Buddhism the ebook an online introduction

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Pinyin now used for Chinese terms throughout. It's clearly written, authoritative, and covers everything I'd want to look at in an introductory Buddhism course. Because it's in electronic form, it can be accessed anywhere a student has access to a computer, and the hyperlinks open up a wealth of useful resources and information. This is the wave of the future. Our students are used to accessing information over the internet and reading text on computer screens.

Meditation boosts the intellectual faculties and makes wisdom stronger and more penetrating, and wisdom supports meditation by making clearer and more intelligible the experience of the meditative states.

It is important to realize that the Noble Eightfold Path is not like a series of stages one passes through on the way to nirvana, in the way that a traveller making a journey might pass through various towns before reaching his destination.

The eight factors are not objectives to be reached and then left behind; rather the Path is a continuous program in which the eight factors are developed cumulatively. Another misleading interpretation is to think of the eight factors of the Path as rungs on a ladder which is climbed in order to reach nirvana as a ninth rung at the top. In fact nirvana is not mentioned in the Path at all, the reason being that it is the lived experience of the Path itself that constitutes nirvana.

In following the Path one acts like a Buddha, and by acting like a Buddha one progressively becomes one. The Path is essentially a means of self-transformation, a remodelling project or spiritual makeover, which turns the ordinary unenlightened person into a Buddha. The sources distinguish various kinds of practitioners who are more or less advanced in their spiritual practice. The distinction here relates to the degree of insight into Buddhist teachings one possesses.

All of these lives will be as either a human or a god. He went on, however, to extend the analysis and to define five categories in terms of which human nature can be analyzed. Before looking at the five aggregates individually, the important point to note is not so much what the list of the five includes as what it does not.

Specifically the doctrine makes no mention of a soul or Self, understood as an eternal and immutable spiritual essence. Instead his approach was practical and empirical, more akin to psychology than theology. He explained human nature as constituted by the five factors much in the way that an automobile is constituted by its wheels, transmission, engine, steering, and chassis. In stating that the five factors of individuality are suffering, however, as he did in the First Noble Truth, the Buddha was pointing out that human nature cannot provide a foundation for permanent happiness because the doctrine of the five aggregates shows that the individual has no real core.

Because human beings are made up of these five constantly shifting components it is inevitable that sooner or later suffering will arise, just as an automobile will eventually wear out and break down. Suffering is thus engrained in the very fabric of our being. The Five Aggregates Let us now consider the five aggregates in turn. An example of an unpleasant sensation might be to be pricked by a pin; a pleasant one would be a hot relaxing bath on a cold day.

This includes the capacity to discern and discriminate between things, for example to name and distinguish different colors. The picture sketched so far is abstract and twodimensional, and lacks any reference to the features which distinguish one person from another. These are the elements which constitute the fourth category. Granted the power to think and feel, individual development will be shaped by personal experiences and reactions to them.

Retrospectively, the fourth category is the sum of the karma or moral choices made in previous lives. It is better understood as functioning at a deeper level as that which animates an organism. In terms of this doctrine, the common but fallacious belief in an eternal soul is really a case of mistaken identity whereby one or more of the skandhas is mistaken for a soul. No, the ego is not denied by this teaching.

The doctrinal foundations of Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths teach that 1 life is suffering; 2 suffering is caused by craving; 3 suffering can have an end this is nirvana ; 4 the way to nirvana is the Noble Eightfold Path.

There are two kinds of nirvana: nirvana-inthis-life, and nirvana after death. The Four Noble Truths Acrobat ebook. Santina, Peter. Fundamentals of Buddhism Acrobat ebook. Hamilton, Sue. London: Luzac, Johansson, Rune.

The Psychology of Nirvana. Harvey, Peter. London: Curzon Press, Welbon, Guy R. The Buddhist Nirvana and its Western Interpreters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, The Buddha moved on to Benares, where he preached his first sermon to five old ascetic friends who had previously wandered around with him for six years practicing austerities. As noted above, this initial sermon was followed by a second, and in short order the five ascetics attained nirvana.

Thus the monastic order, or sangha, was born, and within a short period this monastic community expanded rapidly and enormously. Despite the fact that the term sangha is used today in a more extended and comprehensive fashion than originally, referring to almost any community or group loosely associated with Buddhism, in the time of the Buddha, the term was used in a radically different fashion.

The Sanskrit word sangha simply connotes a society or company or a number of people living together for a certain purpose. The dramatic growth of the sangha required certain adjustments to be made in the formal ordination procedure for monastics, and over time, the entire process became rather formalized.

Monks were allowed to confer both ordinations, and the entire process was preceded by a threefold recitation of the following formula: I go to the Buddha for refuge, I go to the Dharma for refuge, I go to the Sangha for Refuge. In each case, furniture and requisites were kept to a bare minimum, and the monastic dweller engaged in serious study and meditation for the roughly three month period of rain retreat confinement.

And it was this social institution that was exported by various rulers in the Buddhist missionary enterprise. In time, the monasteries that developed in diverse Buddhist cultures became formidable units, serving as festival and pilgrimage sites and commanding economic and political, as well as religious respect.

Nevertheless, the lay community was initially considered autonomous to, and even distinct from, the monastic community. Aniyata dharmas: undetermined cases involving sexuality in which the offender, when observed by a trustworthy female lay follower, may be charged under one of several categories of offenses.

The number of rules cited varies in the texts of the diverse Buddhist schools, ranging from to for the monks and from to for the nuns. Use of leather objects carman.

Daily life of monks. Schisms in the order sanghabheda. Duties of a student and teacher to one another. Rules for nuns. On the basis of the decision, democratically elicited, the sangha acts as a unified order. Skandhaka The Skandhaka contains the regulations pertaining to the organization of the sangha. There are twenty sections in the Skandhaka, each referred to as a vastu: 1.

Carmavastu: use of shoes and leather objects. Karmavastu: lawful monastic procedure. Pudgalavastu: ordinary procedures for simple offenses. Sanghabhedavastu: schisms in the sangha. Appendices Appendices are attached to several of the Vinayas as a supplement. Non-Canonical Vinaya Literature Fortunately, a wide variety of Vinaya commentaries have come down to us, and their importance need not be stressed here.

In return for their support, the laity received the wise counsel and Dharma instruction from the monastic community. It is no surprise, then, that the rigor of disciplinary rules for the monastic community is easily explained in the context of understanding this symbiotic nature of the monastic-lay relationship.

Since the monastic vocation required a retreat from worldly life and an eremitic ideal, the individual monk or nun had to remain worthy of the highest respect in order to retain the support of the laity. In some variants, this formula was expanded to eight and to ten precepts.

Following his enlightenment, the Buddha eventually returned to Kapilavastu to visit his family. After several unsuccessful attempts to murder the Buddha, Devadatta founded his own order based on more austere religious practices. After becoming a lay disciple, he built a monastery known as Jetavana, where Buddha spent the final twenty-five rainy seasons of his ministry.

Born into a Buddhist family, she was eventually married into a family who followed a rival religious system. Although instructed by her father-in-law to support this new system and its followers, she rebelled, eventually bringing her father-in-law to Buddhism. She is known for having performed social services for the sangha, engaging in activities such as offering daily food for the monks, offering medicine to the sick, and providing robes for the monks.

King Prasenajit. Eventually, though, he became a Buddhist lay disciple and ardent patron of the religion. One custom which seems to have been observed by all these sects was that of suspending the wandering life during the rainy season.

Most monasteries were built on the outskirts of towns and villages, so their close proximity to the town made alms procurement easy but provided enough isolation for the monks to pursue their meditative vocation undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of city life.

The three months of enforced communal living quickly made a profound impact on the Buddhist sangha. Various institutions within the sangha began to emerge to mold the sangha into a cohesive body.

The monastery as a unit, however, was by definition a self-limiting institution at the outset. At the end of each rainy season the monks were to abandon the settlement and begin wandering once again. Nevertheless, monks did tend to return to the same Buddhist monks on monastic residence year after year. Gradually, as the wandering life became a fiction, the Buddhists established themselves as a distinct group, bound by the teaching and discipline of the Buddha and committed to their own attainment of nirvana, as well as the spiritual uplift of the laity; but with the rise of distinct sanghas, the maintenance of commonality became acute.

As each sangha became increasingly more individualized and removed geographically from other sanghas, the first seed of sectarianism was sown. Within Magadha three places seem to be most noteworthy. The West and North seem to have been much less frequented by the early Buddhists. Consequently, we can see from the above that during its earliest history, the Buddhist sangha spread within some rather closely defined limits.

Holt, John. Prebish, Charles S. Wijayaratna, Mohan. Translated by Claude Gangier and Steven Collins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, It explains the formation of the main Indian Buddhist sects and schools and traces the doctrinal differences and scholastic debates between them. These learned discussions culminated in the composition of influential scholastic treatises in the early medieval period which provided the intellectual backbone to Buddhist teachings.

The chapter concludes with a discussion of the origins of Tantra, the arrival of Islam, and the destruction of the great monastic universities of North India. It lingered on thereafter in isolated pockets but by the fifteenth century Buddhism had virtually disappeared from India, and would never again have the influence and prestige it once held. Such modern developments, however, are a minor blip against a background of centuries of decline. The king was a devoted follower of the Buddha, and Magadha was the heartland of the early Buddhist movement.

Their utterances were accepted as accurate and decreed as constituting the content of the canon from that time on. The third in particular shows the greatest variation, suggesting that it is the latest of the three.

By the end of the first century C. Only fragments of these originals remain, although longer extracts have survived in Chinese translations. The more orthodox, on the other hand, regarded them as illegal and prohibited by the Vinaya. The need for a council to be convened at this relatively early date shows that serious disagreements were surfacing in the early community, which would soon lead to fragmentation and schism.

The circumstances surrounding the Third Council are unclear and have been the subject of much debate. This was an innovation, since previously Buddhas and arhants had been regarded as attaining essentially the same state of enlightenment bodhi.

These can be further simplified as shown in the accompanying text box. Did some early Buddhists believe in a Self? Northwest India had been colonized by Alexander the Great, and Magadha had grown first of all into a superstate and then under the Mauryas into an empire. The Mauryan dynasty ruled from B.

He defeated the Greek king Seleucus Nikator in B. He is regarded by historians as one of the greatest Indian rulers of all time, and is something of a national hero. A total of thirtythree inscriptions have been found in various parts of India which provide invaluable historical and chronological information on early Indian Buddhist history. The language of the edicts is Prakrit, the connecting link between the classical language of Sanskrit and the modern Indo-European languages of India, and two different forms of script are used.

No reference is made to the technical aspects of Buddhist doctrine as expounded in the Four Noble Truths. He is credited with sending his son Mahinda, himself a monk, to Sri Lanka to establish Buddhism there, as well as sending missionaries to other parts of Southeast Asia. And whoever shall there place garlands, or perfumes, or paints, or make salutation there, or become in its presence calm in heart, that shall long be to them a profit and a joy. Which are the four? Rhys Davids.

The technique of building and carving using stone was relatively new at this time, and before the Mauryan period wood was the predominant construction material used in India this is the main reason why so few architectural remains survive from these early times. To the original solid dome structure a spire was subsequently added, and the final phase of development occurred with the pagoda style of tower found throughout East Asia.

It may be thought surprising that at this early stage there were no representations of the Buddha in human form. One can sympathize with the dilemma of the artist: once the Buddha had entered final nirvana and his body had been cremated, he no longer had a material form, so how was he to be represented?

For several centuries this aesthetic dilemma had no clear solution, until eventually artists, probably under pressure from lay patrons and influenced by the widespread practice of bhakti or devotional practice in Hinduism, found the confidence to depict the Buddha in human form.

Among sophisticated believers such images were regarded as symbolic although at the more popular levels of piety a range of attitudes is found, including what often appears as outright devotion to and reverence for the image itself.

These features were faithfully reproduced by artists and are widely found in Buddha-images in various stylized forms. As the art of depicting the Buddha evolved, many fine examples of Buddha-images were produced, with the greatest dating from the Gupta period C.

Mauryan power declined. In the second century B. Some of the earliest representations of the Buddha were produced in the region. The initial part of the text also available in Chinese translation probably dates from the first century C. Just as a chariot is simply the sum of its constituent parts, namely the wheels, yoke, axles, and so on, so a human being is said to be simply the sum of the five aggregates skandha. At the conclusion of the debate Milinda becomes a Buddhist lay disciple.

Vasubandhu Abhidharma Vasubandhu was one of the most famous natives of the North West region, probably born during the late fourth century C. The relationship between past, present and future was thought to be similar and to depend on the position of each with respect to the other, rather than on some basic difference in nature. For example, if I have no permanent self, what is it that makes me the same person now as I was ten years ago?

This treatise has remained influential down to modern times, being translated into Chinese twice in the sixth and seventh centuries, and also into Tibetan.

Tantra A final wave of new literature known as Tantras appeared around the seventh century promoting radical forms of practice, including rituals and meditation techniques for accelerating spiritual progress. Finally, a spiritual physiology is taught as part of the process of transformation and Tantra stresses the importance of the feminine and utilizes various forms of sexual yoga. The origins of this movement within Buddhism is shrouded in mystery but most modern scholars place the distinct emergence of Tantric Buddhism among circles of adepts based in regions corresponding to present-day Orissa, Bengal, Gujurat and Kashmir.

Many elements that make up the doctrines, meditational practices and rituals of Tantra can be found considerably earlier both within Buddhism and without. By the end of the seventh century C. Each Family is headed by a particular Buddha endowed with specific qualities. With the emerging diversity of Tantric texts, various schemes where used to classify them. Many of the greatest scholar-monks in India from the eighth century onwards were also renowned as adepts who produced a considerable volume of commentarial literature and independent treatises.

Through their influence, Tantric Buddhism became widespread throughout India and neighboring countries. However, although it is known to have been transmitted to Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia, outside of India Tantric Buddhism achieved its greatest success in Tibet and China, with Shingon as a secondary offshoot in Japan. Monastic Centers The intellectual vigor of Buddhism during the medieval period attracted large numbers of students to monastic centers of learning.

It was reputed to have been home to ten thousand students with admission being gained through an oral exam at the main gateway. Its enormous size and the quality of its resident teachers attracted students and other visitors from all over the Buddhist world, including the notable Chinese pilgrim monks Xuanzang and Yijing in the seventh century C. A less fortunate consequence of the growth of monastic centers was that monks became increasingly specialized in abstruse doctrines and began to lose touch with the world outside the cloister.

Unlike Hinduism, which has always had roots at the village level, Buddhism became concentrated in a few key institutions of higher learning. This proved to be its undoing when Muslim raiding parties began to enter India in increasing numbers from the tenth century.

Undefended Buddhist monasteries, often containing valuable treasures, proved irresistible targets to raiders bent on booty in the name of holy war. The Buddhist practice of making images of Buddhas and bodhisattvas made them idolaters in the eyes of orthodox Muslims, and many priceless images were destroyed or looted for the precious metals and jewels they contained.

The site was fully excavated in the twentieth century and now attracts many visitors. These traumatic events dealt a mortal blow to Buddhism in India, from which it would never recover. Born into the caste of the Mahar untouchables, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism on 14 October at Nagpur.

Ambedkar regarded Buddhism as the religion most capable of resolving the problems of caste that in his view had plagued India down the centuries. Across India thousands of untouchablesfollowed his example as a protest against their social exclusion, and today almost all the Mahars of Maharashtra regard themselves as Buddhist. Buddhism has been virtually extinct in India since the fifteenth century, although a limited revival has taken place in modern times.

A History of Indian Buddhism. Cook, Elizabeth. The Stupa : sacred symbol of enlightenment. Berkeley: Dharma Press, Dasgupta, Shashi Bushan. An introduction to Tantric Buddhism. Berkeley: Shambhala, History of Indian Buddhism.

Govinda, Lama Anagarika. Psycho-cosmic Symbolism of the Buddhist Stupa. Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, Nakamura, Hajime. Indian Buddhism. Snodgrass, Adrian. The Symbolism of the Stupa. Ithaca, N. White, David Gordon. Tantra in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, It was equally the case as Buddhism moved through Korea and into Japan. These texts, the earliest of which date from around B. This text was later expanded into versions of 18,, 25,, and eventually, , verses.

He attributes his illness to his compassion for the sickness of all sentient beings, noting that he will become cured only when all other sentient beings are cured. Thirty-one replies follow, each somewhat more insightful and sophisticated than the preceding, but each lacking in complete understanding. Nevertheless, all your explanations are themselves dualistic. In so doing, he has provided the only perfect answer! The text is structured into nine chapters of mostly prose, concluding with an additional verse chapter.

The text outlines the process of attainment whereby consciousness is essentially turned back on it base, reversed upon itself in a process in which all duality and distinctions cease. This central idea is demonstrated through a series of parables, the most important of which center around a burning house, a blind man, and a prodigal son. Birth in the Pure Land is not a result of good works, as in the larger version, and is not even mentioned.

The key issue in the smaller text focuses on the metaphor of sound. They served as ideal models for their earthly counterparts by exhibiting extreme compassion and wisdom. And of course the intended ideal emerges: wisdom can be perfected by all beings if certain religious principles are understood and rigorous religious practices are observed. The practices involve traversing the bodhisattva path as opposed to the way of the arhant in earlier Buddhism. Compassion is extremely important as the basis of the Pure Land tradition as well.

His most usual color is dark blue, but occasionally golden colored. He is often seated on a blue elephant. It is suggested that other practitioners who follow his example will obtain rebirth in Abhirati. He is represented by a detailed and explicit iconography, and is identified as one of the five earthly Buddhas. He aids all people who call upon him in need, helping them with numerous arms of compassion.

He sometimes holds a blue lotus flower in his hand. In Tibet, he was revered as a patron of the land, known as Chenrezi sPyan-ras-gzigs. The text itself is divided into twenty-seven very short chapters including a total of about verses.

This latter point has enormous implications for Buddhist theory and practice. Beginning in the fourth century C. Its name notwithstanding, the main emphases of the school are predominantly philosophical and psychological. The school reached its peak in the middle centuries of the first millennium C. The school also became exceedingly important in the development of a number of Chinese and Japanese Buddhist schools as well. It is admittedly difficult to reconcile how an individual could embrace so many differing viewpoints, and so passionately, during the course of one lifetime.

A possible explanation was voiced by the German scholar Erich Frauwallner who suggested that there were actually two Vasubandhus. This viewpoint, although inte resting, has been rather thoroughly discredited. In early Buddhism, a theory of six consciousnesses was postulated, each applicable to a particular sense organ. It exists only insofar as it is an apparitional manifestation of ultimate reality.

By their very nature, these Pure Lands are paradises, resplendent with manifold benefits and beauties, and as such, ideal places for rebirth. It is, however, an especially important oasis in times of Dharma decline when earthly conditions seem not to favor spiritual development and advancement. He was an Indian Buddhist logician who was regarded in some circles as the classic, representative Buddhist philosopher. In this text, he was especially interested in inference, direct perception, and a general theory of knowledge.

Dayal, Har. Nagao, Gadjin. Streng, Frederick. Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning. Nashville: Abingdom Press, Williams, Paul.

It also considers the Pure Land approach as well as that of Tantric Buddhism. It also briefly considers the Zen approach. It is clear that the Buddhists felt free to borrow contemplative techniques from other contemporary sects, and also that the early tradition would vary received techniques to suit the capacities of individual meditators.

Thus the texts recount how the Buddha himself gave such-andsuch a meditation to a particular monk, and an entirely different one to another monk, yet lead- ing them both infallibly to the goal of liberation.

Several of these techniques were enshrined in texts of their own, while others were mentioned only casually in the course of other discussions. Here the process of withdrawal, and the ascent to ever higher levels of abstract trance, was called calming samatha , and was considered to be mental training prerequisite to the mindful observation of events.

The Practice of Calm Buddhaghosa lists forty objects of contemplation that may be used in the process of calming the mind. The Ancillary Techniques Meditators may generally be classed into three personality types, according to the predominance in them of lust, hatred, or delusion. These three defilements, when turned to the practice of religion, produce personalities based respectively on faith, intellectuality, or enthusiasm.

It is the function of a meditation master to observe the way his disciple walks, stands, eats, and wears his robe, to determine from these clues his basic personality type, and prescribe for him those ancillary meditations that will either counteract his particular defilement or encourage the exercise of the corresponding religious virtue. The Ten Uglinesses and Mindfulness of the Body. To counteract the defilement of lust, the master may prescribe a meditation on ugliness, here referring specifically to the ten stages of decomposition of a corpse, that the meditator may realize the loathesomeness of the body.

It will become like that one, and it will not escape. As such, they may be prescribed as preliminary to the trance meditations, or as specific antidotes to lustful distractions as they occur. The Four Immeasurable Contemplations. To counteract the defilement of hatred, the master may prescribe the immeasurable contemplations, also called the abodes of Brahma, since they are held to lead to rebirth in the high heaven of the god. Here the meditator concentrates in turn upon love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, diffusing these emotions throughout the four directions and toward all sentient beings.

Love is a feeling of friendship and brotherhood with all beings. But this emotion may easily degenerate into lust, so it is followed by compassion, an awareness of the pitiful state into which these beings have fallen through ignorance.

But again this may lead to spiritual pride and a feeling of superiority, so the meditator trains himself in sympathetic joy, that he may share the happiness of others and rejoice in the merits they have accumulated. And finally he achieves a state of equanimity wherein he makes no distinction between friend or enemy, but is even-minded toward all creatures.

Although, technically speaking, these contemplations can lead into the trance states, they are in fact never so used, for the emotions aroused in them remain worldly qualities. Mindfulness of Breath. Calming my body I shall breathe out. This technique began with mindfulness of breath, and proceeded to mindfulness of the body as above , and then to mindfulness of the feelings, mindfulness of the thoughts, and finally mindfulness of events.

It thus comprised both calm and insight, which the commentators were striving to maintain as separate processes within the structure. In actual practice, then, the foundation of mindfulness has often been used alone as a special path for contemplatives of an active and imaginative disposition. But as incorporated into the standard structure it is used as an ancillary meditation for excitable individuals, as a preliminary to the trance itself, or as an antidote to the troubling delusions that may appear therein.

The Six Remembrances. A meditator whose lustful defilements have been transformed into the virtues of faith may be helped in his meditation by the practice of remembrance. Thus he increases his faith in the teachings, and in turn this increase of faith-although not directly leading to sensory withdrawal in the trance-provides him with the necessary motivation and reinforcement for his trance meditations.

Again, there are ancillary meditations that may be prescribed for one whose defilement of hatred has been transformed into the religious virtue of intellectuality. He may practice the mindfulness of death, wherein he analyzes intellectually the inevitability of his own passing away, or the remembrance of peace, wherein he reflects upon the safety of nirvana amid the torments of this world. Or such a meditator may use similar intellectual means to counteract the distractions that may occur in his trance.

He may contemplate the loathesomeness of food, reflecting upon the disgusting way in which food is prepared and ingested and eliminated, that he may turn away from greed and yearning for sensory pleasures; or he may perform the analysis of the four elements, examining the fact that his beloved body is nothing but an accidental concatenation of earth and water, fire and air.

This catalogue of ancillary techniques was a means for the commentators to deal with the mass of different meditations given in the canonical texts. We have noted that they had occasional difficulty in creating a workable scheme, especially where their sources specifically stated that an ancillary discipline in fact led to liberation. Their scheme of ancillary meditations has continued in use to this day, and has been successful in training a wide variety of personalities to pursue the rigors of the trance.

The Trance Techniques Buddhaghosa has thus far dealt with twenty-six of his forty objects of contemplation ten uglinesses, four immeasurables, and six remembrances, as well as mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of the breath, mindfulness of death, remembrance of peace, loathesomeness of food, and analysis of the four elements. The remaining fourteen objects of contemplation are all involved directly with the induction of the trances, proceeding to even higher levels of abstraction and withdrawal from sensory output.