1. Living Religions 8th Edition
Mary Pat Fisher
©2011 PRENTICE HALL | Pearson Education, Inc. | Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

2. Chapter 5 Buddhism The life and legend of the Buddha The Dharma
Buddhism spreads abroad
Buddhism in the West
Socially engaged Buddhism
©2011 PRENTICE HALL | Pearson Education, Inc. | Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458

3. Key terms anatman (Pali: anatta) anitya (Pali: anicca)
arhant (Pali: arhat)
bhikshu (Pali: bhikkhu;
feminine: bhikshuni, bhikkhuni)
bodhisattva
deity yoga
Dharma (Pali: Dhamma)
dukkha
karma
kensho
koan
lama
Mahayana
nirvana
Pali Canon
samsara
Sangha
stupa
sunyata
Theravada
Triple Gem
Vajrayana
vipassana
zazen
Zen
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4. Ajahn Sumedho, Buddhist monk
“When you open your mind to the truth, then you realize there is nothing to fear. What arises passes away, what is born dies, and is not self--so that our sense of being caught in an identity with this human body fades out. We don’t see ourselves as some isolated, alienated entity lost in a mysterious and frightening universe. We don’t feel overwhelmed by it, trying to find a little piece of it that we can grasp and feel safe with, because we feel at peace with it. Then we have merged with the Truth.
Ajahn Sumedho, Buddhist monk
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5. The 4 Great Bodhisattva Vows
Beings are infinite in number, I vow to save them all; The obstructive passions are endless in number, I vow to end them all; The teachings for saving others are countless, I vow to learn them all; Buddhahood is the supreme achievement, I vow to attain it.
Tiantai Zhiyi
The 4 Great Bodhisattva Vows
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6. Timeline c. 5th century BCE c. 258 BCE c. 200 BCE-200 CE
c. 50 CE
1st century CE c
c. 550 c
845 c
1959-
Life of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
Ashoka spreads Buddhism outside India
Theravada develops
Perfection of Wisdom books develop
Pali Canon written down in Sri Lanka
Buddhism spreads to China, SE Asia
Mahayana develops
Life of Nagarjuna
Buddhism enters Japan
Songtsan establishes Tibetan Buddhism
Chinese persecute Buddhism
Life of Nichiren
Buddhism declines in India
China represses Tibetan Buddhism
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7. The Life and legend of the Buddha
What we know about him has been passed down through his followers
Prolific teachings passed down orally; written down hundreds of years after his death
Followers have recalled his life in sacred biographies
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8. The life and legend of the Buddha (continued)
Siddhartha led a sheltered life of luxury
Left home and saw the Four Sights: a bent aged man, a sick person, a corpse, and a monk
Left home at 29 to wander as an ascetic
Found extreme lifestyles did not answer his questions—led to the Middle Way: neither self-indulgence or self-denial
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9. The life and legend of the Buddha (continued)
Vowed to site under tree at Gaya until enlightenment
Experienced 4 states of contemplation and had 3 realizations, he could
Recall all his past lives
See the entire cycle of life and death
See the cause of suffering and the means of ending it
Siddhartha became the Buddha, the one who woke up
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10. The life and legend of the Buddha (continued)
Spent the next 45 years teaching
His teaching (dharma) included Four Noble Truths, the Nobel Eightfold Path, the Three Marks of Existence
Some followers became monks (bhikshus); women were allowed to become nuns if they followed the 8 special rules
Disciples (the sangha) accepted people from all castes and levels of society
When the Buddha died, he told his followers to be responsible for their own spiritual development
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11. The Dharma Buddhism often described as nontheistic
No personal God; do not worship the Buddha
Revere the Buddha’s teachings—a raft to take followers to the farther shore, nirvana
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12. The Four Noble Truths
Life inevitably involves suffering, is imperfect and unsatisfactory
Suffering originates in our desires
Suffering will cease if all desires cease
There is a way to realize this state: the Noble Eightfold Path
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13. The Noble Eightfold Path to Liberation
Right Understanding: realize and understand the Four Noble Truths
Right Thought or Motives: uncover any unwholesome roots in one’s thinking, eliminate self-­centeredness
Right Speech: abstain from lying, gossiping, speaking harshly, divisive speech
Right Action: observe the Five Precepts, namely to avoid destroying life, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxicants
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14. The Noble Eightfold Path to Liberation (continued)
Right Livelihood: make a living without violating the Five Precepts
Right Effort: eliminate impurities of the mind and cultivate wholesome actions
Right Mindfulness: be aware in every moment, discipline the mind
Right Meditation: quiet the mind through mental discipline
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15. The Wheel of Birth and Death
No eternal, independently existing soul to be reborn
Central cause is karma
3 root afflictions: greed, hate, and delusion
Cultivating non-greed, non-hate, and non-delusion act as causes to leave the circle of birth and death
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16. Mandalas are pictures of the mind and of the universe
Mandalas are pictures of the mind and of the universe. Moving out from the center, this wheel of samsara includes animals representing lust, hatred, and delusion, the fates of beings with good karma (left) and bad karma (right), the six kinds of birth from heaven to hell, the chain of cause and effect, and a monster grasping the wheel representing death and impermanence.
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17. Branches of Buddhism Theraveda: way of the elders
Prevalent in Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos
Mayahana: great vehicle
Prevalent in China, Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, Japan, Nepal, Tibet
Both agree on basic concepts of Four Noble Truths, karma, samsara, nirvan
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18. Approximate distribution of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism.
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19. Theraveda: The path of mindfulness
Devotional practices dominate
Central text is the Pali Canon
Triple Gem
The Buddha
The Dharma
The Sangha
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20. Mahayana: The path of compassion and wisdom
Focus on liberation of all beings
Many Buddhas and bodhisattvas
Buddha is an immanent presence in the universe
Three bodies of Buddha
Emptiness (sunyata)
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21. Our word “zero” comes from the Arabic translation of the Sanskrit sunya, which means “empty.” Buddhists represented sunyata, “emptiness,” by a circle.
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22. Other Branches Chan and Zen: the great way of enlightenment
Pure Land: devotion to Amitabha Buddha
Nichiren: salvation through the Lotus Sutra
Vajrayana: the indestructible path
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23. In this 18th-century painting, Amida Buddha descends to welcome the faithful to his Western Paradise. Pure Land Buddhism taught that Amida saved all who called on his name.
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24. Tibetan prostrates herself with wooden pads and canvas shield.
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25. Buddhism in the West Various forms of Buddhism have spread to the West
Exodus of thousands of Tibetans
Efforts of Zen teachers
Establishment of Theravada vipassana meditation centers
Difficult to replicate the monastic traditions in a Western setting
For immigrants maintaining Buddhist practices means maintaining cultural and ethnic traditions
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26. Socially Engaged Buddhism
Emerging focus on the relevance of Buddhism to social problems
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