Lecture 06

Outlines of the lecture:

 Introduction to Buddhism
 Four Noble-Truths
 Nirvana
 Introduction
• You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.
----Buddha.
• Real Name of the founder of Buddhism: Siddhartha Gautama, Prince of
Kapilavastu ancient state of Shakya.
• Buddha meaning "the awakened one", or "the one who knows",
• Search for the Truth & spreading his teachings.
• Pitakas or Baskets of law.
• Three Pitakas: Suptapitaka-contains sermon with parables; Vinaypitaka- deals
with rule of conduct; and Abhidharma-pitak-deals with problems of
philosophical interest.
• His teaching is total extinction of suffering and attainment Nirvana here in
this life.
• Nirvana means cooling of passions. It is perfect enlightenment.
What excited or pained Siddartha to become
Buddha
• First: Siddhartha saw an old man, bent and trembling, and discovered
old age.
• Second: He saw a sick man suffering from disease.
• Third: He witnessed a funeral procession and a corpse.
• Fourth: He met a wandering monk who had an inner tranquility
despite living an austere life, suggesting to Siddhartha that he had
come to terms with old age, sickness and death.
• *On his 29th birthday, Siddharta renounced his regal life leaving
behind his family and went out of the palace.
 Sects of Buddhism
• Hinayana or Theravada: Small vessel. It admits the existence of
external objects along with the reality of mind. It is also known as
Realism. Two subsects: Sautrantika (external objects are indirectly
perceive)and Vaibhasika (external objects are directly perceived).

• Mahayana: Big Vessel. It does not admits the reality of non-mental

things. Thus, it calls Idealism. two subsects: Madhyamika (Sunyavada
or nihilism) and Yogacara (Vijnanavadin or subjective Idealism).
 Four Noble Truths
• Buddha disliked metaphysical discussions devoid of practical utility.

• The unprofitable and unanswerable questions.

• The useful question about misery.

• 1. Dukha (suffering): Life in the world is full of suffering.

• 2. Samudaya (Causes of Suffering): There are causes for this suffering.

• Suffering, like every other thing, depends on some conditions.

• The chain of causes and effects that leads to suffering in the world.
 The chain of twelve causes
• Briefly speaking then
• (1) Suffering in life is due to
• (2) birth, which is due to
• (3) the will to be born, which is due
• (4) our mental clinging to objects. Clinging again is due to
• (5) thirst of desire for objects. This again is due to
• (6) sense-experience which is due to
• (7) sense-object-contact, which again is due to
• (8) the six organs of cognition; these organs are dependent on
• (9) the embryonic organism (composed of mind and mind), which again could not develop
without
• (10) some initial consciousness, which hails from
• (11) the impressions of the experience of past life, which lastly are due to
• (12) ignorance of truth.
• These constitute the wheel of existence ; birth and re-birth
 Chain for Birth and Rebirth
• (1) Ignorance (avidya) Past Life
• (2) Impressions (samskara)
• (3) The initial consciousness of the embryo (vijnana)
• (4) Mind and body, the embryonic organism (nama-rupa)
• (5) Six organ of knowledge (sadayatana) Past LIfe Present Life
• (6) Sense contact (sparsa) Present life
• (7) Sense experience (vedana)
• (8) Thirst (trsna)
• (9) Clinging (upadana)
• (10) Tendency to be born (bhava)
• (11) Re-birth (jati)
• (12) Old age, death, etc. (jaramarana) Future Life
3. Nirodha (Cessation of Suffering)-Nirvana
• There is a possibility to stop suffering.
• By extinction of suffering –Nirvana.
• It is the ideal, the highest good, the Summum Bonum.
• It means cooling down or blowing out of our passions.
• Passions are compared to fire. Passionless is the cooling of the fire.
• It means extinction of desire and not extinction of existence.
• It is a state of negation of sorrows and sufferings.
• Freedom from suffering or perfect peace or equanimity.
 Marga(Way to cessation of suffering)
• There is a path which leads to the cessation of suffering (dukha,
dukhasamudaya, dukha-nirodha, dukhanirodha-marga).
• The path consists of eight steps :
• 1. Right Views or sammaditthi or samyagdrsti- As ignorance, with its
consequences, namely, wrong views (mithyadrsti) about the self and the
world, is the root cause of our sufferings.
• 2. Right Resolve or Sammasankappa or samyaksankalpa: Right resolve, or
firm determination to reform life in the light of truth.
• 3. Right Speech or Sammavaca or samyagvaka: Right speech, or control of
speech.
• 4. Right Conduct or Sammakammanta or samyakkarmanta: Right conduct or
abstention from wrong action.
Cont..
5. Right Livelihood or Samma-ajiva or samyagajiva: Right livelihood or
maintaining life by honest means.
6. Right Effort or Sammavayama or samyagvyayama: Right effort, or
constant endeavour to maintain moral progress by banishing evil thoughts
and entertaining good ones.
7. Right Mindfulness or Sammasati or samyaksmrti: Right mindfulness or
constant remembrance of the perishable nature of things.
 This is necessary for keeping off attachment to things, and grief over their
loss.
8. Right Concentration or Sammasamadhi or samyaksamadhi: Right
concentration, through four stages, is the last step in the path that leads to
the goal-nirvana
Buddhism’s Shulka
• बुद्धं शरणं गच्छामि।
Buddham saranam gacchami
I go to the Buddha for refuge

• धिं शरणं गच्छामि।

Dhammam saranam gacchami
I go to the Dhamma for refuge

• संघं शरणं गच्छामि।

Sangham saranam gacchami
I go to the Sangha for refuge.