The Story of Buddhism
The story of Buddhism might be said to have begun with a loss of innocence. Siddhartha Gautama, a young prince of the Shakhya clan in India, had been raised in a life of royal ease, shielded from the misery and cruelties of the world outside the palace gates, distracted by sensual pleasures and luxurious living.
But one day the fateful encounter with the real world occurred, and Siddhartha was shaken to the core. There in his own kingdom, not far from his gardens and delights, he encountered people suffering from sickness, old age and death; he brooded over these things, deeply disturbed that such was the fate of all beings.
Then he encountered an ascetic holy man, a renunciate dedicated to liberation. The prince then undertook the great renunciation, forsaking his family, fortune and kingdom in pursuit of the path of liberation.
The central, profound question that burned in Gautama was this:
“How may suffering be ended?”
He became a wandering ascetic, practiced yogic disciplines and meditation, studied with various teachers, and attained high states of consciousness; but still he did not find the answer to his question.
He practiced severe forms of asceticism, almost to the point of death by starvation, all without gain. Finally he sat under a Bodhi tree, determined not to rise from meditation until he had gained the insight he sought.
Not long after, he attained enlightenment; he became the Buddha — the Awakened One.
He had ascended through various stages of meditative awareness, he had seen all of his past lives, and he had seen directly into reality, into the nature of existence and the causes of suffering and rebirth.
He pondered whether to try to teach these insights, so subtle and difficult to grasp, to others; perhaps it would be futile. But finally he decided that at least some of the people would be able to understand; perhaps more importantly, they could be shown the path to arrive at these insights themselves.
He gave his first sermon to a few disciples in the Deer park at Benares, and then continued to wander and teach for the next forty-five years, until his death at the age of eighty.
Historical Context and Influence
He was born in the 6th century BCE, a time of great turmoil and political change in India; many were unsatisfied with the Vedic religion, and new teachings had emerged, among them the Upanishads.
The Buddha stood largely outside the Vedic tradition, criticizing many of its central teachings. Nevertheless, he had been influenced by that tradition and his teachings in turn would have a profound effect on later teachers in the Hindu tradition, such as Shankara; even in such Hindu classics as the Bhagavad Gita, some reaction can be seen to Buddhist teachings.
But later centuries would see the Buddha’s influence wane in India and instead spread to other Asian countries. Today Buddhism has spread throughout the world.
Various sects have arisen as later teachers have reinterpreted and expounded upon the Buddha’s basic teachings. Buddhism may be considered a religion, a philosophy, a way of life, or all three; here we will deal mainly with Buddhism as a philosophical system.
Buddhist Metaphysics
The Buddha’s main concern was to eliminate suffering, to find a cure for the pain of human existence. In this respect he has been compared to a physician, and his teaching has been compared to a medical or psychological prescription.
Like a physician, he observed the symptoms — the disease that humankind was suffering from; next he gave a diagnosis – the cause of the disease; then he gave the prognosis — it could be cured; finally he gave the prescription – the method by which the condition could be cured.
The Four Noble Truths
His first teaching, the Four Noble Truths, follows this pattern.
- First, the insight that “life is Dukkha.” Dukkha is variously translated as suffering, pain, impermanence; it is the unsatisfactory quality of life which is targeted here — life is often beset with sorrow and trouble, and even at its best, is never completely fulfilling.
- We always want more happiness, less pain. But this ‘wanting more’ is itself the problem: the second noble truth teaches that the pain of life is caused by ‘Tanha’ — our cravings, our attachments, our selfish grasping after pleasure and avoiding pain.
- The third noble truth says yes; a complete release from attachment and Dukkha is possible, a liberation from pain and rebirth.
- The fourth noble truth tells how to attain this liberation; it describes the Noble Eightfold Path leading to Nirvana, the utter extinction of the pain of existence.
The Three Marks of Existence
Another main teaching of Buddhist metaphysics is known as the Three Marks of Existence.
- The first is Anicca, impermanence: all things are transitory, nothing lasts.
- The second is Anatta, No Self or No-Soul: human beings, and all of existence, are without a soul or self. There is no eternal, unchanging part of us, like the Hindu idea of Atman; there is no eternal, unchanging aspect of the universe, like the Hindu idea of Brahman.
- The third mark of existence is Dukkha, suffering: all of existence, not just human existence but even the highest states of meditation are forms of suffering, ultimately inadequate and unsatisfactory.
The three marks of existence can be seen as the basis for the Four Noble Truths above; in turn, the three marks of existence may be seen to come out of an even more fundamental Buddhist theory, that of Pratityasamutpada: Dependent Origination, or Interdependent Co-arising.
Karma, Rebirth and Liberation
This theory says that all things are cause and are caused by other things; all of existence is conditioned, nothing exists independently, and there is no First Cause.
There was no beginning to the chain of causality; it is useless to speculate how phenomenal existence started. However, it can be ended, and that is the ultimate goal of Buddhism — the ultimate liberation of all creatures from the pain of existence.
To overcome selfish craving, one cultivates the heart through compassion; to eliminate ignorance one cultivates the mind through wisdom. Compassion and wisdom are twin virtues in Buddhism, and are cultured by ethical behavior and meditation, respectively.
The Path to Liberation: The Buddhist Way of Life
The Buddha intended his philosophy to be a practical one, aimed at the happiness of all creatures. While he outlined his metaphysics, he did not expect anyone to accept this on faith but rather to verify the insights for themselves; his emphasis was always on seeing clearly and understanding.
To achieve this, however, requires a disciplined life and a clear commitment to liberation; the Buddha laid out a clear path to the goal and also observations on how to live life wisely. The core of this teaching is contained in the Noble Eightfold Path, which covers the three essential areas of Buddhist practice: ethical conduct, mental discipline (meditation), and wisdom.
Meditation and the Path to Enlightenment
The Buddha taught two types of meditation: Samatha and Vipassana.
- Samatha, which means tranquility, is said to be a method fostering strong states of mental absorption, called Jhana.
- Vipassana — literally “clear-seeing,” but more often translated as insight meditation — is said to be a method using mindfulness to foster moment-to-moment awareness of the inconstancy of events as they are directly experienced in the present.
This mindfulness creates a sense of dispassion toward all events, thus leading the mind to release from suffering.
Buddhism: A Religion or a Philosophy?
The word of Buddha has spread all over Central and Eastern Asia with a tremendous impact on philosophical beliefs, cultures, and ethics. However, there has been a lot of controversy as to whether Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy.
Proponents of seeing Buddhism as a religion, claim that beings like Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have always been considered as deities in the Hindu religion. On the other hand, those supporting the philosophical nature of Buddhism base their belief on the fact that the Buddha himself never pretended to be a God and he did not teach about a certain deity.
He only wanted to make people follow him on his way to enlightenment and become enlightened themselves.
Words of the Buddha
“Do not dwell in the past; do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
References:
- http://lordbuddhaworld.blogspot.in/2011/05/life-story-of-lord-buddha.html
- http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/buddhism/buddhist_philosophy.html
- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.htm
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