Summary
RST1501 Study Unit 7 Summary notes
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Summary Notes on study unit 7 on Buddhism.
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The academic study of Buddhism Buddhism was founded in the 6th century BCE by Siddharta, better known as the Buddha, in
Northern India
There are 2 broad streams of Buddhism: In the Southern (Theravada) and the Northern
(Mahayana) traditions
Ever since the Middle Ages, the western world had been aware that in the East there were
people whose religion centred around the figure of Chagyamoni Bourkhan ( a bad
mispronunciation of Shakyamuni Buddha)
It was only in the mid-18th century that scholarship started to isolate the various strains of
beliefs and practice and realised that these were all part of the same religion
In the 19th century, German linguists who studied Sanskrit, their British counterparts who
studied the Pali language, and French colonial administrators who wanted to understand the
religion of their subjects in French Indo-China all contributed to the creation of a new
academic understanding that there was a single religion, all traceable to a single individual
By the early 20th century this was enriched even further by info about Chinese and Japanese
Buddhism, and from 1950 onwards the world gained accurate information about Tibet and
its unique form of the religion
American scholars are today at the forefront of this academic discipline
Beliefs
Buddhism and the god issue
The existence (or non-existence) of god has been a central issue in the issue in the Jewish,
Christian and Islamic world for centuries
All Buddhist traditions agree that there are states of existence more refined and longer lived
than the merely human gods.
The amount of attention paid to these gods, and the amount of info about them, varies from
one tradition to the next
, One class of gods that have survived are the gods that were worshipped in India in the
Buddha’s time
Nowhere in the Buddhist texts do we see the slightest attempt being made to deny their
existence
As Buddhism moved into new territories, it encountered local gods that had been
worshipped there
Their existence was not seriously questioned either, but the same could be said for their
importance
Buddhism teaches that we live more than once, that we pass from one body to the next
Those bodies need to be human
A bad rebirth could be in the form of an animal
The human form is sort of a neutral default state
A really fortunate rebirth could see you come back as a god
Buddhists have one drawback: they are not immortal
No matter how powerful a god may be, without immortality his ability to threaten or reward
does stretch into infinity
If even a god will one day die and be reborn as something more humble, then it stands to
reason that the Buddha’s message of something beyond this endless cycle of life and death
becomes much more attractive than worship of the gods
Gods, whether Indian or local, were dominated and brought into the larger Buddhist scheme
of things
A local god who had once been feared and respected over a wide are of Tibet suddenly
found himself still respected, but not feared any more, as a divine protector of the Buddhist
teachings
Gods may be longer-lived, happier and more powerful than us, Buddhist say
That does not mean that they are wiser as they are just as caught up in the messy business
of existence as everybody else
That is why Buddha was called the teacher of men and gods
, The Four Noble Truths
The Four Noble Truths are the very core of Buddhism
It was one of the 1st things that the Buddha taught his disciples, and every school Buddhism
agrees that it is the most accurate way to describe the human condition
First Noble Truth
Buddhism does not deny that there are moments of happiness, even bliss
It does deny that these moments can last
A core insight of Buddhism is that everything, without exception, is impermanent
No exception is made for God or the human soul
Things that please us change
When they have changed enough, they are no longer pleasing to us
Second Noble Truth
According to Buddhism, humans are uniquely dissatisfied with the way things are
Some people seem to lead charmed lives, never encountering unhappiness
According to Buddhism, this is a result of Karma
Ethical. Well-intentioned action will result in happiness
Unethical, evil actions will result in unhappiness
Karma stretches across more than one life: Buddhism believes in rebirth
What kind of creature you are born as depends on the actions committed in a former life
Buddhism insists that there is no such thing that moves from one body to the next
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