thoughts, words and deeds, it is possible to avoid the suffering that comes from it by becoming enlightened. In this way, dharma offers a refuge. Dharma, used in the sense of the Buddha's teachings, provides a raft and is thus a temporary refuge while entering and crossing the river. However, the real refuge is on the other side of the river.

To one who is seeking to become enlightened, taking refuge constitutes a continuing commitment to pursuing enlightenment and following in the footsteps of the people who have followed the path to enlightenment before. It contains an element of confidence that enlightenment is in fact a refuge, a supreme resort. Many Buddhists take the refuges each day, sometimes more than once in order to remind themselves of what they are doing and to direct their resolve inwardly towards liberation.

Although Buddhists concur that taking refuge should be undertaken with proper motivation (complete liberation) and an understanding of the objects of refuge, the Indian scholar Atisha identified that in practice there are many different motives found for taking refuge. His idea was to use these differing motivations as a key to resolving any apparent conflicts between all the Buddha's teachings without depending upon some form of syncresis that would cause as much confusion as it attempted to alleviate.

In the 11th century, Lamp for the Path by Atisha, and in the subsequent Lamrim tradition as elaborated by Tsongkhapa, the several motives for refuge are enumerated as follows, typically introduced using the concept of the "scope" of a practitioner:

Worldly scope is taking refuge to improve the lot of this life

Low scope is taking refuge to gain high rebirth and avoid the low realms

Middle scope is taking refuge to achieve Nirvana

High scope is taking refuge to achieve Buddhahood

Highest scope is also sometimes included, which is taking refuge to achieve Buddhahood in this life.

See also: Three Jewels

The Four Noble Truths

The Buddha taught that life was dissatisfactory because of craving, but that this condition was curable by following the eightfold path. This teaching is called the four noble truths:

Dukkha: All worldly life is unsatisfactory, disjointed, containing suffering.

Samudaya: There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment or desire (tanha) rooted in ignorance.

Nirodha: There is an end of suffering, which is Nirvana.

Marga: There is a path that leads out of suffering, known as the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Noble Eightfold Path

In order to fully understand the noble truths and investigate whether they were in fact true, Buddha recommended that a certain lifestyle or path be followed which consists of:

Right Understanding

Right Thought

Right Speech

Right Action

Right Livelihood

Right Effort

Right Mindfulness

Right Concentration

Sometimes in the Pāli Canon the Eightfold Path is spoken of as being a progressive series of stages which the practitioner moves through, the culmination of one leading to the beginning of another, but it is more usual to view the stages of the 'Path' as requiring simultaneous development.

The Eightfold Path essentially consists of meditation, following the precepts, and cultivating the positive converse of the precepts (e.g. benefiting living beings is the converse of the first precept of harmlessness). The Path may also be thought of as a the way of developing śīla, meaning mental and moral discipline.

See also: Noble Eightfold Path

The Five Precepts

Buddhists undertake certain precepts as aids on the path to coming into contact with ultimate reality. Laypeople generally undertake five precepts. The five precepts are:

I undertake the precept to refrain from harming living creatures (killing).

I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not given (stealing).

I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct.

I undertake the precept to refrain from incorrect speech (lying, harsh language, slander, idle chit-chat).

I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicants which lead to carelessness.

In some schools of Buddhism, serious lay people or aspiring monks take an additional three to five ethical precepts, and some of the five precepts are strengthened. For example, the precept pertaining to sexual misconduct becomes a precept of celibacy. Monks and nuns in most countries also vow to follow the 227 patimokkha rules.

See also: Pancasila

The three marks of conditioned existence

According to the Buddhist tradition all phenomena (dharmas) are marked by three characteristics, sometimes referred to as the Dharma Seals:

Anatta (Pāli; Sanskrit: anātman): All beings have no self. In Indian philosophy, the concept of a self is called ātman (that is, "soul" or metaphysical self), which refers to an unchanging, permanent essence. This concept and the related concept of Braḥman, the Vedantic monistic ideal, which was regarded as an ultimate ātman for all beings, were indispensable for mainstream Indian metaphysics, logic, and science; for all apparent things there had to be an underlying and persistent reality, akin to a Platonic form. The Buddha rejected the concept of ātman, emphasizing not permanence but changeability. If the soul were permanent and unchanging--if all existence has its root something fixed--then change becomes philosophically difficult to account for (this is similar to Zeno's paradoxes). This problem was analyzed extensively by Nāgārjuna.

Anicca (Pāli; Sanskrit: anitya): All things and experiences are inconstant, unsteady, and impermanent. Everything is made up of parts, and is dependent on the right conditions for its existence. Everything is in flux, and so conditions are constantly changing. Things are constantly coming into being, and ceasing to be. Nothing lasts.

Dukkha (Pāli; Sanskrit: duḥkha): because we fail to truly grasp the first two conditions, we suffer. We desire a lasting satisfaction, but look for it amongst constantly changing phenomena. We perceive a self, and act to enhance that self by pursuing pleasure, and seek to prolong pleasure when it too is fleeting.

It is by realizing (not merely understanding intellectually, but making real in one's experience) the three marks of conditioned existence that one develops Prajñā, which is the antidote to the ignorance that lies at the root of all suffering.

See also: three marks of existence

Other principles and practices

Meditation or dhyāna of some form is a common practice in most if not all schools of Buddhism, for the clergy if not the laity.

Central to Buddhist doctrine and practice is the law of karma and vipaka; action and its fruition, which happens within the dynamic of dependent origination (pratītya-samutpāda). Actions which result in positive retribution (happiness) are defined as skillful or good, while actions that produce negative results (suffering) are called unskillful or bad actions. These actions are expressed by the way of mind, body or speech. Some actions bring instant retribution while the results of other actions may not appear until a future lifetime.

Rebirth, which is closely related to the law of karma. An action in this life may not give fruit or reaction until the next life time. This being said, action in a past life takes effect in this one, making a chain of existence. The full realization of the absence of an eternal self or soul (the doctrine of anatta (Pāli; Sanskrit: anātman) breaks this cycle of birth and death (saṃsāra).

Vegetarianism

Many Buddhists feel that precept against killing implies that one should avoid eating the meat of animals. However, this opinion is certainly not universal. During the Buddha's time, there was no general rule requiring monks to refrain from eating meat. In fact, at one point the Buddha specifically refused to make such a rule, although there were rules prohibiting meat in certain situations. It should be noted that monks in ancient India were expected to receive all of their food by begging, and so theoretically should have no control at all over their diet. In addition, a passage in the Lankavatara Sutra shows the Buddha inveighing strongly in favor of vegetarianism. However, the historical accuracy of this passage is strongly disputed.

In the modern world, attitudes toward vegetarianism vary by location. In China and Korea, monks typically eat no meat. In Japan, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia, some monks practice vegetarianism, but most have at least some meat in their diets. In Tibet, where vegetable nutrition was historically very scarce, vegetarianism is very rare. In the West, of course, a wide variety of practices are followed. Lay Buddhists generally follow dietary rules less rigorously than monks. In traditional Buddhist countries, few lay people are vegetarians, but many consider eating meat to be an unfortunate habit.

The three vehicles

Buddhism has evolved into myriad schools that can be roughly grouped into three families. The Sanskrit term used for these forms is yāna or vehicles. Each yāna sees itself as representing the true, original teachings of the Buddha, although some schools believe that the dialectic nature of Buddhism allows its format, terminology, and techniques to adapt over time in response to changing circumstances.

The three vehicles include, first, the Hinayāna or "Lesser vehicle". The Hinayana vehicle represents the class of practitioners who seek enlightenment for themselves, and is represented in literature by those teachings that encourage arhatship rather than Buddhahood.

All traditions accept the Hinayana teachings as being authentic (and they are generally considered to be the earliest). However, "Hinayana schools", sometimes referred to as Nikaya schools, are those schools who recognise solely the Hinayana teachings as authentic. The Theravada school, or "Way of the Elders", is the only surviving Nikaya tradition. Theravada is practiced today in Sri Lanka, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and portions of Vietnam and Malaysia.

The second vehicle is the Mahāyāna, or "Great Vehicle", which emphasizes universal compassion and the selfless ideal of the bodhisattva. In addition to the Hinayana scriptures, Mahāyāna schools recognize all or part of a genre of scriptures that were first put in writing around 1 CE. These later scriptures are concerned with the purpose of achieving Buddhahood through following the ten stages of the Bodhisattva'a progress to Buddhahood across three countless aeons of lifetimes; because of the immense time, many Mahāyāna schools accept the idea of working towards rebirth in a Pure Land, where the attainment of enlightenment is much easier. Mahāyāna is practiced today in China, Japan, Korea, parts of India, and most of Vietnam.

The third vehicle is the Vajrayāna or "Diamond Vehicle" (also known as Tantric Buddhism), which, while sharing many of the basic concepts of Mahāyāna, also includes a vast array of spiritual techniques designed to enhance Buddhist practice.

One component of the Vajrayāna is harnessing psycho-physical energy as a means of developing profoundly powerful states of concentration and awareness. These profound states are in turn used as an efficient path to Buddhahood. Using these techniques, it is claimed that a practitioner can achieve Buddhahood in as little as three years! In addition to the Hinayāna and Mahāyāna scriptures, Vajrayāna Buddhists recognise a large body of texts that include the Buddhist Tantras. Vajrayana is practiced today mainly in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, areas of India, Kalmykia and, to a limited extent, in China and Japan.