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Bud·dhism (bū'dĭz'əm, bʊd'ĭz'-)  |
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Buddhism |
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| Philosophy Dictionary: Buddhism |
The philosophical system formed in India in the 5th century BC by Siddhartha Gautama (usually 563-483 BC; an alternative date of death based on Chinese sources is 368 BC), the Buddha or enlightened one. Buddhism teaches salvation through escape from samsara, the endless cycle of birth and rebirth The state of Enlightenment or nirvana is a state of liberation from the passions and frustrations of ordinary living, a radiant state of living in the present, obtained by following the Way, or the eightfold path Two main kinds of Buddhism are recognized. Theravada (or Hinayana, lesser vehicle) Buddhism is found mainly in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka. Mahayana Buddhism is found in Nepal and the countries surrounding and including China. Theravada Buddhism is conservative and simple in its forms; Mahayana or greater vehicle Buddhism includes more elaborate rituals, scriptures, and a gallery of saints (bodhisattvas).
The Buddha's own awakening came with realization that neither the way of meditation, nor that of asceticism, provides a way to awareness of a ‘Self’ conceived of as a permanent, unchanging object of yogic contemplation (see atman). Buddhism therefore rejects the desire to constitute oneself as a single ego or self, on which point it is sometimes acknowledged as a precursor of the bundle theory and the no-ownership theory of the self. Rejecting this desire is the beginning of enlightenment. Buddhism rejects any concept of permanent substance, either mental or physical, in favour of a metaphysics of transient states and events. It equally rejects anything resembling the god of monotheistic religions. Philosophically however Buddhism, as much as Christianity, has a long history of diverse schools, representing different attitudes to reality, mind, scepticism, and experience. See also atman, four noble truths, eightfold path, madhyamika, yogacara, Zen.
| Buddhism Dictionary: Buddhism |
Western term which became established in popular usage in the 1830s to refer to the teachings of the Buddha. There is no direct equivalent for this term in Sanskrit or Pāli. Instead, indigenous sources use terms like Dharma (‘the Law’), Buddha-dharma (‘Buddhist doctrine’), Buddha-śāsana (‘teachings of the Buddha’) and Buddhavacana (‘the word of the Buddha’).
| Asian Mythology: Buddhism |
For some, Buddhism is a religion. For others it is a philosophy or a culture. There are so many kinds of Buddhism and so many contradictions within the overall tradition that it is almost impossible to define, but there are important common threads. The so-called “Three Jewels” (Triratna)—Buddha (see Buddha, Gautama Buddha), dharma (see Dharma), and saṇgha—are essential elements for Buddhists. In most sects there is the presence of certain of the teachings or concepts of Gautama Buddha, the Buddha Sākyamuni, who lived in Nepal and India some 2,500 years ago. Of primary importance to these teachings are śūnyatā, the sense of selflessness achieved by way of inner searching—often in a monastic setting—and a goal of nirvāna (see Nirvāna), or Enlightenment. Dharma, or proper behavior and truth, in the Buddhist world is manifested in the life and teachings of the Buddha. Saṇgha, or “community,” is the holy community of Buddhists, a place of spiritual refuge. Saṇgha can refer to a community of nuns or monks or to any group of devoted and spiritually committed Buddhists. At the basis of saṇgha are the “Four Noble Truths” of the Buddha's teaching. These are (1) the acceptance of dukkha, or transience and the suffering which comes with it; (2) the realization that it is tanhā, or the “thirst” for permanence that leads to suffering; (3) the understanding that by eliminating taṇha, dukkha can be overcome and nirvāna achieved; and (4) the AṣṠgika-mārga, or “Eightfold Path” to the elimination of taṇha taught by the Buddha in the first sermon after his Enlightenment.
The Eightfold Path contains the elements necessary to Enlightenment. These are (1) perfected understanding of the Four Noble Truths; (2) non-attachment; (3) perfected speech; (4) perfected conduct; (5) the pursuit of livelihood in such a way as to do no harm to others; (6) the production of good karma (see Karman); (7) the development of meditative mindfulness; and (8) perfected concentration.
A major division between Buddhists centers around the question of boddhisatvas (see Boddhisattva) and whether emphasis should fall on the individual salvation or that of the larger society. There are two major paths or “vehicles” (yāna) in Buddhism. The older Hīnayāna (see Hīnayāna Buddhism) or “Lesser Vehicle,” so termed by the reformist Mahāyāna (see Mahāyāna Buddhism) or “Larger Vehicle” group, is represented, for instance, by the Theravāda (see Theravāda Buddhism) and Sarvāstivāda sects which developed in India before the Common Era and have spread to various parts of the Asian continent. The Hīnayāna approach stresses the ideal of the arhat (see Arhat), the enlightened one who has attained nirvāna. The Mahayana groups stress the ideal of the bodhisattva, not as the earlier stages of Gautama Buddha's movement toward Enlightenment, but as the person concerned with achieving Buddhahood only in some distant eon as he works compassionately in this world for the salvation of others. It should be noted that within the larger divisions of Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna exist many diverse understandings and doctrinal divisions.
The original literature of Hīnayāna Buddhism is written primarily in the Middle India dialect of Sanskrit called Pāli (see Pāli). The Pāli Abhidhamma PiṠaka, for instance contains sermons (suttas) and Theravādan doctrine. The primary Mahāyāna scriptural form is the sūtra (sermon of the Buddha), which is traditionally recited or chanted as a form of worship. The best known of the sūtras is probably The Lotus Sūtra (the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra), which has a strong narrative aspect and stresses the relationship of all people to the deeds of the Buddha himself.
More esoteric forms of Buddhism include the Tantric tradition (see Tantric entries) and Zen Buddhism (see Zen Buddhism). Tantric Buddhism is influenced by Brahamanism (see Brahmanism) and is concerned with yogic (see Yoga) paths to salvation stressed in rituals and in texts called tantras. Zen, primarily practiced in Japan, developed from Chinese Ch'an Buddhism and emphasizes meditation rather than the worship of idols.
The myths of Buddhism are associated with the life of Gautama Buddha and are found primarily in the Pāli-language canon of the Theravāda tradition in first century BCE Sri Lanka, although stories have emerged from other traditions as well.
| US History Encyclopedia: Buddhism |
By 2002 Buddhism had become highly visible in many countries outside of Asia. Although it never became nearly as popular as in Asia, by the 1990s Buddhism's influence on America was visible in the arts, in the steadily increasing number of converts and Buddhist institutions, and in the growing recognition of Buddhist groups as participants in the multireligious composition of U.S. society. In each Asian culture, it generally took many centuries for Buddhism to acculturate. In contrast, in the West, attempts to create adapted, regionalized forms of Buddhism occurred at a much faster pace. New schools and lineages additionally pluralized the spectrum of Buddhist traditions present in Western countries.
History
The origin of Buddhism in America can be traced to Chinese immigrants who began to appear on the West Coast in the 1840s. By 1852, around 20,000 Chinese were present in California, and within a decade, nearly one-tenth of the state's population was Chinese.
Japanese Buddhism developed more slowly in America than the Chinese form, but had much greater impact. By 1890, the Japanese population in the United States was barely 2,000. The World Parliament of Religion, held in 1893, radically changed the landscape for Japanese Buddhism in America. Among the participants was a Rinzai Zen monk, Shaku So[UNK]en, who returned to America in 1905, lecturing in several cities, and establishing a basic ground for the entry of Zen. Upon his return to Japan in 1906, three of his students were selected to promote Rinzai in America: Nyo[UNK]gen Senzaki, Shaku So[UNK]katsu, and Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki.
Rinzai was one of several Zen traditions to develop in America. So[UNK]to[UNK] Zen began to appear in America in the 1950s, and by the mid-1950s, Soyu Matsuoka Ro[UNK]shi had established the Chicago Buddhist Temple. Shunryu Suzuki Ro[UNK]shi arrived in San Francisco in 1959, founding the San Francisco Zen Center shortly thereafter. His (mostly Western) successors continued the So[UNK]to[UNK] lineage. Another form of Zen that took root in America attempts to harmonize the major doctrines and practices of each school into a unified whole. Proponents of this approach include Taizan Maezumi Ro[UNK]shi (who arrived in 1956), Hakuun Yasutani Ro[UNK]shi (who first visited the United States in 1962), and Philip Kapleau. Also significant are Robert Aitken Ro[UNK]shi, who founded the Diamond Sangha in Hawaii in 1959, Eido[UNK] Shimano Ro[UNK]shi, who first came to the United States as a translator for Yasutani Ro[UNK]shi, and Joshu Sasaki Ro[UNK]shi, who founded the Cimarron Zen Center in Los Angeles in 1968 and the Mt. Baldy Zen Center three years later.
Zen was not the only Japanese Buddhist tradition to make an appearance in America before the turn of the twentieth century. In 1899 two Japanese missionaries were sent to San Francisco to establish the Buddhist Mission of North America, an organization associated with the Pure Land school of Japanese Buddhism. Reincorporated in 1944 as the Buddhist Churches of America, it remains one of the most stable Buddhist communities in North America.
In the 1960s, another form of Japanese Buddhism, now known as So[UNK]ka Gakkai International-USA, appeared on the American landscape, and by 1974 it boasted over 200,000 members. This group grew out of the So[UNK]ka Gakkai movement in Japan, a nonmeditative form of Buddhism that based its teachings on the thirteenth century figure Nichiren (1222–1282). Although the group splintered in the late twentieth century, it remained a formidable Buddhist presence in America, having become extremely attractive to European American and African American Buddhists.
At the same time the Chinese were once again making their presence visible in American Buddhism. One notable addition was a largely monastic group known as the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, created by a venerable monk named Hsüan-Hua. Of even larger size was the Hsi-Lai Temple outside Los Angeles, founded in 1978, and eventually offering a wide variety of Buddhist teachings and services. By 2002 Chinese Buddhist groups could be found in virtually every major metropolitan area.
The Buddhist culture to enter America most recently is the Tibetan. Although a few Tibetan Buddhist groups appeared in the West prior to 1960, the majority came after China's invasion and occupation of their country. Communities from each of the four major Tibetan sects can now be found in America. The Tibetan groups were the most colorful of all the Buddhist groups prospering in late twentieth century America, possessing a rich tradition of Buddhist art and a powerful psychological approach to mental health. In the early 2000s they continued to grow rapidly.
The final sectarian tradition to be considered is that of the Therava[UNK]da. Most recently, groups from Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar migrated to the United States to escape the economic and political uncertainty of their native countries. Therava[UNK]da temples sprang up in the Southeast Asian enclaves of major cities. The Therava[UNK]dabased Vipassana[UNK] movement became the most attractive form of this tradition among Euro-Americans.
Institutional Issues
Five areas of institutional concern can be outlined in the American Buddhist tradition: ethnicity, practice, democratization, engagement, and adaptation. Two questions help to contextualize these mutually influencing issues: first, how Buddhist identity is determined, and finally, the degree to which ecumenicity might play a role in providing a unifying instrument for the exceedingly diverse spectrum of Buddhist traditions in North America.
Who is a Buddhist? Identifying and quantifying American Buddhists has been an important issue. By the mid-1990s, scholars estimated the American Buddhist population to be four to five million. Although there were many possible methods of determining Buddhist identity in America, the most accepted approach was that of self identification. This approach allowed each group to be counted regardless of how they interpreted and practiced Buddhism.
Ethnicity. One late twentieth century attempt to quantify the American Buddhist population estimated that of the total Buddhist population in the United States, perhaps 800,000 were Euro-American convert Buddhists. This suggested that the vast majority of Buddhists in America were Asian immigrants. The relationship between Asian American Buddhists and converted Buddhists was tenuous.
Practice. There was no disagreement among researchers that Asian immigrant Buddhist communities and American convert communities engaged in significantly different expressions of Buddhist practice. The general consensus was that American converts gravitate toward the various meditation traditions, while Asian immigrants maintain practices consistent with ritual activity or Pure Land observance.
Democratization. While Asian Buddhism was, for the most part, primarily hierarchical and highly authoritarian, the forms of American Buddhism that developed in the late twentieth century underwent a process of democratization. It could be observed in changing patterns of authority in the various Buddhist sanghas, or communities, highlighted by a reevaluation of the relationship between the monastic and lay communities. Second, democratization could be witnessed in changing gender roles in American Buddhism, especially in the prominence of women. Finally, it could be seen in the manner in which individuals pursuing a nontraditional lifestyle, particularly with regard to sexual preferences, found a meaningful role in American Buddhist communities.
Engagement. "Socially engaged Buddhism" has application to a wide variety of general human rights issues, such as antiviolence and environmental concerns, but also to the lives of individual Buddhists. The greatest challenge for socially engaged Buddhism in the West is organizational. In the early 2000s, it was far less developed in its organizational patterns and strategies than its Christian or Jewish counterparts. Nonetheless, an exciting array of activities could be documented in the records of the individual American Buddhist communities.
Adaptation. Perhaps the one issue that dominated the early comprehensive books on American Buddhism was adaptation or acculturation. As one early researcher asked, "Is there a characteristically American style of Buddhism?" Some North American Buddhists were concerned about the implications of altering the Buddhist tradition in the name of adaptation. American Buddhism has created, in addition to its distinct practices, a series of enterprises that Asian Buddhism never imagined: residential communities, businesses, farms, hospices, publishing companies, meditation products, cottage industries, and the like. Critics worried that these innovations represented a distraction from the purpose of Buddhist practice.
Ecumenicism. In each of the issues cited above, it is possible to discern the need for cooperative discussions between American Buddhists of all traditions. In July 1987, a conference on world Buddhism in North America was sponsored by the Zen Lotus Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It included a wide variety of talks, panel discussions, and meetings in an effort to bring together representatives of the Buddhist traditions in America to work together toward common goals. In the end, they sought to create a protective umbrella under which the issues of ethnicity, practice, democratization, engagement, and adaptation could be addressed productively, ushering in a successful future for the Buddhist movement in America.
Bibliography
Morreale, Don, ed. The Complete Guide to Buddhist America. Boston: Shambhala, 1998.
Prebish, Charles S. Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Prebish, Charles S. and Kenneth K. Tanaka, eds. The Faces of Buddhism in America. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1998.
Seager, Richard. Buddhism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Williams, Duncan Ryu[UNK]ken and Christopher S. Queen, eds. American Buddhism: Methods and Findings in Recent Scholar-ship. Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1999.
—Charles Prebish
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Buddhism |
Basic Beliefs and Practices
The basic doctrines of early Buddhism, which remain common to all Buddhism, include the “four noble truths”: existence is suffering (dukhka); suffering has a cause, namely craving and attachment (trishna); there is a cessation of suffering, which is nirvana; and there is a path to the cessation of suffering, the “eightfold path” of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Buddhism characteristically describes reality in terms of process and relation rather than entity or substance.
Experience is analyzed into five aggregates (skandhas). The first, form (rupa), refers to material existence; the following four, sensations (vedana), perceptions (samjna), psychic constructs (samskara), and consciousness (vijnana), refer to psychological processes. The central Buddhist teaching of non-self (anatman) asserts that in the five aggregates no independently existent, immutable self, or soul, can be found. All phenomena arise in interrelation and in dependence on causes and conditions, and thus are subject to inevitable decay and cessation. The casual conditions are defined in a 12-membered chain called dependent origination (pratityasamutpada) whose links are: ignorance, predisposition, consciousness, name-form, the senses, contact, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, old age, and death, whence again ignorance.
With this distinctive view of cause and effect, Buddhism accepts the pan-Indian presupposition of samsara, in which living beings are trapped in a continual cycle of birth-and-death, with the momentum to rebirth provided by one's previous physical and mental actions (see karma). The release from this cycle of rebirth and suffering is the total transcendence called nirvana.
From the beginning, meditation and observance of moral precepts were the foundation of Buddhist practice. The five basic moral precepts, undertaken by members of monastic orders and the laity, are to refrain from taking life, stealing, acting unchastely, speaking falsely, and drinking intoxicants. Members of monastic orders also take five additional precepts: to refrain from eating at improper times, from viewing secular entertainments, from using garlands, perfumes, and other bodily adornments, from sleeping in high and wide beds, and from receiving money. Their lives are further regulated by a large number of rules known as the Pratimoksa. The monastic order (sangha) is venerated as one of the “three jewels,” along with the dharma, or religious teaching, and the Buddha. Lay practices such as the worship of stupas (burial mounds containing relics) predate Buddhism and gave rise to later ritualistic and devotional practices.
Early Buddhism
India during the lifetime of the Buddha was in a state of religious and cultural ferment. Sects, teachers, and wandering ascetics abounded, espousing widely varying philosophical views and religious practices. Some of these sects derived from the Brahmanical tradition (see Hinduism), while others opposed the Vedic and Upanishadic ideas of that tradition. Buddhism, which denied both the efficacy of Vedic ritual and the validity of the caste system, and which spread its teachings using vernacular languages rather than Brahmanical Sanskrit, was by far the most successful of the heterodox or non-Vedic systems. Buddhist tradition tells how Siddhartha Gautama, born a prince and raised in luxury, renounced the world at the age of 29 to search for an ultimate solution to the problem of the suffering innate in the human condition. After six years of spiritual discipline he achieved the supreme enlightment and spent the remaining 45 years of his life teaching and establishing a community of monks and nuns, the sangha, to continue his work.
After the Buddha's death his teachings were orally transmitted until the 1st cent. B.C., when they were first committed to writing (see Buddhist literature; Pali). Conflicting opinions about monastic practice as well as religious and philosophical issues, especially concerning the analyses of experience elaborated as the systems of Abhidharma, probably caused differing sects to flourish rapidly. Knowledge of early differences is limited, however, because the earliest extant written version of the scriptures (1st cent. A.D.) is the Pali canon of the Theravada school of Sri Lanka. Although the Theravada [doctrine of the elders] is known to be only one of many early Buddhist schools (traditionally numbered at 18), its beliefs as described above are generally accepted as representative of the early Buddhist doctrine. The ideal of early Buddhism was the perfected saintly sage, arahant or arhat, who attained liberation by purifying self of all defilements and desires.
The Rise of Mahayana Buddhism
The positions advocated by Mahayana [great vehicle] Buddhism, which distinguishes itself from the Theravada and related schools by calling them Hinayana [lesser vehicle], evolved from other of the early Buddhist schools. The Mahayana emerges as a definable movement in the 1st cent. B.C., with the appearance of a new class of literature called the Mahayana sutras. The main philosophical tenet of the Mahayana is that all things are empty, or devoid of self-nature (see sunyata). Its chief religious ideal is the bodhisattva, which supplanted the earlier ideal of the arahant, and is distinguished from it by the vow to postpone entry into nirvana (although meriting it) until all other living beings are similarly enlightened and saved.
The bodhisattva is an actual religious goal for lay and monastic Buddhists, as well as the name for a class of celestial beings who are worshiped along with the Buddha. The Mahayana developed doctrines of the eternal and absolute nature of the Buddha, of which the historical Buddha is regarded as a temporary manifestation. Teachings on the intrinsic purity of consciousness generated ideas of potential Buddhahood in all living beings. The chief philosophical schools of Indian Mahayana were the Madhyamika, founded by Nagarjuna (2d cent. A.D.), and the Yogacara, founded by the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu (4th cent. A.D.). In this later Indian period, authors in different schools wrote specialized treatises, Buddhist logic was systematized, and the practices of Tantra came into prominence.
The Spread of Buddhism
In the 3d cent. B.C. the Indian emperor Asoka greatly strengthened Buddhism by his support and sent Buddhist missionaries as far afield as Syria. In succeeding centuries, however, the Hindu revival initiated the gradual decline of Buddhism in India. The invasions of the White Huns (6th cent.) and the Muslims (11th cent.) were also significant factors behind the virtual extinction of Buddhism in India by the 13th cent.
In the meantime, however, its beliefs had spread widely. Sri Lanka was converted to Buddhism in the 3d cent. B.C., and Buddhism has remained its national religion. After taking up residence in Sri Lanka, the Indian Buddhist scholar Buddhaghosa (5th cent. A.D.) produced some of Theravada Buddhism's most important scholastic writings. In the 7th cent. Buddhism entered Tibet, where it has flourished, drawing its philosophical influences mainly from the Madhyamika, and its practices from the Tantra.
Buddhism came to SE Asia in the first five centuries A.D. All Buddhist schools were initially established, but the surviving forms today are mostly Theravada. About the 1st cent. A.D. Buddhism entered China along trade routes from central Asia, initiating a four-century period of gradual assimilation. In the 3d and 4th cent. Buddhist concepts were interpreted by analogy with indigenous ideas, mainly Taoist, but the work of the great translators Kumarajiva and Hsüan-tsang provided the basis for better understanding of Buddhist concepts.
The 6th cent. saw the development of the great philosophical schools, each centering on a certain scripture and having a lineage of teachers. Two such schools, the T'ien-t'ai and the Hua-Yen, hierarchically arranged the widely varying scriptures and doctrines that had come to China from India, giving preeminence to their own school and scripture. Branches of Madhyamika and Yogacara were also founded. The two great nonacademic sects were Ch'an or Zen Buddhism, whose chief practice was sitting in meditation to achieve “sudden enlightenment,” and Pure Land Buddhism, which advocated repetition of the name of the Buddha Amitabha to attain rebirth in his paradise.
Chinese Buddhism encountered resistance from Confucianism and Taoism, and opposition from the government, which was threatened by the growing power of the tax-exempt sangha. The great persecution by the emperor Wu-tsung (845) dealt Chinese Buddhism a blow from which it never fully recovered. The only schools that retained vitality were Zen and Pure Land, which increasingly fused with one another and with the native traditions, and after the decline of Buddhism in India, neo-Confucianism rose to intellectual and cultural dominance.
From China and Korea, Buddhism came to Japan. Schools of philosophy and monastic discipline were transmitted first (6th cent.–8th cent.), but during the Heian period (794–1185) a conservative form of Tantric Buddhism became widely popular among the nobility. Zen and Pure Land grew to become popular movements after the 13th cent. After World War II new sects arose in Japan, such as the Soka Gakkai, an outgrowth of the nationalistic sect founded by Nichiren (1222–82), and the Risshokoseikai, attracting many followers.
Bibliography
See H. C. Warren, Buddhism in Translations (1896, repr. 1963); D. T. Suzuki, Zen Buddhism (1956); A. Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History (1959, repr. 1979); E. Conze, Buddhism (1953, repr. 1959), Buddhist Scriptures (1959), and Buddhist Thought in India (1962, repr. 1967); E. Zürcher, Buddhism (1962); K. S. S. Ch'en, Buddhism in China (1964, repr. 1972); W. T. de Bary, The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan (1969); T. Ling, The Buddha (1973); R. Lester, Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia (1973); W. Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (2d ed. 1974); D. and A. Matsunaga, Foundations of Japanese Buddhism (1974–76); S. J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer (1976); L. Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (1976); R. H. Robinson, The Buddhist Religion (3d ed. 1982); and R. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism (1988); J. Ishikawa, The Bodhisattva (1990).
| Food & Culture Encyclopedia: Buddhism |
Buddhism originated in India in the fifth century B.C.E. and from there spread to many lands. The historic Buddha, born around 563 B.C.E., spent most of his eighty years traveling throughout north India preaching the way to salvation by reaching Nirvana and the cessation of rebirths. In some Buddhist traditions, respect for earth deities continues as a reflection of earlier cults of the soil. Animal sacrifices can still be seen in rituals requesting a boon from deities, ancestral spirits, and guardian spirits of localities. Food offerings may be left at stone monuments often containing relics commemorating the life and teachings of the Buddha. But these food practices are not Buddhist.
Buddhism is divided into several branches or ordination traditions. The Mahayana tradition, based on Sanskrit texts, spread into China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. The Buddhism of Tibet, Nepal, and Mongolia is also known as Vajrayana. Theravada Buddhism, "the way of the elders," is the form of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. It is based on Pali texts. More recently, Buddhism has spread to Europe, Australia, and North America, where people are converting in large numbers, partly out of interest in Buddhist meditation practices.
Food Rituals
Food rituals transmit collective and individual messages about religious principles. Religion influences dietary intake by prescribing or proscribing certain foods, providing ritual foods or meals, and reinforcing key cultural and social values. Unlike Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, Buddhism has less rigid dietary laws defining what people can eat and with whom they can dine. However, fasting and feasting are integral parts of most religious traditions, and Buddhism is no exception. The special foods used in the annual cycle of Buddhist holidays and festivals differ by country. Food is both a marker of religious affiliation and a marker of ethnic identity. It is therefore impossible to identify foods as specifically Buddhist, as opposed to Thai Buddhist or Japanese Buddhist, for example.
In rice-growing Asian communities where Buddhism is practiced, food in rituals reflects the rhythms of food production, including its scarcity or abundance during the year. In some countries, it is possible to see a contrast between ascetic approaches to food (for example, during the rains' retreat from July to October) and festive excess (for example, after harvest in November and December).
Food rites mark changes in personal status as well, serving as temporal boundary markers through the life cycle. Special foods may be prepared for birthdays, weddings, funerals, tonsures, and ordinations, for example, particularly if monks officiate. In Theravada traditions, some of these rituals are Brahmanic in origin and feature rice and milk-based dishes. Harvest celebrations also make confections from foods such as rice, peanuts, sugar, sesame seeds, and coconut, possibly related to the sweet offerings of South India, called panchakadjaya (five foods). Puffed rice is used at funerals to symbolize rice that cannot be grown again.
Monastic Traditions
Dietary abstinence relates to a very widespread idea that giving up something desirable increases spiritual potency. In many religious traditions, food refusal also represents a denial of social relationships, a denial of sociability. Fasting is not central to Buddhist practice except for the monastic community. Most Theravada monks eat only once or twice a day, in the early morning and just before noon, as a part of monastic discipline and their dedication to following the path of the Buddha. The Sanskrit term sambhogakaya refers to the monastic practice of eating together. Theravada monks fast after noon and all night, often joined by pious laypersons who partially withdraw from the lay life of the householder on special holidays.
Monks are expected to show moderation and control in all things, including eating. They are warned that wrong mental states easily come to the surface when collecting or eating food. When Theravada monks go on begging rounds, giving people an opportunity to put food into their bowls, they are expected to show no interest in the qualities of the food and even mix the food donations together.
Chinese Buddhism regulates communal meals as part of monastic discipline. Rather than food being collected from begging or donations as in Theravada communities, food in Chinese monasteries is often prepared at the temple by lay devotees. Mahayana monasteries used to grow their own food to provide vegetables for simple meals with rice or rice porridge. Occasionally lay donors might provide a vegetarian feast to celebrate Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and death, or parinibbana, in order to gain merit.
Zen cooking (shojin ryori) is a style of vegetarian cooking developed by Zen monks that acts as an aid to meditation and spiritual life. Food is prepared as a spiritual exercise with attention to balance, harmony, and delicacy. Some Zen and Chinese Mahayana temples practice the three-bowl eating style, making eating a ritual training. The three bowls contain rice, vegetables, and soup. In fact, eating can be a kind of meditation—remembering to let go of evil, to cultivate good deeds, and to save sentient beings—as each food is put into one's mouth. In such events, food is consumed according to need with no waste and no overconsumption.
Theravada Buddhists believe that by feeding monks they obtain religious merit that assures them of a good rebirth. Laypeople advance on the path to Nirvana by striving for moral purity and doing good works, especially by giving food to the monks. People also believe that giving food to the monks transfers merit to the dead. By going to the temple on the holy day and giving food to the monks, people hope to help their dead relatives who may be wandering the earth as hungry ghosts or living in hell.
Food As Metaphor
Food is often used in Buddhist texts to explain complex ideas in an easily understood manner. Buddhism rejects the asceticism of fasting and denial found in many religious traditions. After the Buddha fasted for six years, he rejected the extreme of starvation as a route to salvation. Instead, he used the experience of eating and digesting food as a means to understand the instrumentality of food. The element of heat transmutes food into body during the process of digestion. Thus, eating is an important metaphor for understanding bodily existence and the transformation of matter and substance. Eating literally makes us human and embodies us.
The Buddhist path is the middle way requiring monks and laity to eat to maintain life and nourish the body but not to cling to the sensual pleasures of eating. In this philosophical interpretation, it is not material substances such as food that block salvation but the craving for them. When Buddhists gain right understanding, they can use this analytical knowledge to guide daily life, as well as for meditation. Food as an object of meditation is a metaphor for the foulness of the body. Monks concentrate on the repulsiveness of food in order to reduce their craving for food. The cessation of craving food is equated with the cessation of the body and the end of the cycle of rebirths.
Commensality
For the laity, eating, particularly eating rice, is a means of orienting oneself in relation to all sentient beings whose lives are sustained by food and religion. Reciprocal food giving sustains lay communities as well as the monastic community. In general, Buddhist rituals imbue food with sanctity; the sanctity remains in the food after it has been received by the monks. Communal eating is one means of experiencing Buddhist precepts and concepts in a direct and sensory way.
In some Buddhist communities, members of the laity serve monks and the community by preparing and serving food from a communal kitchen. Mahayana services and ritual events are likely to be vegetarian. Most Chinese gods and goddesses are presumed to be vegetarian, but they may be offered meat in an attempt to provide the best, most valued food. Chinese Buddhism honors a number of deities, such as Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. A home altar might contain incense, flowers, tea, and fruit to be consumed later. The Kitchen Goddess helps one eat and drink healthily, and representations of her may be seen in household and restaurant kitchens.
Food given to Chinese deities is considered blessed; its essence is consumed by gods and Buddhas before it is eaten by the worshipers. Following chanting services in many temples, a communal meal is served, which may include beans, bean sprouts, vegetables, fruit, and always rice for prosperity.
Food Distribution in Theravada Communities
Four times in the lunar month, or weekly, the following practices might be seen repeated in Theravada communities throughout the rural areas of Southeast Asia. On a holy day, people bring such food as rice and dishes to eat with rice to the temple. Although the food is the best a household can prepare, people bringing the food cannot taste or even smell the food. A true gift that will gain religious merit must be well intentioned, and only by denying themselves even the smell of the food will the offering bear fruit. The monks chant to accept the food and confer blessings on those who have given food.
At the end of the morning service, after the monks have eaten, the laypeople consume the remaining food offered to the monks. By giving to monks who must follow rules of celibacy and denial, religious merit is increased at a greater rate. Generally, everyone who participates in the service shares in consuming the food that has been accepted or blessed by the monks. Even those who have not contributed food are actively encouraged to share the meal, as if the sharing of food may cause the intention to give generously to arise among all partaking of the meal. Following the meal, participants share the merit accrued from feeding monks with all sentient beings.
Buddhism and Vegetarianism
Buddhism in North America is widely associated with vegetarianism, although not all Buddhists are vegetarian and vegetarianism is not part of canonical Buddhism. This association with Buddhism developed because the key principles of Buddhism include ahimsa, or nonviolence and the avoidance of suffering. Theravada Buddhists in Southeast Asia are not generally vegetarian, although their daily meals may not include much meat. Meat dishes are even given to monks since meat is not explicitly forbidden to them by the rules of monastic conduct. Buddhist texts such as the Majjhirma Nikaya refer to the Buddha eating the proper proportion of curry to rice, experiencing flavor but not greed for flavor.
As more Westerners become Buddhist and as more Buddhist immigrants and refugees settle in North American and European cities, Buddhist vegetarian restaurants have prospered, offering devotees and secular vegetarians an opportunity to consume food exemplifying the Buddhist principle of nonviolence. Practicing Buddhist chefs prepare vegetarian feasts for events such as meditation retreats and cater meals for vegetarian practitioners and health-conscious diners. They may also perform dana, or selfless giving, by providing free food to the hungry.
Values of reciprocity and sharing are extremely important to Buddhists. In the strongly individualized and materialistic communities of North America, it is particularly difficult to maintain models of generosity and reciprocity. Commensality—the shared meal of Buddhist merit makers—is a model of reciprocity, redistribution, and generosity. The act of eating together and sharing each other's food is a concrete and reliable means of establishing a moral community where people know they can develop relations of trust with others and cooperate in joint activities within the domain of religion and in other domains.
Bibliography
Khare, Ravindra S. The Eternal Food: Gastronomic Ideas and Experiences of Hindus and Buddhists. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.
McLellan, Janet. Many Petals of the Lotus: Five Asian Buddhist Communities in Toronto. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Van Esterik, Penny. "Feeding Their Faith: Recipe Knowledge among Thai Buddhist Women." Food and Foodways 1 (1986): 197–215.
Van Esterik, Penny. Taking Refuge: Lao Buddhists in North America. Tempe: Arizona State University, Program for Southeast Asian Studies; Toronto: York Lanes Press, Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, 1992.
Warren, Henry Clarke. Buddhism in Translations. New York: Atheneum, 1969. Original ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1896.
—Penny Van Esterik
| Quotes About: Buddhism |
Quotes:
"Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
"Our civilization, bequeathed to us by fierce adventurers, eaters of meat and hunters, is so full of hurry and combat, so busy about many things which perhaps are of no importance, that it cannot but see something feeble in a civilization which smiles as it refuses to make the battlefield the test of excellence."
- James Joyce
"A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality."
- W. Winwood Reade
| The Dream Encyclopedia: Buddhism |
Buddhism is one of the great religions of the world, third in size (in terms of number of adherents) after Christianity and Islam. Originating as a splinter sect from Hinduism (much as Christianity began as an outgrowth of Judaism), Buddhism spread throughout Asia, all but disappearing in India, the land of its birth. Buddhism shares many of its basic notions, such as the doctrine of reincarnation, with Hinduism.
As in other areas of the world, Asians have speculated extensively about the significance of dreams, often coming to much the same conclusion as other cultures. Certain dreams, for instance, have often been regarded as messages from the gods. In Buddhism, which claims no supreme divinity as such, dreams can nevertheless represent messages from divine agencies.
The earliest Buddhist scriptures, for example, tell the story of how the future Buddha's mother had a dream in which four kings carried her bed to a mountain peak where four queens greeted her with jewels and escorted her to a palace of gold: "A white elephant with six shining ivory tusks appeared and painlessly pierced her side with a thrust of its tusk. She awoke to the song of a blue bird and realized that she had immaculately conceived". This dream was interpreted as signifying that she was pregnant with someone who would become either a world ruler or a world teacher.
Where India outstrips other cultural traditions is in the development of the theme of this life or this world as a kind of dream. According to the mainstream of Hindu religious thought-which was adopted wholesale by Buddhism-the individual soul is trapped in the sufferings involved with life in this world. And because of reincarnation, even death does not release one from this world. In most of the religious traditions of southern Asia, including Buddhism, release or liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth is the ultimate goal of the spiritual life. A metaphor often used to describe the insight that leads directly to liberation is awakening from a dream. However, while certain schools of philosophical Hinduism have argued that this world is literally as insubstantial as a dream, most schools of Buddhist thought have emphasized that this world is as unimportant as a dream.
In the Questions of King Milinda (an early Indian Buddhist work), it is said that the persons who dream are (1) those under the influence of a deity, (2) those who dream under the influence of their experiences, and (3) those with prophetic dreams. This relative sophistication did not carry into the Theravadin tradition, in which dreams generally came to be regarded as the resulting from worldly attachments, and thus as distracting. There was, nevertheless, a distinction drawn between two forms of prophetic dreams auspicious and inauspicious; the former result from the direct influence of a Buddha, and the latter from the unrefined tendencies of human nature. Some of Buddhism's most interesting contributions to dreams and dream lore have been carried out by Tibetan Buddhists (see Yoga and Tibet).
| Wikipedia: Buddhism |
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Four Noble Truths |
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Practices and Attainment |
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Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices considered by most to be a religion[1][2] and is based on the teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as "The Buddha" (the Awakened One), who was born in what is today Nepal.[3][4] He lived and taught in the northeastern region of the Indian subcontinent and most likely died around 400 BCE in what is now modern India.[5]
Buddhists recognize him as an awakened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end their suffering by understanding the true nature of phenomena, thereby escaping the cycle of suffering and rebirth (saṃsāra), that is, achieving Nirvana. Among the methods various schools of Buddhism apply towards this goal are: ethical conduct and altruistic behaviour, devotional practices, ceremonies and the invocation of bodhisattvas, renunciation of worldly matters, cultivating continuous mindfulness, meditation, physical exercises, study, and the cultivation of wisdom.
Buddhism is broadly recognized as being composed of two major branches:
While Buddhism remains most popular within these regions of Asia, both branches are now found throughout the world.
Buddhist schools disagree on what the historical teachings of the Gautama Buddha were, so much so that some scholars claim Buddhism does not have a clearly definable common core.[6] Significant disagreement also exists over the importance and canonicity of various scriptures.
Various sources put the number of Buddhists in the world between 230 million and 500 million.[7][8][9][10]
Contents |
The following information about Buddha's life comes from the Tipitaka (other scriptures, such as the Lalitavistara Sutra, give differing accounts).
Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, was born in the city of Lumbini around the year 485 BCE and was raised in Kapilavastu.[11][12] Moments after birth, according to the scriptures, he performed the first of several miracles, taking a few steps and proclaiming, "Supreme am I in the world. Greatest am I in the world. Noblest am I in the world. This is my last birth. Never shall I be reborn."[13]
Shortly thereafter, a wise man visited his father, King Śuddhodana. The wise man said that Siddhartha would either become a great king (chakravartin) or a holy man (Sadhu) based on whether he saw life outside of the palace walls. Determined to make Siddhartha a king, Śuddhodana shielded his son from the unpleasant realities of daily life. Years after this, Gautama married Yasodhara, with whom he had a son, Rahula, who later became a Buddhist monk.
At the age of 29, Siddhartha ventured outside the palace complex several times, despite his father's wishes. As a result, he discovered the suffering of his people through encounters with an old man, a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These are known among Buddhists as "The Four Sights",[14] one of the first contemplations of Siddhartha. The Four Sights eventually prompted Gautama to abandon royal life and take up a spiritual quest to free himself from suffering by living the life of a mendicant ascetic—a respectable spiritual practice at the time. He found companions with similar spiritual goals and teachers who taught him various forms of meditation, including jhāna.
Ascetics practised many forms of self-denial, including severe undereating. One day, after almost starving to death, Gautama accepted a little milk and rice from a village girl named Sujata. After this experience, he concluded that ascetic practices such as fasting, holding one's breath, and exposure to pain brought little spiritual benefit. He viewed them as counterproductive due to their reliance on self-hatred and mortification.[15] He abandoned asceticism, concentrating instead on anapanasati meditation (awareness of breathing), thereby discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, a path of moderation between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.
After discovering the Middle Way, he sat under a sacred fig tree, also known as the Bodhi tree, in the town of Bodh Gaya, India, and vowed not to rise before achieving Nirvana. At age 35, after many days of meditation, he attained his goal of becoming a Buddha. After his spiritual awakening he attracted a band of followers and instituted a monastic order. He spent the rest of his life teaching the Dharma, travelling throughout the northeastern part of the Indian subcontinent.[16][17] He died at the age of 80 (405 BCE) in Kushinagar, India.
Scholars are increasingly hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of Gautama Buddha's life.[18] According to Michael Carrithers, while there are good reasons to doubt the traditional account, "the outline of the life must be true: birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death."[19] Most historians accept that he lived, taught and founded a monastic order, but do not consistently accept most details in his biographies.[20]
Karma (from Sanskrit: action, work)[21] is the energy which drives Saṃsāra, the cycle of suffering and rebirth for each being. Good, skillful (Pāli: kusala) and bad, unskillful (Pāli: akusala) actions produce "seeds" in the mind which come to fruition either in this life or in a subsequent rebirth.[22] The avoidance of unwholesome actions and the cultivation of positive actions is called Śīla (from Sanskrit: ethical conduct).
In Buddhism, Karma specifically refers to those actions (of body, speech, and mind) that spring from mental intent (Pāli: cetana),[23] and which bring about a consequence (or fruit, Sanskrit: phala)[24] or result (Pāli: vipāka). Every time a person acts there is some quality of intention at the base of the mind and it is that quality rather than the outward appearance of the action that determines its effect.
In Theravada Buddhism there is no divine salvation or forgiveness for one's Karma. Some Mahayana traditions hold different views. For example, the texts of certain Sutras (such as the Lotus Sutra, the Angulimaliya Sutra and the Nirvana Sutra) claim that reciting or merely hearing their texts can expunge great swathes of negative Karma. Similarly, the Japanese Pure Land teacher Genshin taught that Buddha Amitabha has the power to destroy the Karma that would otherwise bind one in Saṃsāra.[25][26]
Rebirth refers to a process whereby beings go through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, each running from conception[27] to death. It is important to note, however, that Buddhism rejects concepts of a permanent self or an unchanging, eternal soul, as it is called in Christianity or even Hinduism. As there ultimately is no such thing as a self (anatta), rebirth in subsequent existences must rather be understood as the continuation of a dynamic, ever-changing process of "dependent arising" (Pratītyasamutpāda) determined by the laws of cause and effect (Karma) rather than that of one being, "jumping" from one existence to the next.
Each rebirth takes place within one of five realms, according to Theravadins, or six according to other schools.[28][29] These are further subdivided into 31 planes of existence:[30]
Rebirths in some of the higher heavens, known as the Śuddhāvāsa Worlds (Pure Abodes), can be attained only by anāgāmis (non-returners). Rebirths in the arupa-dhatu (formless realms) can be attained only by those who can meditate on the arupa-jhānas.
According to East Asian and Tibetan Buddhism, there is an intermediate state between one life and the next, but Theravada rejects this.[33]
Sentient beings crave pleasure and are averse to pain from birth to death. In being controlled by these attitudes, they perpetuate the cycle of conditioned existence and suffering (Samsara), and produce the causes and conditions of the next rebirth after death. Each rebirth repeats this process in an involuntary cycle, which Buddhists strive to end by eradicating these causes and conditions, applying the methods laid out by the Buddha.
According to the Pali Tipitaka, the Four Noble Truths were the first teaching of Gautama Buddha after attaining Nirvana.[34] They are sometimes considered as containing the essence of the Buddha's teachings and are presented in the manner of a medical diagnosis and remedial prescription – a style common at that time:
Described by early Western scholars, and taught as an introduction to Buddhism by some contemporary Mahayana teachers (e.g., the Dalai Lama).[35]
According to other interpretations by Buddhist teachers and scholars, lately recognized by some Western non-Buddhist scholars,[36] the "truths" do not represent mere statements, but are categories or aspects that most worldly phenomena fall into, grouped in two:
Thus, according to the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism[37] they are
The early teaching[38] and the traditional Theravada understanding[39] is that the Four Noble Truths are an advanced teaching for those who are ready for them. The Mahayana position is that they are a preliminary teaching for people not yet ready for the higher and more expansive Mahayana teachings.[40] They are little known in the Far East.[41]
The Noble Eightfold Path, the fourth of the Buddha's Noble Truths, is the way to the cessation of suffering (dukkha). It has eight sections, each starting with the word samyak (Sanskrit, meaning correctly, properly, or well,[42] frequently translated into English as right), and presented in three groups:
The practice of the Eightfold Path is understood in two ways, as requiring either simultaneous development (all eight items practiced in parallel), or as a progressive series of stages through which the practitioner moves, the culmination of one leading to the beginning of another.
In the early sources (the four main Nikayas) the Eightfold Path is not generally taught to laypeople, and it is little known in the Far East.[51]
An important guiding principle of Buddhist practice is the Middle Way, which is said to have been discovered by Gautama Buddha prior to his enlightenment (bodhi). The Middle Way or Middle Path has several definitions:
Buddhist scholars have produced a prodigious quantity of intellectual theories, philosophies and world view concepts (see, e.g., Abhidharma, Buddhist philosophy and Reality in Buddhism). Some schools of Buddhism discourage doctrinal study, some regard it as essential, but most regard it as having a place, at least for some people at some stages. The concept of Liberation (Nirvana), the goal of the Buddhist path, is closely related to the correct perception of reality. In awakening to the true nature of the self and all phenomena one is liberated from the cycle of suffering (Dukkha) and involuntary rebirths (Samsara).
Impermanence is one of the Three Marks of Existence. The term expresses the Buddhist notion that all compounded or conditioned phenomena (things and experiences) are inconstant, unsteady, and impermanent. Everything we can experience through our senses is made up of parts, and its existence is dependent on external conditions. Everything is in constant flux, and so conditions and the thing itself are constantly changing. Things are constantly coming into being, and ceasing to be. Nothing lasts.
According to the impermanence doctrine, human life embodies this flux in the aging process, the cycle of rebirth (samsara), and in any experience of loss. The doctrine further asserts that because things are impermanent, attachment to them is futile and leads to suffering (dukkha).
Suffering or Dukkha (Pāli दुक्ख; Sanskrit दुःख duḥkha; according to grammatical tradition derived from dus-kha "uneasy", but according to Monier-Williams more likely a Prakritized form of dus-stha "unsteady, disquieted") is a central concept in Buddhism, the word roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration.
Although dukkha is often translated as "suffering", its philosophical meaning is more analogous to "disquietude" as in the condition of being disturbed. As such, "suffering" is too narrow a translation with "negative emotional connotations" (Jeffrey Po),[53] which can give the impression that the Buddhist view is one of pessimism, but Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic. Thus in English-language Buddhist literature dukkha is often left untranslated, so as to encompass its full range of meaning.[54][55][56]
Anatta (Pāli) or anātman (Sanskrit) refers to the notion of "not-self". In Indian philosophy, the concept of a self is called ātman (that is, "soul" or metaphysical self), which refers to an unchanging, permanent essence conceived by virtue of existence. This concept and the related concept of Brahman, the Vedantic monistic ideal, which was regarded as an ultimate ātman for all beings, were indispensable for mainstream Indian metaphysics, logic, and science; for all apparent things there had to be an underlying and persistent reality, akin to a Platonic form. Buddhists reject all these concepts of ātman, emphasizing not permanence, but changeability. Therefore all concepts of a substantial personal self are incorrect and formed in the realm of ignorance.
In the Nikayas, anatta is not meant as a metaphysical assertion, but as an approach for gaining release from suffering. In fact, the Buddha rejected both of the metaphysical assertions "I have a Self" and "I have no Self" as ontological views that bind one to suffering.[57] By analyzing the constantly changing physical and mental constituents ("skandhas") of a person or object, the practitioner comes to the conclusion that neither the respective parts nor the person as a whole comprise a Self.
The doctrine of pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit; Pali: paticcasamuppāda; Tibetan: rten.cing.'brel.bar.'byung.ba; Chinese: 緣起), often translated as "Dependent Arising," is an important part of Buddhist metaphysics. It states that phenomena arise together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect. It is variously rendered into English as "dependent origination", "conditioned genesis", "dependent co-arising", "interdependent arising", or "contingency".
The best-known application of the concept of Pratītyasamutpāda is the scheme of Twelve Nidānas (from Pali nidāna "cause, foundation, source or origin"), which explain the continuation of the cycle of suffering and rebirth (Samsara) in detail.[58]
The Twelve Nidānas describe a causal connection between the subsequent characteristics/conditions of cyclic existence, each giving rise to the next:
Sentient beings always suffer throughout samsara, until they free themselves from this suffering by attaining Nirvana. Then the absence of the first Nidāna, ignorance, leads to the absence of the others.
Mahāyāna Buddhism received significant theoretical grounding from Nāgārjuna (perhaps c.150–250 CE), arguably the most influential scholar within the Mahāyāna tradition. Some of the writings attributed to him made explicit references to Mahāyāna texts, but his philosophy was argued within the parameters set out by the agamas. Nāgārjuna asserted that the nature of the dharmas (hence the enlightenment) to be śūnya (void or empty), bringing together other key Buddhist doctrines, particularly anātman (no-self) and pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination). His school of thought is known as the Madhyamaka. He may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the Canon. In the eyes of Nagarjuna the Buddha was not merely a forerunner, but the very founder of the Madhyamaka system.[64]
Sarvāstivāda teaching, which was criticized by Nāgārjuna, was reformulated by scholars such as Vasubandhu and Asaṅga and were adapted into the Yogācāra (Sanskrit: yoga practice) school. While the Madhyamaka school held that asserting the existence or non-existence of any ultimately real thing was inappropriate, some exponents of Yogācāra asserted that the mind and only the mind is ultimately real. Not all Yogācārins asserted that mind was truly existent, Vasubandhu and Asaṅga in particular did not.[65] These two schools of thought, in opposition or synthesis, form the basis of subsequent Mahāyāna metaphysics in the Indo-Tibetan tradition.
In the Mahayana school, emphasis is also often placed on the notions of Emptiness (shunyata), perfected spiritual insight (prajnaparamita) and Buddha-nature (the deathless tathagatagarbha, or Buddha womb, inherent in all beings and creatures). In the tathagatagarbha sutras the Buddha is portrayed proclaiming that the teaching of the tathagatagarbha constitutes the "absolutely final culmination" of his Dharma—the highest presentation of Truth (other sūtras make similar statements about other teachings). This has traditionally been regarded as the highest teaching in East Asian Buddhism. However, in modern China all doctrines are regarded as equally valid.[66] The Mahayana can also on occasion communicate a vision of the Buddha or Dharma which amounts to mysticism and gives expression to a form of mentalist panentheism (God in Buddhism).
Decisive in distinguishing Buddhism from other schools of Indian philosophy is the issue of epistemological justification (from epistemology, Greek: theory of knowledge). While all schools of Indian logic recognize various sets of valid justifications for knowledge, or pramana, Buddhism recognizes a smaller set than do the others. All accept perception and inference, for example, but for some schools of Buddhism the received textual tradition is an equally valid epistemological category.[67]
According to the scriptures, during his lifetime the Buddha remained silent when asked several metaphysical questions. These regarded issues such as whether the universe is eternal or non-eternal (or whether it is finite or infinite), the unity or separation of the body and the self, the complete inexistence of a person after nirvana and death, and others. One explanation for this silence is that such questions distract from activity that is practical to realizing enlightenment[68] and bring about the danger of substituting the experience of liberation by conceptual understanding of the doctrine or by religious faith.[69] Another explanation is that both affirmative and negative positions regarding these questions are based on attachment to and misunderstanding of the aggregates and senses. That is, when one sees these things for what they are, the idea of forming positions on such metaphysical questions simply does not occur to one.[70] Another closely related explanation is that reality is devoid of designations, or empty, and therefore language itself is a priori inadequate.[71]
Thus, the Buddha's silence does not indicate misology or disdain for philosophy. Rather, it indicates that he viewed these questions as not leading to true knowledge.[71] Dependent arising is, according to some[who?], one of the Buddha's great contributions to philosophy, and provides a framework for analysis of reality that is not based on metaphysical assumptions regarding existence or non-existence, but instead on direct cognition of phenomena as they are presented to the mind. This informs and supports the Buddhist approach to liberation via ethical and meditative training known as the Noble Eightfold Path.
Accordingly, most Buddhists agree that, to a greater or lesser extent, words are inadequate to describe the goal of the Buddhist path, but concerning the usefulness of words in the path itself, schools differ radically.[72]
In the Pali Canon and numerous Mahayana Sutras and Tantras, the Buddha is portrayed stressing that Dharma (in the sense of truth) cannot truly be understood with the ordinary rational mind or logic—reality transcends all worldly concepts.
In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra's self-styled "Uttara-Tantra", the Buddha insists that, while pondering upon Dharma is vital, one must then relinquish fixation on words and letters, as these are utterly divorced from liberation and the Bodhi nature. The Tantra entitled the "All-Creating King" (Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra, a scripture of Tibetan Buddhism) also emphasizes how Buddhist truth lies beyond the range of discursive/verbal thought and is ultimately mysterious. The Supreme Buddha, Samantabhadra, states there: "The mind of perfect purity ... is beyond thinking and inexplicable ...."[73] Also later, the famous Indian Buddhist practitioner (yogi) and teacher, mahasiddha Tilopa discouraged any intellectual activity in his six words of advice.
Speaking from the Mahayana perspective of the inconceivable, universal and non-discursive nature of the knowledge gained through Awakening or Enlightenment (Bodhi), Professor C. D. Sebastian states:
"Bodhi is the final goal of a Bodhisattva's career and it is indicated by such words as buddha-jnana (knowledge of Buddha), sarvjnata (omniscience), sarvakarajnata (the quality of knowing things as they are), ... and acintyam jnanam (inconceivable knowledge) ... Bodhi is pure universal and immediate knowledge, which extends over all time, all universes, all beings and elements, conditioned and unconditioned. It is absolute and identical with Reality and thus it is Tathata. Bodhi is immaculate and non-conceptual, and it, being not an outer object, cannot be understood by discursive thought. It has neither beginning, nor middle nor end and it is indivisbile. It is non-dual (advayam)... The only possible way to comprehend it is through samadhi by the yogin"[74]
Mahayana often adopts a pragmatic concept of truth:[75] doctrines are "true" in the sense of being spiritually beneficial. In modern Chinese Buddhism, all doctrinal traditions are regarded as equally valid.[66]
Theravāda promotes the concept of Vibhajjavada (Pali), literally "Teaching of Analysis". This doctrine says that insight must come from the aspirant's experience, critical investigation, and reasoning instead of by blind faith. As the Buddha said according to the canonical scriptures:[76]
Do not accept anything by mere tradition ... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures ... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions ... But when you know for yourselves—these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness—then do you live acting accordingly.
Nirvana (Sanskrit; Pali "Nibbana") means "cessation", "extinction" (of craving and ignorance and therefore suffering and the cycle of involuntary rebirths Samsara), "extinguished", "quieted", "calmed";[77] it's also known as "Awakening" or "Enlightenment" in the West. Buddhists believe that anybody who has achieved nirvana is in fact a Buddha.
Bodhi (Pāli and Sanskrit, in devanagari: बॊधि) is a term applied to the experience of Awakening of arahants. Bodhi literally means "awakening", but is more commonly referred to as "enlightenment". In Early Buddhism, bodhi carried a meaning synonymous to nirvana, using only some different metaphors to describe the experience, which implies the extinction of raga (greed, craving),[78] dosa (hate, aversion)[79] and moha (delusion).[80] In the later school of Mahayana Buddhism, the status of nirvana was downgraded in some scriptures, coming to refer only to the extinction of greed and hate, implying that delusion was still present in one who attained nirvana, and that one needed to attain bodhi to eradicate delusion:
An important development in the Mahayana [was] that it came to separate nirvana from bodhi ('awakening' to the truth, Enlightenment), and to put a lower value on the former (Gombrich, 1992d). Originally nirvana and bodhi refer to the same thing; they merely use different metaphors for the experience. But the Mahayana tradition separated them and considered that nirvana referred only to the extinction of craving (passion and hatred), with the resultant escape from the cycle of rebirth. This interpretation ignores the third fire, delusion: the extinction of delusion is of course in the early texts identical with what can be positively expressed as gnosis, Enlightenment.
—Richard F. Gombrich, How Buddhism Began[81]
Therefore, according to Mahayana Buddhism, the arahant has attained only nirvana, thus still being subject to delusion, while the bodhisattva not only achieves nirvana but full liberation from delusion as well. He thus attains bodhi and becomes a buddha. In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi and nirvana carry the same meaning, that of being freed from greed, hate and delusion.
In Theravada doctrine, a person may awaken from the "sleep of ignorance" by directly realizing the true nature of reality; such people are called arahants and occasionally buddhas. After numerous lifetimes of spiritual striving, they have reached the end of the cycle of rebirth, no longer reincarnating as human, animal, ghost, or other being. The commentaries to the Pali Canon classify these awakened beings into three types:
Bodhi and nirvana carry the same meaning, that of being freed from craving, hate, and delusion. In attaining bodhi, the arahant has overcome these obstacles. As a further distinction, the extinction of only hatred and greed (in the sensory context) with some residue of delusion, is called anagami.
In the Mahayana, the Buddha tends not to be viewed as merely human, but as the earthly projection of a beginningless and endless, omnipresent being (see Dharmakaya) beyond the range and reach of thought. Moreover, in certain Mahayana sutras, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are viewed essentially as One: all three are seen as the eternal Buddha himself.
Celestial Buddhas are individuals who no longer exist on the material plane of existence, but who still aid in the enlightenment of all beings.
Nirvana came to refer only to the extinction of greed and hate, implying that delusion was still present in one who attained Nirvana. Bodhi became a higher attainment that eradicate delusion entirely.[81] Thus, the Arahant attains Nirvana but not Bodhi, thus still being subject to delusion, while the Buddha attains Bodhi.
The method of self-exertion or "self-power" – without reliance on an external force or being – stands in contrast to another major form of Buddhism, Pure Land, which is characterised by utmost trust in the salvific "other-power" of Amitabha Buddha. Pure Land Buddhism is a very widespread and perhaps the most faith-orientated manifestation of Buddhism and centres upon the conviction that faith in Amitabha Buddha and the chanting of homage to his name will liberate one at death into the "happy land" (安樂) or "pure land" (淨土) of Amitabha Buddha. This Buddhic realm is variously construed as a foretaste of Nirvana, or as essentially Nirvana itself. The great vow of Amitabha Buddha to rescue all beings from samsaric suffering is viewed within Pure Land Buddhism as universally efficacious, if only one has faith in the power of that vow or chants his name.
Nearly all Chinese Buddhists accept that the chances of attaining sufficient enlightenment by one's own efforts are very slim, so that Pure Land practice is essential as an "insurance policy" even if one practises something else.[82]
Buddhists believe the Gautama Buddha was the first to achieve enlightenment in this Buddha era and is therefore credited with the establishment of Buddhism. A Buddha era is the stretch of history during which people remember and practice the teachings of the earliest known Buddha. This Buddha era will end when all the knowledge, evidence and teachings of Gautama Buddha have vanished. This belief therefore maintains that many Buddha eras have started and ended throughout the course of human existence.[83][84] The Gautama Buddha, then, is the Buddha of this era, who taught directly or indirectly to all other Buddhas in it (see types of Buddhas).
In addition, Mahayana Buddhists believe there are innumerable other Buddhas in other universes.[85] A Theravada commentary says that Buddhas arise one at a time in this world element, and not at all in others.[86]
The idea of the decline and gradual disappearance of the teaching has been influential in East Asian Buddhism. Pure Land Buddhism holds that it has declined to the point where few, if any, are capable of following the path, so most or all must rely on the power of the Buddha Amitabha. Zen and Nichiren traditionally hold that most are incapable of following the "complicated" paths of some other schools and present what they view as a simple practice instead.
Mahayana Buddhism puts great emphasis and, in fact, encourages anybody to follow the path of a Bodhisattva.
Bodhisattva means either "enlightened (bodhi) existence (sattva)" or "enlightenment-being" or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one (satva) for enlightenment (bodhi)". Another translation is "Wisdom-Being".[87]
The various divisions of Buddhism understand the word Bodhisattva in different ways. Theravada and some Mahayana sources consider a Bodhisattva as someone on the path to Buddhahood, while other Mahayana sources speak of Bodhisattvas renouncing Buddhahood,[88][89] but especially in Mahayana Buddhism, it mainly refers to a being that compassionately refrains from entering nirvana in order to save others. So the Bodhisattva is a person who already has a considerable degree of enlightenment and seeks to use their wisdom to help other sentient beings to become liberated themselves.
While Theravada regards it as an option, Mahayana encourages everyone to follow a Bodhisattva path and to take the Bodhisattva vows. With these vows, one makes the promise to work for the complete enlightenment of all sentient beings.
A famous saying by the 8th-century Indian Buddhist scholar-saint Shantideva, which the Dalai Lama often cites as his favourite verse, summarizes the Bodhisattva's intention (Bodhicitta) as follows: "For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too abide to dispel the misery of the world."
According to the Mahayana, a Bodhisattva practices in the six perfections: giving, morality, patience, joyous effort, concentration and wisdom.
Devotion is an important part of the practice of most Buddhists.[90] Devotional practices include bowing, offerings, pilgrimage, chanting. In Pure Land Buddhism, devotion to the Buddha Amitabha is the main practice. In Nichiren Buddhism, devotion to the Lotus Sutra is the main practice.
Traditionally, the first step in most Buddhist schools requires taking refuge in the Three Jewels (Sanskrit: tri-ratna, Pāli: ti-ratana)[91] as the foundation of one's religious practice. The practice of taking refuge on behalf of young or even unborn children is mentioned[92] in the Majjhima Nikaya, recognized by most scholars as an early text (cf. Infant baptism). Tibetan Buddhism sometimes adds a fourth refuge, in the lama. In Mahayana, the person who chooses the bodhisattva path makes a vow or pledge, considered the ultimate expression of compassion.
The Three Jewels are:
According to the scriptures, Gautama Buddha presented himself as a model. The Dharma offers a refuge by providing guidelines for the alleviation of suffering and the attainment of Nirvana. The Sangha is considered to provide a refuge by preserving the authentic teachings of the Buddha and providing further examples that the truth of the Buddha's teachings is attainable.
Śīla (Sanskrit) or sīla (Pāli) is usually translated into English as "virtuous behavior", "morality", "ethics" or "precept". It is an action committed through the body, speech, or mind, and involves an intentional effort. It is one of the three practices (sila, samadhi, and panya) and the second pāramitā. It refers to moral purity of thought, word, and deed. The four conditions of śīla are chastity, calmness, quiet, and extinguishment.
Śīla is the foundation of Samadhi/Bhāvana (Meditative cultivation) or mind cultivation. Keeping the precepts promotes not only the peace of mind of the cultivator, which is internal, but also peace in the community, which is external. According to the Law of Karma, keeping the precepts are meritorious and it acts as causes which would bring about peaceful and happy effects. Keeping these precepts keeps the cultivator from rebirth in the four woeful realms of existence.
Śīla refers to overall principles of ethical behavior. There are several levels of sila, which correspond to "basic morality" (five precepts), "basic morality with asceticism" (eight precepts), "novice monkhood" (ten precepts) and "monkhood" (Vinaya or Patimokkha). Lay people generally undertake to live by the five precepts, which are common to all Buddhist schools. If they wish, they can choose to undertake the eight precepts, which add basic asceticism.
The five precepts are training rules in order to live a better life in which one is happy, without worries, and can meditate well:
The precepts are not formulated as imperatives, but as training rules that laypeople undertake voluntarily to facilitate practice.[93] In Buddhist thought, the cultivation of dana and ethical conduct will themselves refine consciousness to such a level that rebirth in one of the lower heavens is likely, even if there is no further Buddhist practice. There is nothing improper or un-Buddhist about limiting one's aims to this level of attainment.[94]
In the eight precepts, the third precept on sexual misconduct is made more strict, and becomes a precept of celibacy. The three additional precepts are:
Vinaya is the specific moral code for monks and nuns. It includes the Patimokkha, a set of 227 rules for monks in the Theravadin recension. The precise content of the vinayapitaka (scriptures on Vinaya) differ slightly according to different schools, and different schools or subschools set different standards for the degree of adherence to Vinaya. Novice-monks use the ten precepts, which are the basic precepts for monastics.
Regarding the monastic rules, the Buddha constantly reminds his hearers that it is the spirit that counts. On the other hand, the rules themselves are designed to assure a satisfying life, and provide a perfect springboard for the higher attainments. Monastics are instructed by the Buddha to live as "islands unto themselves". In this sense, living life as the vinaya prescribes it is, as one scholar puts it: "more than merely a means to an end: it is very nearly the end in itself."[95]
In Eastern Buddhism, there is also a distinctive Vinaya and ethics contained within the Mahayana Brahmajala Sutra (not to be confused with the Pali text of that name) for Bodhisattvas, where, for example, the eating of meat is frowned upon and vegetarianism is actively encouraged (see vegetarianism in Buddhism). In Japan, this has almost completely displaced the monastic vinaya, and allows clergy to marry.
Buddhist meditation is fundamentally concerned with two themes: transforming the mind and using it to explore itself and other phenomena.[96] According to Theravada Buddhism the Buddha taught two types of meditation, samatha meditation (Sanskrit: śamatha) and vipassanā meditation (Sanskrit: vipaśyanā). In Chinese Buddhism, these exist (translated chih kuan), but Chan (Zen) meditation is more popular.[97] According to Peter Harvey, whenever Buddhism has been healthy, not only monks, nuns, and married lamas, but also more committed lay people have practiced meditation.[98] According to Routledge's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, in contrast, throughout most of Buddhist history before modern times, serious meditation by lay people has been unusual.[99] The evidence of the early texts suggests that at the time of the Buddha, many male and female lay practitioners did practice meditation, some even to the point of proficiency in all eight jhānas (see the next section regarding these).[100]
In the language of the Noble Eightfold Path, samyaksamādhi is "right concentration". The primary means of cultivating samādhi is meditation. Upon development of samādhi, one's mind becomes purified of defilement, calm, tranquil, and luminous.
Once the meditator achieves a strong and powerful concentration (jhāna, Sanskrit ध्यान dhyāna), his mind is ready to penetrate and gain insight (vipassanā) into the ultimate nature of reality, eventually obtaining release from all suffering. The cultivation of mindfulness is essential to mental concentration, which is needed to achieve insight.
Samatha Meditation starts from being mindful of an object or idea, which is expanded to one's body, mind and entire surroundings, leading to a state of total concentration and tranquility (jhāna) There are many variations in the style of meditation, from sitting cross-legged or kneeling to chanting or walking. The most common method of meditation is to concentrate on one's breath (anapanasati), because this practice can lead to both samatha and vipassana'.
In Buddhist practice, it is said that while samatha meditation can calm the mind, only vipassanā meditation can reveal how the mind was disturbed to start with, which is what leads to knowledge (jñāna; Pāli ñāṇa) and understanding (prajñā Pāli paññā), and thus can lead to nirvāṇa (Pāli nibbāna). When one is in jhana, all defilements are suppressed temporarily. Only understanding (prajñā or vipassana) eradicates the defilements completely. Jhanas are also states which Arahants abide in order to rest.
In Theravāda Buddhism, the cause of human existence and suffering is identified as craving, which carries with it the various defilements. These various defilements are traditionally summed up as greed, hatred and delusion. These are believed to be deeply rooted afflictions of the mind that create suffering and stress. In order to be free from suffering and stress, these defilements need to be permanently uprooted through internal investigation, analyzing, experiencing, and understanding of the true nature of those defilements by using jhāna, a technique which is part of the Noble Eightfold Path. It will then lead the meditator to realize the Four Noble Truths, Enlightenment and Nibbana. Nibbana is the ultimate goal of Theravadins.
Prajñā (Sanskrit) or paññā (Pāli) means wisdom that is based on a realization of dependent origination, The Four Noble Truths and the three marks of existence. Prajñā is the wisdom that is able to extinguish afflictions and bring about bodhi. It is spoken of as the principal means of attaining nirvāṇa, through its revelation of the true nature of all things as dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), anicca (impermanence) and anatta (not-self). Prajñā is also listed as the sixth of the six pāramitās of the Mahayana.
Initially, prajñā is attained at a conceptual level by means of listening to sermons (dharma talks), reading, studying, and sometimes reciting Buddhist texts and engaging in discourse. Once the conceptual understanding is attained, it is applied to daily life so that each Buddhist can verify the truth of the Buddha's teaching at a practical level. Notably, one could in theory attain Nirvana at any point of practice, whether deep in meditation, listening to a sermon, conducting the business of one's daily life, or any other activity.
Zen Buddhism (禅), pronounced Ch'an in Chinese or Zen in Japanese (derived from the Sanskrit term dhyana, meaning "meditation") is a form of Buddhism that became popular in China and Japan and that lays special emphasis on meditation.[101] Zen places less emphasis on scriptures than some other forms of Buddhism and prefers to focus on direct spiritual breakthroughs to truth.
Zen Buddhism is divided into two main schools: Rinzai (臨済宗) and Soto (曹洞宗), the former greatly favouring the use in meditation on the koan (公案, a meditative riddle or puzzle) as a device for spiritual break-through, and the latter (while certainly employing koans) focusing more on shikantaza or "just sitting".[102]
Zen Buddhist teaching is often full of paradox, in order to loosen the grip of the ego and to facilitate the penetration into the realm of the True Self or Formless Self, which is equated with the Buddha himself.[103] According to Zen master, Kosho Uchiyama, when thoughts and fixation on the little 'I' are transcended, an Awakening to a universal, non-dual Self occurs: ' When we let go of thoughts and wake up to the reality of life that is working beyond them, we discover the Self that is living universal non-dual life (before the separation into two) that pervades all living creatures and all existence.'[104]. Thinking and thought must therefore not be allowed to confine and bind one. Nevertheless, Zen does not neglect the scriptures.[105]
Though based upon Mahayana, Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism is one of the schools that practice Vajrayāna or "Diamond Vehicle" (also referred to as Mantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Tantric Buddhism, or esoteric Buddhism). It accepts all the basic concepts of Mahāyāna, but also includes a vast array of spiritual and physical techniques designed to enhance Buddhist practice. Tantric Buddhism is largely concerned with ritual and meditative practices.[106] One component of the Vajrayāna is harnessing psycho-physical energy through ritual, visualization, physical exercises, and meditation as a means of developing the mind. Using these techniques, it is claimed that a practitioner can achieve Buddhahood in one lifetime, or even as little as three years. In the Tibetan tradition, these practices can include sexual yoga, though only for some very advanced practitioners.[107]
The history of Indian Buddhism may be divided into the following five periods:[108]
Pre-sectarian Buddhism is the earliest phase of Buddhism, recognized by nearly all scholars. Its main scriptures are the Vinaya Pitaka and the four principal Nikayas or Agamas.
Certain basic teachings appear in many places throughout the early texts, so most scholars conclude that Gautama Buddha must have taught something similar to the following:[109]
Some scholars disagree, and have proposed many other theories.[110][111]
According to the scriptures, soon after the parinirvāṇa (from Sanskrit: "highest extinguishment") of Gautama Buddha, the first Buddhist council was held. As with any ancient Indian tradition, transmission of teaching was done orally. The primary purpose of the assembly was to collectively recite the teachings to ensure that no errors occurred in oral transmission. In the first council, Ānanda, a cousin of the Buddha and his personal attendant, was called upon to recite the discourses (sūtras, Pāli suttas) of the Buddha, and, according to some sources, the abhidhamma. Upāli, another disciple, recited the monastic rules (vinaya). Scholars regard the traditional accounts of the council as greatly exaggerated if not entirely fictitious.[112]
According to most scholars, at some period after the Second Council the Sangha began to break into separate factions.[113] The various accounts differ as to when the actual schisms occurred. According to the Dipavamsa of the Pāli tradition, they started immediately after the Second Council, the Puggalavada tradition places it in 137 AN, the Sarvastivada tradition of Vasumitra says it was in the time of Asoka and the Mahasanghika tradition places it much later, nearly 100 BCE.
The root schism was between the Sthaviras and the Mahāsāṅghikas. The fortunate survival of accounts from both sides of the dispute reveals disparate traditions. The Sthavira group offers two quite distinct reasons for the schism. The Dipavamsa of the Theravāda says that the losing party in the Second Council dispute broke away in protest and formed the Mahasanghika. This contradicts the Mahasanghikas' own vinaya, which shows them as on the same, winning side. The Mahāsāṅghikas argued that the Sthaviras were trying to expand the vinaya and may also have challenged what they perceived to be excessive claims or inhumanly high criteria for arhatship. Both parties, therefore, appealed to tradition.[114]
The Sthaviras gave rise to several schools, one of which was the Theravāda school. Originally, these schisms were caused by disputes over vinaya, and monks following different schools of thought seem to have lived happily together in the same monasteries, but eventually, by about 100 CE if not earlier, schisms were being caused by doctrinal disagreements too.[115]
Following (or leading up to) the schisms, each Saṅgha started to accumulate an Abhidharma, a detailed scholastic reworking of doctrinal material appearing in the Suttas, according to schematic classifications. These Abhidharma texts do not contain systematic philosophical treatises, but summaries or numerical lists. Scholars generally date these texts to around the 3rd century BCE, 100 to 200 years after the death of the Buddha. Therefore the seven Abhidharma works are generally claimed not to represent the words of the Buddha himself, but those of disciples and great scholars.[116] Every school had its own version of the Adhidharma, with different theories and different texts. The different Adhidharmas of the various schools did not agree with each other. Scholars disagree on whether the Mahasanghika school had an Abhidhamma Pitaka or not.[116][117]
The period of Early Mahayana Buddhism concerns the origins of Mahayana and the contents of early Mahayana Sutras.[118] The development of the various Early Buddhist Schools and the arising of Mahayana were not always consecutive. For example, the early schools continued to exist alongside Mahayana.
The commonly expressed misconception that Mahayana started as a lay-inspired movement is based on a selective reading of a very tiny sample of extant Mahayana Sutra literature. Currently scholars have moved away from this limited corpus, and have started to examine early Mahayana literature, which is very ascetic and expounds the ideal of the monks' life in the forest. A scholarly consensus about the origin of the Mahayana has not yet been reached, but it has been suggested that when Mahayana became popular, in the 5th century CE, it had become something it had previously objected to: a landed monastic institution with a lay orientation. Prior to this, the movement may well have been either a marginalized ascetic group of monks living in the forest, or a group of conservatives embedded in mainstream, socially engaged early Buddhist monasteries. Most scholars conclude that Mahayana remained a marginal movement until the 5th century AD.[119]
The earliest Mahayana Sutras are called the Proto-Mahayana Sutras such as the Ajitasena Sutra which contains a mixture of Mahayana and pre-Mahayana ideas. It occurs in a world where monasticism is the norm, which is typical of the Pali Suttas; there is none of the usual antagonism towards the followers of the Early Buddhist Schools or the notion of Arahantship, which is typical of many Mahayana Sutras such as the White Lotus, or Vimalakirti Nirdesha. However, the sutra also has an Arahant seeing all the Buddha fields, it is said that reciting the name of the sutra will save beings from suffering and the hell realms, and a meditative practice is described which allows the practitioner to see with the eyes of a Buddha, and to receive teachings from them that are very much typical of Mahayana Sutras. Some early Mahayana Sutras are Ratnagunasamcayagatha and the Astasaharika.
Some scholars contend that the Mahayana sutras were mainly composed in the south[120] of India, and that later the activity of writing additional scriptures was continued in the east[121] and north[122] of India.
During the period of Late Mahayana Buddhism, four major types of thought developed: Madhyamaka, Yogacara, Tathagatagarbha, and Buddhist Logic as the last and most recent.[123] In India, the two main philosophical schools of the Mahayana were the Madhyamaka and the later Yogacara.[124] According to Dan Lusthaus, Madhyamaka and Yogacara have a great deal in common, and the commonality stems from early Buddhism.[125] There were no great Indian teachers associated with tathagatagarbha thought.[126]
Scholarly research concerning Esoteric Buddhism is still in its early stages and has a number of problems which make research difficult:[127]
Buddhism may have spread only slowly in India until the time of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, who was a public supporter of the religion. The support of Aśoka and his descendants led to the construction of more stūpas (Buddhist religious memorials) and to efforts to spread Buddhism throughout the enlarged Maurya empire and even into neighboring lands – particularly to the Iranian-speaking regions of Afghanistan and Central Asia, beyond the Mauryas' northwest border, and to the island of Sri Lanka south of India. These two missions, in opposite directions, would ultimately lead, in the first case to the spread of Buddhism into China, and in the second case, to the emergence of Theravāda Buddhism and its spread from Sri Lanka to the coastal lands of Southeast Asia.
This period marks the first known spread of Buddhism beyond India. According to the edicts of Aśoka, emissaries were sent to various countries west of India in order to spread Buddhism (Dharma), particularly in eastern provinces of the neighboring Seleucid Empire, and even farther to Hellenistic kingdoms of the Mediterranean. This led, a century later, to the emergence of Greek-speaking Buddhist monarchs in the Indo-Greek Kingdom, and to the development of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhāra. During this period Buddhism was exposed to a variety of influences, from Persian and Greek civilization, and from changing trends in non-Buddhist Indian religions – themselves influenced by Buddhism. It is a matter of disagreement among scholars whether or not these emissaries were accompanied by Buddhist missionaries.[128]
The Theravada school spread south from India in the 3rd century BC, to Sri Lanka and Thailand and Burma and later also Indonesia. The Dharmagupta school spread (also in 3rd century BC) north to Kashmir, Gandhara and Bactria (Afghanistan). In the 2nd century AD, Mahayana Sutras spread from that general area to China, and then to Korea and Japan, and were translated into Chinese. During the Indian period of Esoteric Buddhism (from 8th century onwards), Buddhism spread from India to Tibet and Mongolia.
By the late Middle Ages, Buddhism had become virtually extinct in India, and although it continued to exist in surrounding countries, its influence was no longer expanding. It is now again gaining strength in India and elsewhere.[129][130] Estimates of the number of Buddhist followers by scholars range from 230 million to 500 million, with most around 350 million. Most scholars classify similar numbers of people under a category they call "Chinese folk" or "traditional" religion, an amalgam of various traditions that includes Buddhism. One Buddhist organization claims the total could be as much as 1.691 billion.
Formal membership varies between communities, but basic lay adherence is often defined in terms of a traditional formula in which the practitioner takes refuge in The Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha), and the Sangha (the Buddhist community).
Estimates are uncertain for several reasons:
According to one analysis, Buddhism is the fourth-largest religion in the world behind Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.[142] The monks' order (Sangha), which began during the lifetime of the Buddha, is among the oldest organizations on earth.
Most Buddhist groups in the West are at least nominally affiliated with one of these three traditions.
At the present time, the teachings of all three branches of Buddhism have spread throughout the world, and Buddhist texts are increasingly translated into local languages. While, in the West, Buddhism is often seen as exotic and progressive, in the East, Buddhism is regarded as familiar and traditional. Buddhists in Asia are frequently well organized and well funded. In a number of countries, it is recognized as an official religion and receives state support. In the West, Buddhism is recognized as one of the growing spiritual influences.
There is an overwhelming diversity of recent forms of Buddhism.[144]
Buddhists generally classify themselves as either Theravada or Mahayana.[145] This classification is also used by some scholars[146][page needed] and is the one ordinarily used in the English language.[147] An alternative scheme used by some scholars[148] divides Buddhism into the following three traditions or geographical or cultural areas: Theravada, East Asian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. Some scholars[149] use other schemes. Buddhists themselves have a variety of other schemes. Hinayana (literally "lesser vehicle") is used by Mahayana followers to name the family of early philosophical schools and traditions from which contemporary Theravada emerged, but as this term is rooted in the Mahayana viewpoint and can be considered derogatory, a variety of other terms are increasingly used instead, including Śrāvakayāna, Nikaya Buddhism, early Buddhist schools, sectarian Buddhism, conservative Buddhism, mainstream Buddhism and non-Mahayana Buddhism.
Not all traditions of Buddhism share the same philosophical outlook, or treat the same concepts as central. Each tradition, however, does have its own core concepts, and some comparisons can be drawn between them.
Mahayana Buddhism shows a great deal of doctrinal variation and development over time, and even more variation in terms of practice. While there is much agreement on general principles, there is disagreement over which texts are more authoritative.
Despite some differences among the Theravada and Mahayana schools, there are, e.g. according to one Buddhist ecumenical organization,[150] several concepts common to both major Buddhist branches:
This is a rough timeline of the development of the different schools/traditions:
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Theravāda ("Doctrine of the Elders", or "Ancient Doctrine") is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It is relatively conservative, and generally closest to early Buddhism.[153] This school is derived from the Vibhajjavāda grouping which emerged amongst the older Sthavira group at the time of the Third Buddhist Council (c. 250 BCE). This school gradually declined on the Indian subcontinent, but its branch in Sri Lanka and South East Asia continues to survive.
The Theravada school bases its practice and doctrine exclusively on the Pāli Canon and its commentaries. After being orally transmitted for a few centuries, its scriptures, the Pali Canon, were finally committed to writing in the last century BCE, in Sri Lanka, at what the Theravada usually reckon as the fourth council. It is also one of the first Buddhist schools to commit the complete set of its canon into writing. The Sutta collections and Vinaya texts of the Pāli Canon (and the corresponding texts in other versions of the Tripitaka), are generally considered by modern scholars to be the earliest Buddhist literature, and they are accepted as authentic in every branch of Buddhism.
Theravāda is primarily practiced today in Sri Lanka, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia as well as small portions of China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bangladesh. It has a growing presence in Europe and America.
Mahayana Buddhism flourished in India from the fifth century AD onwards, during the dynasty of the Guptas. Mahāyāna centres of learning were established, the most important one being the Nālandā University in north-eastern India.
Mahayana schools recognize all or part of the Mahayana Sutras. Some of these sutras became for Mahayanists a manifestation of the Buddha himself, and faith in and veneration of those texts are stated in some sutras (e.g. the Lotus Sutra and the Mahaparinirvana Sutra) to lay the foundations for the later attainment of Buddhahood itself.
Native Eastern Buddhism is practiced today in China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, parts of Russia and most of Vietnam. The Buddhism practiced in Tibet, the Himalayan regions, and Mongolia is also Mahayana in origin, but will be discussed below under the heading of Northern Buddhism. There are a variety of strands in Eastern Buddhism, which in most of this area are fused into a single unified form of Buddhism. However, in Japan they form separate denominations. The five major ones are the following.
In Korea, nearly all Buddhists belong to the Chogye school, which is officially Son (Zen), but with substantial elements from other traditions.[154]
The Vajrayana school of Buddhism spread both to China and Tibet. In Tibet, Vajrayana has always been a main component of Tibetan Buddhism while in China, it formed a separate sect. However, Vajrayana Buddhism became extinct in China but survived in Japan as Shingon sect and Tendai sect, which incorporated Vajrayana element into their practice.
There are differing views as to just when Vajrayāna and its tantric practice started. In the Tibetan tradition, it is claimed that the historical Śākyamuni Buddha taught tantra, but as these are esoteric teachings, they were written down long after the Buddha's other teachings. Nālandā University became a center for the development of Vajrayāna theory and continued as the source of leading-edge Vajrayāna practices up through the 11th century. These practices, scriptures and theory were transmitted to China, Tibet, Indochina and Southeast Asia. China generally received Indian transmission up to the 11th century including tantric practice, while a vast amount of what is considered to be Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayāna) stems from the late (9th–12th century) Nālandā tradition.
In one of the first major contemporary academic treatises on the subject, Fairfield University professor Ronald M. Davidson argues that the rise of Vajrayana was in part a reaction to the changing political climate in India at the time. With the fall of the Gupta dynasty, in an increasingly fractious political environment, institutional Buddhism had difficulty attracting patronage, and the folk movement led by siddhas became more prominent. After perhaps two hundred years, it had begun to get integrated into the monastic establishment.[155][page needed]
Vajrayana combined and developed a variety of elements, a number of which had already existed for centuries.[156] In addition to the Mahāyāna scriptures, Vajrayāna Buddhists recognise a large body of Buddhist Tantras, some of which are also included in Chinese and Japanese collections of Buddhist literature, and versions of a few even in the Pali Canon.
Buddhist scriptures and other texts exist in great variety. Different schools of Buddhism place varying levels of value on learning the various texts. Some schools venerate certain texts as religious objects in themselves, while others take a more scholastic approach. Buddhist scriptures are written in these languages: Pāli, Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese, along with some texts that still exist in Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit.
Unlike many religions, Buddhism has no single central text that is universally referred to by all traditions. However, some scholars have referred to the Vinaya Pitaka and the first four Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka as the common core of all Buddhist traditions.[157] However, this could be considered misleading, as Mahāyāna considers these merely a preliminary, and not a core, teaching, the Tibetan Buddhists have not even translated most of the āgamas, though theoretically they recognize them, and they play no part in the religious life of either clergy or laity in China and Japan.[158] Other scholars say there is no universally accepted common core.[159] The size and complexity of the Buddhist canons have been seen by some (including Buddhist social reformer Babasaheb Ambedkar) as presenting barriers to the wider understanding of Buddhist philosophy.
The followers of Theravāda Buddhism take the scriptures known as the Pāli Canon as definitive and authoritative, while the followers of Mahāyāna Buddhism base their faith and philosophy primarily on the Mahāyāna sūtras and their own vinaya. The Pāli sutras, along with other, closely related scriptures, are known to the other schools as the āgamas.
Over the years, various attempts have been made to synthesize a single Buddhist text that can encompass all of the major principles of Buddhism. In the Theravada tradition, condensed 'study texts' were created that combined popular or influential scriptures into single volumes that could be studied by novice monks. Later in Sri Lanka, the Dhammapada was championed as a unifying scripture.
Dwight Goddard collected a sample of Buddhist scriptures, with the emphasis on Zen, along with other classics of Eastern philosophy, such as the Tao Te Ching, into his 'Buddhist Bible' in the 1920s. More recently, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar attempted to create a single, combined document of Buddhist principles in "The Buddha and His Dhamma". Other such efforts have persisted to present day, but currently there is no single text that represents all Buddhist traditions.
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The Pāli Tipitaka, which means "three baskets", refers to its three main:
The Pāli Tipitaka is the only early Tipitaka (Sanskrit: Tripiṭaka) to survive intact in its original language, but a number of early schools had their own recensions of the Tipitaka featuring much of the same material. We have portions of the Tipitakas of the Sārvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, Sammitya, Mahāsaṅghika, Kāśyapīya, and Mahīśāsaka schools, most of which survive in Chinese translation only. According to some sources, some early schools of Buddhism had five or seven pitakas.[160]
According to the scriptures, soon after the death of the Buddha, the first Buddhist council was held; a monk named Mahākāśyapa (Pāli: Mahākassapa) presided. The goal of the council was to record the Buddha's teachings. Upāli recited the vinaya. Ānanda, the Buddha's personal attendant, was called upon to recite the dhamma. These became the basis of the Tripitaka. However, this record was initially transmitted orally in form of chanting, and was committed to text in the last century BCE. Both the sūtras and the vinaya of every Buddhist school contain a wide variety of elements including discourses on the Dharma, commentaries on other teachings, cosmological and cosmogonical texts, stories of the Gautama Buddha's previous lives, and various other subjects.
Much of the material in the Canon is not specifically "Theravadin", but is instead the collection of teachings that this school preserved from the early, non-sectarian body of teachings. According to Peter Harvey, it contains material which is at odds with later Theravadin orthodoxy. He states:
The Theravadins, then, may have added texts to the Canon for some time, but they do not appear to have tampered with what they already had from an earlier period.[161]
The Mahayana sutras are a very broad genre of Buddhist scriptures that the Mahayana Buddhist tradition holds are original teachings of the Buddha. The adherents of Mahayana accept both the early teachings and the Mahayana sutras as authentic teachings of Gautama Buddha, and claim they were designed for different types of persons and different levels of spiritual understanding.
The Mahayana sutras often claim to articulate the Buddha's deeper, more advanced doctrines, reserved for those who follow the bodhisattva path. That path is explained as being built upon the motivation to liberate all living beings from unhappiness. Hence the name Mahāyāna (lit., the Great Vehicle).
According to Mahayana tradition, the Mahayana sutras were transmitted in secret, came from other Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, or were preserved in non-human worlds because human beings at the time couldn't understand them:
Some of our sources maintain the authenticity of certain other texts not found in the canons of these schools (the early schools). These texts are those held genuine by the later school, not one of the eighteen, which arrogated to itself the title of Mahayana, 'Great Vehicle'. According to the Mahayana historians these texts were admittedly unknown to the early schools of Buddhists. However, they had all been promulgated by the Buddha. [The Buddha’s] followers on earth, the sravakas ('pupils'), had not been sufficiently advanced to understand them, and hence were not given them to remember, but they were taught to various supernatural beings and then preserved in such places as the Dragon World.
—Indian Buddhism[162]
Approximately six hundred Mahayana sutras have survived in Sanskrit or in Chinese or Tibetan translations. In addition, East Asian Buddhism recognizes some sutras regarded by scholars to be of Chinese rather than Indian origin.
Generally, scholars conclude that the Mahayana scriptures were composed from the first century CE onwards: "Large numbers of Mahayana sutras were being composed in the period between the beginning of the common era and the fifth century."[163] five centuries after the historical Gautama Buddha, with some of them having their roots in other scriptures, composed in the first century BCE. It was not until after the fifth century CE that the Mahayana sutras started to influence the behavior of mainstream Buddhists in India: "But outside of texts, at least in India, at exactly the same period, very different—in fact seemingly older—ideas and aspirations appear to be motivating actual behavior, and old and established Hinnayana groups appear to be the only ones that are patronized and supported."[163] These texts were apparently not universally accepted among Indian Buddhists when they appeared; the pejorative label 'Hinayana' was applied by Mahayana supporters to those who rejected the Mahayana sutras.
Only the Theravada school does not include the Mahayana scriptures in its canon. As the modern Theravada school is descended from a branch of Buddhism that diverged and established itself in Sri Lanka prior to the emergence of the Mahayana texts, debate exists as to whether the Theravada were historically included in the 'hinayana' designation; in the modern era, this label is seen as in any case derogatory, and generally avoided.
Buddhism provides many opportunities for comparative study with a diverse range of subjects. For example, dependent origination can be considered one of Buddhism's contributions to metaphysics. Additionally, Buddhism's emphasis on the Middle way not only provides a unique guideline for ethics but has also allowed Buddhism to peacefully coexist with various differing beliefs, customs and institutions in countries in which it has resided throughout its history. Also, Its moral and spiritual parallels with other systems of thought—for example, with various tenets of Christianity—have been subjects of close study.
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