The Fundamental Aspects of Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion that originated around India in the sixth century BCE (Prebish and Keown 2006: 3) that started with a prince named Siddharta who was enlightened and turned into Buddha (Prebish and Keown 2006: 26). This gave birth to different Buddhist traditions with different perspectives but ultimately believe in the same essence of the religion.
It builds upon and has elements from both Indus religion and Vedic culture. From the indus religion (Prebish and Keown 2006: 4-5), it takes away figurines/figures in the yogic position, the sacred tree, concept of purity of the body, trancelike states of bodily immobility and impenetrability of the body to pollution. The last two are close to the beginnings of meditation. From the Vedic culture (Prebish and Keown 2006: 5-7), it builds upon the concepts of liberation and the One. If the One is known, you can achieve the ultimate power which is freedom, which is liberation from death. It also looks to search within the individual and sees trance as getting rid of impurities. We also see beginnings of meditation and being one with the universe through “Tat tvam asi” (You are That) and “Brahmo ‘ham’ (I am Brahman).
Buddha’s life comes in fragments of stories with no single continuous narrative. They are snapshots throughout his life of his different roles (Prebish and Keown 2006: 25). Buddha is a Sanskrit word that means “one who has awakened” or “one who has woken up” (Prebish and Keown 2006: 26). This name is given to enlightened individuals but only to those who have found the path to enlightenment on their own and was not taught to them by other people (Prebish and Keown 2006: 38). Sources documented Buddha’s teaching in great detail but did not do the same for the biographical details of his life and only later on did artists depict him in human form (Prebish and Keown 2006: 28). What is important are the teachings, it is important that other people see the path. There can be other Buddhas and they go through the same things Siddharta went through (Prebish and Keown 2006: 31). The four important key events in Buddha’s life are birth, enlightenment, first sermon, and death (Prebish and Keown 2006: 29). There is even no successor and he wants people to be self-reliant and look within oneself for enlightenment rather than another person (Prebish and Keown 2006: 39).
Siddharta realized that in freeing the body of desire, no new karma is generated, therefore breaking the cycle of rebirth (Prebish and Keown 2006: 33). “Our nature as human beings is constituted in such a way that makes it impossible for us ever to find complete happiness or fulfillment” (Prebish and Keown 2006: 44). Desire has a good and bad side. The bad side is defined more as a craving that is excessive and selfish and is repetitive, limiting, and cyclic. The good side of it is directed towards wholesome objects or ideas and an be liberating and enhancing (Prebish and Keown 2006: 47).
Contrary to the western view of a linear history, we see history as infinite cycles with similar patterns of events recurring over and over again. There is no creation, no beginning, everything has always been there, going through cycles of evolution and decline (page 10). Everything goes through rebirth/reincarnation. There are six realms where one can be born into: gods > humans/asuras > ghosts/animals > hells (Prebish and Keown 2006: 13). We are reborn into each based on our karma (Prebish and Keown 2006: 17).
Karma is seen as a natural sequence of causes and effects and is determined by intentions/motivations which include greed, hatred, delusion, non-attachment, benevolence, and understanding. Karma does not equal determinism and random event and accidents can still happen. Not everything is due to our karma but how we react to these random things do have an effect on us. It is up to us to choose to have good or bad intentions.
In his learning of meditation techniques, Siddharta’s first teacher Arada Kalama taught him the “sphere of nothingness” which transcends all thought and produces sensations of deep spiritual peace (Prebish and Keown 2006: 32). His second teacher, Udraka Ramaputra, taught him the “sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception” where one’s mind doesn’t think of anything, not even nothingness (Prebish and Keown 2006: 33). He saw these as temporary and wanted to go a different route.
“The Buddha apprehended the Four Noble Truths” (Prebish and Keown 2006: 42) after learning balance in his life (Prebish and Keown 2006: 34) and going through four levels of trance (Prebish and Keown 2006: 35). The Four Noble Truths have always been there, we just need to understand it and know it. The Four Noble Truths are: 1. life is suffering; 2. suffering is caused by craving; 3. suffering can have an end; 4. there is a path which leads to the end of suffering (Prebish and Keown 2006: 43).
The Fourth Noble Truth is the Noble Eightfold Path. It is what we need to get from suffering to nirvana and consists of eight factors under three categories. Wisdom: Right View and Right Resolve; Morality: Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood; Meditation: Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Meditation (Prebish and Keown 2006: 52). “It is the lived experience of the Path itself that constitutes nirvana” (Prebish and Keown 2006: 53) – by acting accordingly to the Path, we progressively become like Buddha.
In Buddhism, nirvana is the final solution (Prebish and Keown 2006: 22). It is breaking the cycle of reincarnation/rebirth. What Buddha sought was nirvana (Prebish and Keown 2006: 31). The simplest idea of nirvana is “the end of greed, hatred, delusion.” We are trapped in samsara, trapped in cycles of rebirth to experience suffering over and over again because of our craving for pleasurable experiences (Prebish and Keown 2006: 49). “Cut off is the craving for existence, destroyed is that which leads to renewed becoming, and there is no more re-becoming” (Prebish and Keown 2006: 43).
Word Count: 1,012 words
2014-03-21
