RELIGIONS: EXPERIENCES AND SPIRITUALITY

Module 8 – Religious Expressions of Buddhism

Lesson 1. History

a. Founded in the late 6th century B. C. by Siddhartha Gautama the Buddha ("the Enlightened
One” or “the Awakened One”)
b. The Buddha was born (ca. 563 B. C.) in a place called Lumbini near the Himalayan foothills in
present-day Nepal; he was the warrior son of a king and queen
c. As a young man, he once went on a series of four chariot rides where he first saw the more
severe forms of human suffering: old age, illness, and death (a corpse), as well as an ascetic
(a person avoiding physical pleasures and living a simple life, often for religious reasons);
the contrast between his life and this human suffering made him realize that all the
pleasures on earth where in fact transitory, and could only mask human suffering
d. Leaving his wife and new son, he took on several teachers and tried severe renunciation in the
forest until the point of near-starvation; realizing that this too was only adding more
suffering, he ate food and sat down beneath a bodhi tree to meditate; by morning, he had
attained Nirvana (Enlightenment), which provided both the true answers to the causes of
suffering and permanent release from it
e. He spent the rest of his life teaching others about how to achieve this spiritual state; he began
teaching spiritual, intellectual, and social ferment around Benares (at Sarnath)
f. This was the age when the Hindu ideal of renunciation of family and social life by holy persons
seeking Truth first became widespread, and when the Upanishads were written; both can
be seen as moves away from the centrality of the Vedic fire sacrifice
g. He promoted the idea of the “Middle Way,” which means existing between two extremes; thus,
he sought a life without social indulgences but also without deprivation; he began to teach
others these truths out of compassion for their suffering

Lesson 2. Religious expressions

a. The Four Noble Truths

[1] Dukka: life is suffering; life as we normally live it is full of the pleasures and pains of the
body and mind; pleasures do not represent lasting happiness; they are inevitably
tied in with suffering since we suffer from wanting them, wanting them to
continue, and wanting pain to go so pleasure can come
[2] Samudāya: suffering is caused by desire – for sense pleasures and for things to be as
they are not; we refuse to accept life as it is
[3] Nirodha: suffering has an end
[4] Magga: and the fourth offers the means to that end: the Eight-Fold Path and the
Middle Way; if one follows this combined path he or she will attain Nirvana, an
indescribable state of all-knowing lucid awareness in which there is only peace and
joy
b. The Eight-Fold Path: often pictorially represented by an eight-spoked wheel (the Wheel of
Dhamma); the Eightfold Path is also called the Middle Way: it avoids both indulgence and
severe asceticism, neither of which the Buddha had found helpful in his search for
enlightenment; the eight stages are not to be taken in order, but rather support and
reinforce each other

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 [1] Sammā ditthi: right understanding; accepting Buddhist teachings; the Buddha never
intended his followers to believe his teachings blindly, but to practise them and
judge for themselves whether they were true; true understanding of how reality
and suffering are intertwined
[2] Sammā san̄kappa: right intention; a commitment to cultivate the right attitudes;
aspiration to act with correct intention, doing no harm
[3] Sammā vācā: right speech; speaking truthfully, avoiding slander, gossip and abusive
speech
[4] Sammā kammanta: right action; behaving peacefully and harmoniously; refraining
from stealing, killing and overindulgence in sensual pleasure; acting in ways that
do not cause harm, such as not taking life, not stealing, and not engaging in sexual
misconduct
[5] Sammā ājīva: right livelihood; avoiding making a living in ways that cause harm, such
as exploiting people or killing animals, or trading in intoxicants or weapons;
making an ethically sound living, being honest in business dealings
[6] Sammā vāyāma: right effort; cultivating positive states of mind; freeing oneself from
evil and unwholesome states and preventing them arising in future; endeavoring
to give rise to skillful thoughts, words, and deeds and renouncing unskillful ones
[7] Sammā sati: right mindfulness; developing awareness of the body, sensations, feelings
and states of mind, and mental qualities
[8] Sammā samādhi: right concentration; developing the mental focus necessary for this
awareness; practicing skillful meditation informed by all of the preceding seven
aspects
c. Some key Buddhism beliefs
[1] Followers of Buddhism don’t acknowledge a supreme god or deity; they instead focus
on achieving enlightenment – a state of inner peace and wisdom; when followers
reach this spiritual echelon, they’re said to have experienced Nirvana
[2] The religion’s founder, Buddha, is considered an extraordinary being, but not a god
[3] The path to enlightenment is attained by utilizing morality, meditation and wisdom;
Buddhists often meditate because they believe it helps awaken truth
[4] Buddhism encourages its people to avoid self-indulgence but also self-denial
[5] Buddhists embrace the concepts of karma (the law of cause and effect) and
reincarnation (the continuous cycle of rebirth)
[6] Followers of Buddhism can worship in temples or in their own homes
[7] Buddhist monks, or bhikkhus, follow a strict code of conduct, which includes celibacy –
staying unmarried
[8] There is no single Buddhist symbol, but a number of images have evolved that
represent Buddhist beliefs, including the lotus flower, the eight-spoked dharma
wheel, the bodhi tree and the swastika (an ancient symbol whose name means
"well-being" or "good fortune" in Sanskrit