BASIC BUDDHIST BELIEFS

Readings: Molloy, 131-142; Novak, #2-21-37

Topics: Dependent co-arising, no self, suffering, four noble truths, eightfold path, nirvana

I. Basic Philosophical Concepts

1. What is ultimate?
 The Buddha? How did Buddha understand himself? How did the community of monks want
to understand him? [Novak #16]. Note relentless empiricism of his path [#18, 20]:

"Do not believe in anything

simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in traditions
simply because they have been handed
down for many generations.
Do not believe in anything
simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything
simply because it is found written in your
religious books.
Do not believe in anything
merely on the authority of your teachers
and elders.
But when, after observation and analysis,
you find anything that agrees with reason,
and is conducive to the good and benefit
of one and all,
then accept it and live up to it.
-- The Buddha's Kalama Sutra

The Self? No, finally it is the Dharma. Dharma is the eternal truth, a statement of things
as they really are, as opposed to the fiction of everyday common sense reality. Three
refuge formula: “I go to refuge to the Buddha, not the buddha himself if ultimate I for
refuge to the Dharma but the Dharma is ultimate, I go to refuge to the sangha.” Of the 3
refuges, it is the Dharma that is most ultimate. The Buddha was the one who revealed the
dharma, and the sangha (community of monks and nuns) is the community of those who
have experienced the state of liberation. Dharma teaches about the following realities,
which are themselves in a certain sense ultimate.

Buddha is not the master, but the Dharma is the master. The Dharma isn’t written down;
the teaching is passed down; Receiving with the lens of looking at one’s self. Everything
is passed down.

There is no one body. Just expectation of that people are a lamp unto themselves.
Wisdom is passed down from teacher to teacher.
 2. Nirvana. Literally means “to be blown out” or “to be extinguished.” It is a negation, but
not destruction. Really is a shedding of the boundaries of the illusion that we call self so
that we are opened to the Boundless Ultimate. Buddha didn’t spend a great deal of time
trying to describe it, because it is indescribable. Very much like Brahmin, in that it is not
a personal being, but is a state or force. Permanent, stable, all comprehensive,
imperishable, deathless. To experience it is to know pure bliss. [#34.b, 35] Cycle of
rebirth. Without the moment of “ahh” you will stay within the nirvana. Nirvana is very
real. Place of stability. If you could put it into words, it wouldn’t be nirvana.

3. Dependent Co-Arising. Present in early Buddhism and is its most basic teaching. Closely
tied with emptiness. Everything is the result of a complex host of prior causes. Related
also to impermanence (anicca), one of the 3 marks of existence. Whatever is, is in a state
of becoming. This is not tragic, but is a simple fact. Everything is in flux, an eternal
process of evolution and destruction. Even gods are not immune from this process.
[29.b,c] Everything is mixed together. All things arise out of a series of events. Nothing
stands on its own and nothing is self-caused.

4. No-self [no atman, or anatta] Hindus believe that the atman remains unchanging in the
midst of a changing world, a spiritual substance that remains unchanged throughout the
endless cycles of rebirth. Buddha did not deny rebirth, but denied the durability of a self
from one life to the next. But even more radically, he believed that there is no permanent
reality that we call the self. Instead, there are 5 skandhas, or aggregates that compose the
“self”: physical matter shape, body, mass, sensations senses of everything , perceptions of
everything to the sense, something you can take and percept it around, impulses to action
things that you do, bits of consciousness all of this is going on in your head. [See reading
27-28] If there was a anatta then the nirvana wouldn’t exist. Because you have a
permanent self.

5. Karma. The continuity between rebirths is the stream of causation through Karma.
There are definite linkages with the past, and these endure from one life to the next. But
there is also freedom. [Analogy: We now understand that habits of thought actually set
up patterns of synapses in the brain, so that thoughts actually get ingrained and habitual.
Overcoming these associations takes work, but it can be done.] The Arhat, a holy one, is
not reborn, because there is no more karma that anchors one in this life.

II. The Human Problem and Path of Transformation. Start here, because Buddha did. Focuses on
problem and deliverance, and then speculations about UR come later.

1) The Four Noble Truths. [See sermon, Reading #21]

a) Life is suffering, or out of joint [dukka]
b) The origin of suffering is craving [tanha] Means desire for private fulfillment. One
craves for enlightenment even when firmly on the path.
a) Cessation of suffering is detaching one’s self from craving.
b) The path toward cessation of suffering is the Eightfold Path.

2) The Eightfold Path.

 a) Wisdom: (1) right understanding; (2) right intention.
b) Moral conduct: (3) Right speech (truth-telling, saying only what is helpful); (4) Right
action (the 5 precepts for laity and the 10 precepts for monks); (5) right livelihood
(avoidance of occupations that bring harm to others, accepting those occupations that
promote peace and well-being).
c) Contemplation: (6) right effort; (7) right mindfulness; (8) right concentration.
 See “Mindfulness in Meditation” [Reading #32] What is involved in mindfully
contemplating the body? [breathing, activities, postures, body itself, elements that
compose it, corpses] How does a monk contemplate the feelings? Thoughts?
Elements of reality? [esp. concerned with five hindrances: sexual thoughts, ill will,
laziness, agitation and worry, doubt; and aggregates of attachment: physical form,
feeling, perception, impulses to action, consciousness; six senses and sense-objects;
seven factors of enlightenment; Four Noble Truths.] What is the purpose of this
discipline. How would it affect you if you practiced it?

3) The Ten Precepts.

Applicable to all:

a) Refrain from taking life. [Ahimsa. See Reading #33.]

b) Refrain from taking what is not given.
c) Refrain from wrong sexual relaions.
d) Refrain from wrongful speech.
e) Refrain from drugs and liquor.

Applicable to monks:

a) Refrain from eating after noon.

b) Refrain from partaking in entertainments.
c) Refrain from adorning or pampering the body.
d) Refrain from sleeping in a high (i.e., soft) bed.
e) Refrain from handling gold or silver (i.e. money).