Buddhism

1. BUDDHISM

2. What’s (Not) In Your Mind?
All things come at first fromMIND
Mind creates them, mind fulfills them
Speak or act withtainted mind,
You’ll drag around a cart of pain
All things come at first fromMIND
Mind creates them, mind fulfills them
Speak or act withlucidmind
And joy will followlikeyour shadow.
TheDhammapada

3. • The whole aim of
Eastern religion is to
shift self-identity from
the light bulb to the light
–
• Joseph Campbell
• Enlightenment

4. Big Questions
1. Howcan we be happy? What prevents it?
2. To Hell in a Hand Basket or Heaven on Earth?
3. Buddhism– A Raft out of Hell?
4. Did you knowyou’re my Hero’s Journey?
5. What’sfunny bout peace, love and understanding?
6. Dr. Buddha: Dukkhalogist - 8-foldPath
7. What’s(not) in your Mind?
8. The Jewel’s in the What?
9. WWBK – What would Buddha know?

5. Same Goal?
• “The only thing that is unqualifiedly good is extended
vision, the enlargement of one’s understanding of the
ultimate nature of things” (8).
• What is the nature of things?
• What is the state of the world?
• Story – “Birdsnest”

6. “Fire and Ice” Robert
Some say the worldwill endin fire.
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tastedof desire,
I holdwith those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great,
And wouldsuffice.

7. Fear and Desire – The Only Way?
• “The Last Flower”
• Gandhi – “I know a way out of hell”
• Story – “Heaven andHell”
• Buddha– “I teach suffering andthe end of suffering”

8. The Three Poisons
1. Grasping/Desire
2. Aversion/Hatred/Fear
3. Delusion/Ignorance
• Cause all suffering
• Reflect Personality types

9. Buddhist View of Life
• A. 6 senses - Sights, Sounds, Tastes, Smells, Physical
perceptions, Mental perceptions
• B. 6 accompanying consciousnesses –
Sight andthe seeing of it, etc.
• C. 52 feeling/thought reactions/responses (26 wise, 26
unwise) interplaying between sense experiences and
consciousness

10. Wise and Unwise Responses to Life
Unwise/Unskillful
• Hatred
• Jealousy
• Fear
• Anger
• etc.
Wise/Skillful
• Love
• Compassion
• Generosity
• Openness
• Tranquility
• Equanimity, etc.

11. Two Ways of Living
1. Unwise/Unskillful – Wandering about at the whimof
every desire, impulse, emotion, like a stick in a river,
moody etc.
2. Wise/Skillful/Enlightened – intentional, deliberate, skillful,
wise, etc.
QuickWrite - Name a person fromyour life, froma story, or fromhistory or
news that you would describe as “enlightened” or “wise” and givespecifics
Repeat for someone “unenlightened” or “unwise”

12. Gandhi’s morning prayer
Let our first act in the morning be to resolve suchas this:
I shall not fear anyone on earth
I shall fear only that whichis sacred
I will not bear ill will towards anyone
I shall not submit to injustice
I shall conquer untruthby truth
I shall conquer hatredby love
And in resting in truth I shall bear all suffering
And bring freedomof spiritto my own heartand all those that I touch

13. Others
• Love your enemies – Jesus
• Meet physical force with soul force – MLK
• Make me an instrument of your peace – St. Francis of
Assisi
• Buddhist Quotes – page 3 in packet
• Okay, but how?

14. “Buddhism is a voyage across life’s river –a transport fromthe
common sense shore of ignorance, grasping and death to the
further bank of wisdomand enlightenment” (144).

15. Wisdom?
• “What is the wisdom we’ve lost in knowledge?”
• Socrates = poster boy for Western Wisdom– what did
he know?
• “All I know is that I do not know”
• Oracle at Delphi – KnowThyself
• What did Buddha discover?

16. Goal – Mindfulness/Awareness/
Enlightenment
“The more deeply we pay attention the more deeply we
experience that we do not exist separate fromthe sunlight
or the clouds or the earthworms…To the extent that we
have learnedto grasp and identify with this limited life, we
suffer. The amount of our identification with it is our
delusion, our suffering.” Jack Kornfield

17. Big Ideas
1. It’s all in the MINDConsciousness/
Awareness/Mindfulness/Enlightenment
2. Life is suffering causedby 1) Selfish Desire/ Grasping, 2)
Fear/ Aversion, and3) Ignorance/ Delusion
3. Empty Self thru 8foldPath, Middle Way
4. The Jewel is in the Lotus
5. Buddha nature andthe Nirvanic World

18. BUDDHA
• "Whatare you"?
• "I am Awake”
• "Buddha" = the Awakened, the
Enlightened
• Siddhartha Gautama
• 563-483 B.C.E.
• Nepal/India
• Sakyamuni (silent sage)
• “Wisdom Incarnate”

19. The Man Who Woke Up
• A man “judgedby hundreds of millions of people, from Ceylon
[Sri Lanka] to Japan, andthroughout large sections of the
Asian mainland, to have exertedby his intellectual integrity,
moral persuasiveness andspiritual insight, the most pervasive
influence on the thought andlife of the human race.” – Del
Byron Schneider
• "The rest of us dream the dream known as the awakenedstate
of human life"

20. Classic Hero’s Journey
• I. Prince, 4 Passing Sights, Great Going Forth – Quest, find
the cause of suffering
• II. Finds Middle Way, Temptations
• Enlightenment under Bodhi Tree – finds cause and endof
suffering
• III. Returns with a mission to preach a religion of wisdom
andcompassion

21. Four Passing Sights
Journal –Mindblower
1. old man - aging
2. sick people - disease
3. corpse - death
4. monk - withdrawal
• "Life is subject to age and death- where is the realm of life
in which there is neither?"
• Fleshly pleasures lose their charm, so at 29 goes into forest

22. The Great Going Forth
• Learns Raja Yoga w
Hindu Gurus
• Tries austerity of ascetics - didn't
work to bring enlightenment,
but did leadhimto principle of
• The Middle Way – like a string
on an instrument

23. Enlightenment
Sits under peepul/Bo tree
(bodhi=knowledge) Gaya in NE
India
• Vows - “Let my skin andsinews
andbones become dry…. all the
flesh andbloodin my body dry
up, but never fromthis seat will
I stir, until I have attainedthe
supreme andabsolute wisdom.”

24. Temptation
• (like Christ’s on the eve of his ministry)
• 1. Kama - desire - babes
• 2. Mara - death - empties finite self
• Mara challenges his right to be there - Buddha touches the earth to
bear witness
• Lost in rapture for 7 days, tries to get up, overcome by waves of bliss,
stays 7x7 days
• 3. Mara appeals to reason, don't go back - "How showwhat can only
be found, teach what can only be learned?” Buddha replies –
“Some will understand.”

25. Mission
• Lives message
• Preaches 50 years - withdraws
–6 yrs, preaches 45.
–3 mos, preaches 9.
–3x/day
• Dies c.483 B.C. at 80
• Last words - "Work out your
own salvation with diligence."

26. The Silent Sage
• Sakyamuni - silent sage of the Sakya Clan
• “One of the greatest personalities of all time” – Smith
• “Wisdom incarnate” - cool head/ rational (like Socrates)
andwarmheart of “infinite compassion”(like Francis)
• transforming presence - moved among kings and villagers
with equal ease, took no notice of caste

27. The Rebel Saint
Unlike Hinduism, Buddhismsprang fully formed as an Indian
Protestantismagainst Hinduperversions
6 Common Elements of Religion that were corrupted
1. Authority
2. Ritual – (“People dancedout their religionbefore theythought it out”)
3. Speculation– metaphysics
4. Tradition
5. Grace
6. Mystery
What started was a religion almost entirely devoidof eachof these
ingredients without which we would suppose that religion couldnot take
root.

28. Original Buddhism
1. Empirical - know for yourself, validate
2. Scientific- cause andeffect experiments
3. Practical - not speculative
4. Therapeutic - suffering andits end
5. Psychological – v. metaphysical - began with human
problems insteadof universe
6. Egalitarian- women equal, castebreaking
7. Individuals - Be lamps unto yourselves, work out your own
salvation with diligence

29. Numerical too and Useful
• 2 Ways of Living
• 3 Poisons
• 3 Marks of Existence
• 3 Jewels
• 4 Noble Truths
• 4 Foundationsof Mindfulness
• 5 Precepts
• 5 Skandhas
• 5 Hindrances
• 6 Senses
• 6 AccompanyingConsciousnesses
• 6 Moments of Dukkha
• 7 Factorsof Enlightenment
• 8 FoldPath
• 52 Skillful and Unskillful Responses To Life
• "Suffering have I explained - for
this is useful“
• its cause, destruction and path
that leads to its destruction.

30. Kalama Sutta
• "Do not accept what you hear by report, do not accept
tradition, do not accept a statement because it is foundin
our books, nor because it is in accord with your beliefs, not
because it is the saying of your teacher. Be lamps unto
yourselves. Those who either now or after I am dead, still
rely upon themselves only andnot look for assistance to
anyone besides themselves, it is they who will reach the
topmost height.“

31. The Four
Noble Truths
Buddha’s First Sermon

32. Dr. Buddha - Dukkhalogist
1. Symptom: Dukkha – suffering, transitory, finite existence, life out
of joint
2. Diagnosis: Tanha – cause of suffering is desire/selfishcraving
based on egoism. Private fulfillment increases separateness. Tanha
- always present when suffering is present, always absent when
suffering is absent
3. Prognosis: To cure Dukkha, get rid of Tanha - release fromthe
narrowlimits of self-interest into vast expanse of human life –
How?
4. Remedy/Prescription: The EightfoldPath

33. Mindfulness Journal Quick Writes
1. Who do you surroundyourself with? List people who
enlighten you, people who drag you down.
2. Write about a moment you had today when you felt
– Anxious, stressed, nervous, dissatisfied, wanting, etc.
OR
– Peaceful, calm, relaxed, fulfilled, happy, etc.

34. More Mindfulness Journal Quickies
3. Stop andlisten – what are you aware of about yourself or
your surroundings of which you weren’t aware until you
paidattention?
4. What is most on your mind?
5. What are you aware of about yourself or your worldat this
point of your life of which you were not aware as a child?

35. Dukkha = life out of joint
1. Trauma of birth
2. Sickness
3. Aging
4. Fear of death
5. Being tied to what you hate
6. Being separated fromwhat
you love

36. The Remedy - The Eightfold Path
• intentional living, rather than pulled
andpushedby impulse and
circumstance
• series of changes designedto release
the individual fromignorance,
impulse andTanha
• Preliminary - Begin with Right
Association- yoke wildelephant to
tamed

37. The Eightfold Path – Right…
1. Belief – Noble Truths – make up mind, then…
2. Intent - …Make up our hearts, dedicate
3. Speech –3 switches control us, become aware of what our speech reveals about
us, of how manytimes and whywe deviate fromtruthor kindness, of motives
4. Conduct - understandmotives before trying to change behavior - how
generous/selfless, follow 5 Precepts
5. Livelihood - what occupies our time. Promotelife
6. Effort – Middle Way, slow and steady, likean ox
7. Mindfulness – Be aware, awake, conscious
8. Concentration- Raja Yoga regeneration- changeinto a new creature who
experiences the worldin differentway.

38. Five Precepts
Buddhist version of the Ten Commandments (2nd half)
Knowing howdeeply our lives intertwine, I undertake the
training to abstain from:
1. Killing living beings
2. Taking things not given
3. Sexual misconduct
4. False speech
5. Intoxicating drinks anddrugs

39. All in your Mind?
• The Dhammapada: "All we are is the result of what we have
thought." "All things can be masteredby mindfulness.“
• “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it
so” – Hamlet
• For Buddha ignorance, not sin, is the offender - sin is
promptedby fundamental ignorance of our true nature

40. • Continuous self-awareness/examination - freedomfrom
unconscious, robot-like existence
• See everythingas it is - "If we maintain a steady attention to our
thoughts and feelings, we perceive that they swimin and out of our
awareness, and are in no way permanent parts of us…."
• "We shouldwitness all things non-reactively, especially our moods
and emotions, neither condemning some nor holding onto others."

41. Ways to practice Mindfulness
• Meditate on fearful and disgustingsights until they no longer bother
us or repel us
• Pervade worldwiththoughts of loving kindness
• become aware of every action - when sleep takes over, whetherbreath
is in or out
• special routine for complete withdrawal
• Packet page 17 and 18
• Mindfulness Experiment - Speech andAction

42. Buddha's Insights
• 1. Every emotion, thought or image is accompanied by a body sensationand vice
versa
• 2. Obsessive patterns arise in mind and theseconstitutemisery/dukkha
• 3. Every mental and physical state is in flux, none is solid and enduring, even
pain- eachis comprisedof series of discrete sensations that can suddenly
change.
• 4. We have little control over our minds and physical sensations
• 5. There is nobody behindthe mental/physical events
– No Self? No Observer? What up wit dat?

43. 3 Marks of Existence
1. Anicca - transitoriness/impermanence
2. Dukkha – suffering
3. Anatta - absence of permanent identity/soul

44. “All Things Must Pass” by George Harrison
Sunrise doesn’t last all morning
A cloudburst doesn’t last all day
Seems my love has up and has left you with no warning
It’s not always going to be this way
All things must pass
All things must pass away
Sunset doesn’t last all evening
A mind can blow those clouds away
After all this, my love is up and must be leaving
It’s not always going to be this grey

45. Anicca - Impermanence
• All Things Must Pass
• Regardthis world:
“As a star at dawn,
a bubble in a stream,
a flash of lightning
in a summer cloud,
a flickering lamp –
a phantom - anda dream.”
• This applies to the self too – hence:

46. Anatta – No Soul doctrine
• No soul/permanent self. What gets reborn?
• “Badhabits” – Desire/Fear threads each life to past and
future
• No spiritual substance/soul transmitted - but ideas,
impressions, feelings, consciousness, memories
• Desires anddislikes influencing my mindhave lineages
• Not boundby personal history - can break the chainthrough
will

47. Karma, Tanha, Samsara,
• Buddha's reincarnation differedfromHindus who attribute
rebirth to Karma
• Buddhists to Tanha - "as long as the wish to be a separate
self persists, that wish would be granted. Desire is key - it is
possible to step permanently out of the cycle of rebirth
whenever one wishedwholeheartedly to do so."

48. Nirvana?

50. Nirvana
• Arhat who extinguishes all desires - reborn
doesn't apply, not reborn doesn't apply.
• Response to disciple: You ought to be bewildered
- this is "profound, recondite, hard to
comprehend, rare, excellent, beyond dialectic,
subtle, only to be understood by the wise."
• Supra-sonic?
• "blowout/extinguish" boundaries of finite self,
left w/ boundless life

51. • Far transcends the power of words - individual awareness is
eclipsedin the blazing light of total awareness like a star at
sunrise
• "Some say the dewdrop slips intothe shining sea - others
prefer to think of the dewdrop opening to receive the sea itself.“
• "life of the Arhat is of increasing independence fromthe causal
order of nature“
• Spiritual freedombrings largeness of life - Buddha "embodied
more of reality.“
• If increasedfreedombrings increasedbeing, total freedom
brings BEING itself.

52. Big Raft and Little
• Schism (split) btw Mahayana + Theravada
• Two Schools - bothYana - raft or ferry - bothclaim to carry
people across life's shores to enlightenment
• Maha - great, (Mahatma - Great souled), Hina - little
• Mahayana - "Buddhism for the people" - Big Raft - linked to
the Buddha's "Great Renunciation"
• Hinayana - Little Raft - Theravada - Way of the Elders -
linkedto teachings in text

53. “There Are
Two Kinds of
People?”
1. Are peopledependent or interdependent
2. Is the universefriendly/helpful or indifferent/hostile
3. Is the best part of a human being the head or the heart?-Classicists rank
thoughts abovefeelings, Romantics the opposite

54. Theraveda / Hinayana Mahayana
Where Sri Lank, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia China, Korea, Japan, Tibet
How Buddha’s vision of society: Monarchy,
monastic community (Sangha), laity
Grafted onto pre-existent civilizations
Focus Wisdom Compassion
Buddha’s
Example
Entering Nirvana Great Renunciation of Nirvana to preach
The Ideal Arhat – holy monk who remains in Nirvana
after death
Bodhisattva (wisdom being) who passes up
Nirvana and vows to help all beings achieve
enlightenment
Goal Attainment of Nirvana requires constant
attention of monks, support of laity
Religious practice is relevant to everyone

56. Bodhisattva
• One whose Being – (Sattva) is
Illumination – (Bodhi)
• Focus on Buddha’s renunciation of
Nirvana to teach– on his compassion
• Buddha as saint

57. Zen
• School of Buddhist thought and training in
Japan
• Zen = Japanese mispronuncing of
Ch’an = Chinese mispronuncing of
Dhyana = Sanskrit for contemplation
• Special transmission outside scripture –
• from Buddha mindto
Buddha mind – a succession
of teachers

58. The Lotus Sermon • Buddha holds a golden
lotus – understoodby
none except
Mahakayapa – passes
down in India through
28 patriarchs and
carriedto China in 520
A.D. by Bodhidharma

59. Words, Words, Words
• like stepping through Alice's looking glass - topsy-turvy
wonderland
• Designedto break limits of normal human reason/logic, (Logic
is a ladder), to blast throughlimitations of language – words
are inadequate,
• Beyondwords andideas to experiences and realization
(Enlightenment) =
• Satori

60. Three aspects of Zen
Training
• 1. Zazen – seated
meditation
• 2. Koan – logic-breaking
riddles
• 3. Sanzen – conference
with master – validates,
encourages, corrects

61. Koan
• shortest one night, longest 12 years.
• “What is the soundof one handclapping?”
• Reason is limited, a ladder too short to reach to truth’s full
heights and must be supportedby another way of knowing
• Zen intends to upset the mind, unbalance it and eventually
provoke revolt against limits of logic. Koan provokes,
excites, exasperates andeventually exhausts the mind,
reducing it to an impasse – must count on a sudden flash
of insight

62. Satori - Enlightenment
• See “being’s amazingness”
“eachequally a manifestation of
the infinite” – trees, leaves, *%#@stick
• Life is Beautiful
Jewel is in the Lotus, (X in O)
• Unity of Buddha nature within
w/ Nirvanic worldwithout
• “widen the doors of perception so that the wonder of the Satori
experience can floodthe everyday world.”

63. Zen’s Influence on Japan
• Landscape painting
• Landscape gardening –
rock gardens
• Martial arts
• Tea Ceremony
• Haiku

64. Haiku
I look in a dragonfly’s eye
And see the mountains
Over my shoulder
The flower I saw
Drift back to the branch
Was a butterfly

65. Conduits
• Exp. of oneness with all,
bliss thruself-emptying, transformative
experience of seeing world differently
• “The Art of Attention”
• Kobe, Curt, Caddyshack, Karate Kid
• “Love, and do what you will” – St.
Augustine
• If you can’t findenlightenment in
doingthe dishes…

66. Tibetan Buddhism
• Mandala

67. • Nirvana in single life-use all hum. energies
• Sounds, sights, motion candistract, but it doesn’t follow that
they must.
• Channel physical energies into currents that carry spirit
forwardinsteadof derailing it.
1. Mantras – convert noise anddistracting chatter into holy
formulae
2.Mudras – choreographedhandgestures
3.Mandalas – treat the eyes to icons whose holy beauty draws
the beholder in their direction

68. Mantra
• Om Mane Padme Hung
• The Jewel is in the Lotus
• Also a form of the name for the
Bodhisattva of compassion
Prayer
Flags

69. The Dalai Lama
• Bodhisattva – not pope or god-
king
• Incarnates compassion
• Uninterrupted current of spiritual
influence –
• “As rainforests are to the earth’s
atmosphere, someone has said, so
are the Tibetan people to the
human spirit in this time of its
planetary ordeal” (144).

70. The Three Jewels (Vows)
1. I take refuge in the Buddha
2. I take refuge in the Dharma (8-fold path)
3. I take refuge in the Sangha (community of Buddhists)

71. The Crossing
• After reaching the other shore – leave raft, 5 precepts, 8fold path, dukkha,
karma, nirvana – all vital to those crossing, but lose relevance to thosewho
havearrivedas a raft does on land.
• World is an activity of Nirvanaitself – not the slightest distinction exists
betweenthem
• good and evil disappear
• Earthis the lotus land, this body is Buddha’s
• Bodhisattva’s vow not to enter Nirvana “until the grass itself be enlightened.”
• River connects the banks, rather than divides them
• Buddhismprominent in all Asian landsexcept India, whichsubsumed it,
Buddhismsank back intothe stream

72. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Vietnamese Zen Monk
• Nominated by MLK in
1967 for Nobel Peace Prize
for work rebuilding
villages destroyed in
Vietnam War