Please read Fisher pages 140-147.
Buddha saw the humans as ailing in the world and considered the Buddha dharma as a medicine for the sickness of the world. Buddhism is basically a way self improvement (development) as you can see below in the “Thirteen Greatest” of Atisha, a 11th Century Tibetan Buddhist Master:
“The greatest achievement is selflessness.
Buddha saw the humans as ailing in the world and considered the Buddha dharma as a medicine for the sickness of the world. Buddhism is basically a way self improvement (development) as you can see below in the “Thirteen Greatest” of Atisha, a 11th Century Tibetan Buddhist Master:
“The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.”
Buddhism offers no saviour to save one’s soul (for Buddhism denies the existence of a soul) and demands no praise or worship to a deity! Buddha in the “Four Noble Truths” speaks of our misserable condition and outlines a way out!
A. Dukkha – Exists
1. Dukkha is suffering, sorrow, pain, stress, etc. Its describes more of an existential condition of human life. Dukkha includes anything that is temporory, conditional, and compounded! Even happiness is dukkha because it is transitory! Life in its totality is full of suffering! Buddha acccepted there is “ease, comfort and happiness” in life. But that is not permanent and therefore that too leads to suffering! Life is incapable of satisfying us totally!
2. “Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering: in short the five categories affected by clinging are suffering.” Samyutta Nikaya LVI, 11
3. What we call as “person” or “human” is an aggregate of aspects (skandha): matter (– a combination of earth, water, fire and wind), sensation (or feeling), perception, vollition (or will), and concsiousness.
4. Suffering happens in different degrees in two realms: suffering in the physical realm and suffering in the psychological realm!
5. Physical suffering is pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death!
Psychological suffering is sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression.
6. Impermanence which is one of the marks of life and that causes suffering. Happy moments do come but soon they pass by. Loved ones do come but they too pass by!
7. Buddha spoke of tilakhana, three marks of life – dukkha, anicca, and anatta.
B. Thannava – Cause for Dukkha
1. Buddha said that the origin of all dukkha is thannawa, craving and attachment to transient things and confusing the unreal as the real. This is the second noble truth.
2. For Buddha it is ignorance to consider the transient as permanent. All is anicca, impermanent like water bubble!
3. Both the physical objects around us and the ideas emerging in our minds are transient, ever changing! But in ignorance we crave and cling on to these. Dukkha emerges from our desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging.
4. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of an atma, a soul (or self) which is a delusion. For Buddhists what we call as soul is just an imagination, an attempt of one’s mind towards “self preservation”. Likewise what we call as “God” is nothing but a human mind’s creation towards “self protection”!
C. Dukkha will Cease when Thannawa Cease
1. Dukkha can be brought to an end by the cessation of thannawa, clinging or craving or both. That is the third noble truth: the ending of all suffering by ending clinging and craving.
2. This means that dukkha can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. You do not need any deity for that!
3. Thannawa, then, needs to be rejected, relinquished, and renounced to overcome dukkha. When craving is abandoned dukkha will automatically cease.
4. Becoming perfectly dispassionate will lead to the state of liberation from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth and that state is identified in Buddhism as Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas.
5. Nirvana, the Buddhist argue, is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it. It is an inexplicable experience of perfect bliss, with no dukkha! But one has to work hard, or walk in a particular path to reach this state!
D. Eightfold Path – Path to Overcome Attachment
1. The path to end dukkha is the final, and the fourth noble truth. This is a path to gradual self-improvement, which is described more detailed in the.
2. Buddhist call this path to overcome dukkha as the middle way of avoiding the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism).
3. This path has eight steps to follow. Hence it is known as the “Noble Eightfold Path”. This includes adopting in one’s life the following:
a. Right View
b. Right Intention
c. Right Speech
d. Right Action
e. Right Livelihood
f. Right Effort
g. Right Mindfulness
h. Right Concentration
4. The eightfold path, the Buddhists put under three catecories:
a. Wisdom – a and b above!
b. Ethical Conduct – c, d, and e above!
c. Mental Development – f, g, and h above!
5. Eightfold path, then, is a discipline in real life! Buddhism in essence is not a worship of deity, or a set of rituals but “a way of life” in which one becomes wiser with a strong mind that promotes an ethical behaviour! Notice there is no “God talk” in Buddhism!
Questions to explore:
1. Discuss in detail the various aspects of the “Four Noble Truths” of Buddhism.
2. Critique Ninian Smart’s understanding of religion in terms of a “seven dimensional phenomenon” in the light of Buddhism.
Buddhism offers no saviour to save one’s soul (for Buddhism denies the existence of a soul) and demands no praise or worship to a deity! Buddha in the “Four Noble Truths” speaks of our misserable condition and outlines a way out!
A. Dukkha – Exists
1. Dukkha is suffering, sorrow, pain, stress, etc. Its describes more of an existential condition of human life. Dukkha includes anything that is temporory, conditional, and compounded! Even happiness is dukkha because it is transitory! Life in its totality is full of suffering! Buddha acccepted there is “ease, comfort and happiness” in life. But that is not permanent and therefore that too leads to suffering! Life is incapable of satisfying us totally!
2. “Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering: in short the five categories affected by clinging are suffering.” Samyutta Nikaya LVI, 11
3. What we call as “person” or “human” is an aggregate of aspects (skandha): matter (– a combination of earth, water, fire and wind), sensation (or feeling), perception, vollition (or will), and concsiousness.
4. Suffering happens in different degrees in two realms: suffering in the physical realm and suffering in the psychological realm!
5. Physical suffering is pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death!
Psychological suffering is sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression.
6. Impermanence which is one of the marks of life and that causes suffering. Happy moments do come but soon they pass by. Loved ones do come but they too pass by!
7. Buddha spoke of tilakhana, three marks of life – dukkha, anicca, and anatta.
B. Thannava – Cause for Dukkha
1. Buddha said that the origin of all dukkha is thannawa, craving and attachment to transient things and confusing the unreal as the real. This is the second noble truth.
2. For Buddha it is ignorance to consider the transient as permanent. All is anicca, impermanent like water bubble!
3. Both the physical objects around us and the ideas emerging in our minds are transient, ever changing! But in ignorance we crave and cling on to these. Dukkha emerges from our desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging.
4. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of an atma, a soul (or self) which is a delusion. For Buddhists what we call as soul is just an imagination, an attempt of one’s mind towards “self preservation”. Likewise what we call as “God” is nothing but a human mind’s creation towards “self protection”!
C. Dukkha will Cease when Thannawa Cease
1. Dukkha can be brought to an end by the cessation of thannawa, clinging or craving or both. That is the third noble truth: the ending of all suffering by ending clinging and craving.
2. This means that dukkha can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. You do not need any deity for that!
3. Thannawa, then, needs to be rejected, relinquished, and renounced to overcome dukkha. When craving is abandoned dukkha will automatically cease.
4. Becoming perfectly dispassionate will lead to the state of liberation from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth and that state is identified in Buddhism as Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas.
5. Nirvana, the Buddhist argue, is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it. It is an inexplicable experience of perfect bliss, with no dukkha! But one has to work hard, or walk in a particular path to reach this state!
D. Eightfold Path – Path to Overcome Attachment
1. The path to end dukkha is the final, and the fourth noble truth. This is a path to gradual self-improvement, which is described more detailed in the.
2. Buddhist call this path to overcome dukkha as the middle way of avoiding the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism).
3. This path has eight steps to follow. Hence it is known as the “Noble Eightfold Path”. This includes adopting in one’s life the following:
a. Right View
b. Right Intention
c. Right Speech
d. Right Action
e. Right Livelihood
f. Right Effort
g. Right Mindfulness
h. Right Concentration
4. The eightfold path, the Buddhists put under three catecories:
a. Wisdom – a and b above!
b. Ethical Conduct – c, d, and e above!
c. Mental Development – f, g, and h above!
5. Eightfold path, then, is a discipline in real life! Buddhism in essence is not a worship of deity, or a set of rituals but “a way of life” in which one becomes wiser with a strong mind that promotes an ethical behaviour! Notice there is no “God talk” in Buddhism!
Questions to explore:
1. Discuss in detail the various aspects of the “Four Noble Truths” of Buddhism.
2. Critique Ninian Smart’s understanding of religion in terms of a “seven dimensional phenomenon” in the light of Buddhism.
