Class 7

Making merit – basis for much of Buddhist life (in Hinduism and Jainism as well)

Laypeople support monks and nuns with material donations

Monks and nuns provide the Dharma in return (recitation of texts, sermons, spiritual advice)

Dana “giving” most effective form of making merit

Givers – both lay and monastic, attain a better situation in this or a future lifetime

Giving

Observing moral precepts (5, 8, or 10)

Meditating

Showing respect for one’s superiors

Attending to their needs

Transferring merit to others

Rejoicing in the merit of others

Listening to the Dharma

Preaching the Dharma

Having right view (1st of Eightfold Path)

Dharma for laypeople

Similar to Manusmrti “Law of Manu” and other prescriptions for varnasramadharma

Child - parents

Student – teacher

Husband – wife

Gentleman – friends & colleagues

Nobleman – slaves and laborers

Gentleman – sramanas and Brahmins

Who is subject to it?

Hub: “Three Poisons”

greed: the rooster hatred: the snake delusion: the pig

Inner circle: Two orders of conditionality

Ascending Descending

Middle Circle: Six Realms of Existence

Outer Rim: Twelve-fold Chain of Causes and Conditions

Six Realms of Existence

Humans – Most Fortunate Position b/c Awakening is possible

Animals

Hell Dwellers (Cold Hells and Hot Hells)

Pretas (Avaricious Spirits or Hungry Ghosts)

Asuras (Lesser Gods or Demigods)

Gods

Two verses alongside of the Great Demon of Impermanence’s (Yama) head

You should seek renunciation

And apply yourself to the practice of the Buddha’s teaching.

Conquer the army of life and death.

As an elephant smashes a thatched hut.

Within the Law [Dharma] and the Discipline [Vinaya]

Constantly practice – don’t give up,

And you will be able to exhaust the sea of afflictions

And arrive at the point where suffering ends.

An ordinary man (pṛthagjana/puthujjana) dominated by :

1.Desire or greed becomes a hungry ghost, ever discontent and anguished because of not being able to satisfy their desire

2.Dislike or hatred enters into one of the hell realms where one suffers terrible pain

3.Delusion or ignorance becomes an animal ruled by the instincts of food and reproduction

Buddhist, Jain, and brahminical (Vedic religion or Hindu) sources

Wide variety of views on the nature of the individual and his ultimate destiny

Buddhism seems to be reacting against Upanishadic views on the soul or self The Upanishads are roughly contemporary texts from an early stage of

HinduismR

esult – the doctrine of anātman/anattaT

hree marks of existence – along with dukkha and anitya/anicca ‘impermanence’

The unchanging constant underlying all our various and unstable experiences

This kind of “Self” is

unchanging = unaffected by any specific experience eternal = indestructible independent = not dependent on other phenomena one’ s true identity = what we really are under one’s control! conducive to happiness = beyond suffering

First, one believes that one’s true identity consists of a Self.

Next, one seeks to make that Self happy and free of suffering.

To do so, one mistakenly interprets objects as either causes of happiness or suffering.

One then acts to obtain those objects, even though they cannot do what one feels that they can do.

Problems of personal identity

Everyday terms such as ‘I’ imply an unchanging something that underlies our different experiences

The five aggregates or ‘groups’ (skandha/khandha) of physical and mental events is a descriptive analysis of the nature of individual experience

Answers: What is a being? What is going on? What is there?

1.Upanishads – self as ‘inner controller’, but we have no control over any of the five ‘aggregates’

2.The five ‘aggregates’ are impermanent and therefore duhkha or painful; not free from suffering as in the Upanishads

3.Meaningless of the term ‘self’ apart from individual experiences

Same as experiences – self then no self at all Apart from experiences – apart from experiences, what is there? Self having the attributes of experiences – how to distinguish?

Why does the Buddha refuse to

answer Vacchagotta’s question?

Exhaustive analysis of the individual

The idea of an ‘I’ is elusive, so much so that it might not make any sense at all

constantly changing physical and mental constituents

Psychophysical personality

Simile of the chariot – composed of wheels, axle, yoke, reins, etc.

The Buddha is trying to avoid the extremes of ‘eternalism’ (śaśvata-vāda / sassata-vāda) and ‘annihilation’ (uccheda-vāda)

How? Through the Middle Way

Eternalism – permanently existing soul

Annihilation – our sense of self is an epiphenomenon of physical processes and disappears at death

What role does dualist thought play in

Ananda’s explanation?

1. Form2. Feelings3. Recognitions or discriminations4. Basic self-consciousness5. Volitional ‘forces’ or ‘formations’

Skt., Pāli rūpa

The physical world or material phenomenon

Bodily phenomena

Skt., Pāli vedanā My experience of the sensation of

things produce the following kinds of feelings:

1. Pleasant2. Unpleasant3. Neutral

Skt. samjñā, Pāli saññā Classifying and sorting my experiences

between objects of the six senses (5 + mental images)

Labeling or recognizing

Skt. vijñāna, Pāli viññāṇa

An awareness of ourselves as thinking subjects having a series of perceptions and thoughts based on the six senses

This is the only thing that travels from one birth to the next

Keep in mind it is considerably changed during a birth by experience, habits, and perhaps by religious practices

Skt. samskāra, Pāli saṅkhāra volitional activities (karma, which is

intentional action) as a result of feelings and recognitions or discriminations

all types of mental habits, thoughts, ideas, opinions, compulsions, and decisions triggered by an object

good (desire) bad (dislike) neutral (indifferent)

No permanently existing Self or Soul

But rebirth

Questions: Moral responsibility – without a soul and rebirth, who or

what is responsible? Dharmas – mental events or phenomena that are

irreducible, therefore are ultimate ‘event’ or ‘reality’ that constitutes the basis of reality as a whole (Abhidharma, later)

Sometimes also called dependent origination or interdependent origination

Why? Presented as the ‘middle’ between: ‘eternalism’ – unchanging constant self that

underlies different experiences, something that that endures without change

‘annihilation’ – no real connection between a person in one point in time and another point

Why is Kassapa confused about how suffering arises? What does he think is necessary for

suffering?

How can we still then refer to an ‘I’

Mutual conditionality rather than linear sequence of causal events

The unconditioned – usually only nirvana (and sometimes space)

Continuity of a ‘self’ in a sense, not identity

CAUSAL DEPENDENCE OF THE 12 LINKS (nidānas)

Ignorance – Blind Person

Karma – Potter Molding Clay (result of ignorance)

Consciousness – Monkey Looking From One Object to the Next

Name and Form – Oarsman Steering Boat Down the River

Six Senses or Sources – House with Windows (5 senses + Mental Perceptions)

Contact – Sexual Embrace

Feeling – Arrow in the Eye

Craving or Grasping – Woman Offering Drink to a Man

Attachment – Grasping for the Fruit of Previous Desires

Existence – New Bride

Birth – Woman Giving birth

Aging and Death – Corpse Swathed in Cloth and in Fetal Position

PAST LIFEI

gnorance -> leads to karmaK

arma – volitional actions with karmic resultsTHIS LIFE

Consciousness – from previous life

Mind & Body (Name & Form) – into a new body with the other 3 aggregates

Six Senses or Sources – caused by mind & body

Contact – caused by six senses

Feeling – caused by contact

Craving or Grasping – caused by pleasant or unpleasant feelings

Attachment – caused by craving

Existence or Becoming – of karma, good and bad intentions which explain future lives

NEXT LIFEB

irthA

ging and Death

Old Age & Death ←

[re]Birth ←

Becoming (desire for continued existence) ←

Grasping ←

Craving ←

Feeling ←

Contact ←

Six Sensory Faculties ←

Name & Form ←

Consciousness ←

Predispositions (karma formations) ←

Ignorance

1. Ignorance

2. Predispositions

3. Consciousness

4 “Name-and-Form”

5. Six sensory faculties

6. Contact

7. Feeling

8. Craving

9.Grasping

10. Becoming

11. (re)-Birth

12. Old Age & Death

Of those dharmas which arise from a cause,

the Tathāgata has stated the cause, and also the

cessation; such is the teaching of the Great Ascetic.Aśvajit tells Śāriputra

Encapsulates the Buddha’s teaching in one verse

Whoever sees dependent arising, sees the Buddha

Later used as in inscriptions and to animate or consecrate ritual objects such as stūpas or images

Four Noble Truths in summaryFour Noble Truths in summary

This existing, that exists; this arising, that arises; this not existing, that does not

exist; this ceasing, that ceases.

1)Continuity and identity in the process of change and denies the view of ‘annihilationism’ (misunderstand, ‘eternalism’)

2)By indicating how various phenomena condition each other, Dependent Arising shows that there is difference and diversity in the process of something changing, denying the view of ‘eternalism’ (misunderstand, annihilationism’)

3)Actions are to be understood as not the work of an autonomous self but the outcome of the complex interaction of diverse impersonal conditions, denying a view of selfhood (misunderstand, actions are not real & have no moral consequences)

4)Appropriate consequences follow from specific causes, both view that actions are not real and causality is not real are abandoned (misunderstand, can lead to views of determinism and causality is unreal)