2.1 - The Life of the Buddha - scholars Flashcards
(33 cards)
Cush: points about acceptance of stories and myths as truth
any reconstruction is subjective, personal, influenced by changeable ideas of what is possible at the time, but at their core myths are deep symbolic understandings of otherwise subjective ambiguous truths
Cush: point about historical accuracy of the Buddha’s father as a King
more likely ‘elected head of an aristocratic hereditary ruling class’, Pali Canon evidences Shakya tribe was rules by assembly of elders - but the exaggeration is a natural way for the legend to evolve
Cush: what the palace of the Buddha’s youth may represent
complacency and self-delusion
Cush: key worldly skill Siddhartha had and what this may represent
knowledge of many languages - teaching and connecting to all, global spread of dhamma
Side: traits of the young Siddhartha
educated, athletic, tall, strong, handsome, good mannered, kind
Cush: the meaning of name of Siddhartha’s son ‘Rahula’
‘chains’ - possible indication of the Buddha’s unfulfilled psychological state and restlessness in palace life
Ashvaghosa: origin of the four sights
conjured by the gods as the King’s plan to remove such sights had been so successful
Keown: ‘although palace life was comfortable…
…it was unfulfilling, and the Buddha yearned for a deeper and more spiritually satisying way of life’
Keown: what the experience of the first three sights ‘impressed upon’ the Buddha
the transient nature of human existence, and the realisation not even the palace walls could keep suffering and death at bay
Keown: what inspiration the Buddha received from the fourth sight
that ‘he himself might seek a spiritual solution to the problems of the human condition’
Keown’s points on symbolic interpretation of the story of the four sights
may be more useful to read it as a parable - sights such as those are all around us today, may be suggesting ‘although the signs are all around, most people - like the young Buddha - construct mental barriers (palace walls) to keep unpleasant realities at bay’ but ‘there are times when the unwelcome facts of life thrust themselves upon us in a manner that is impossible to ignore … just as they did when the Buddha went forth in his chariot’
Cush: view of the historic truth of the story of the four sights, and evidence supporting this view
‘myth dramatizing the gradual dawning on the Bodhisattva of the reality of suffering’ - Pali Canon tells the story in ‘an artificial stereotyped form which is difficult to accept literally’ (eg that he got to 29 without experiencing any pain) so evidences the story as a representation of an event which occurred in his own mind
Harvey: problem with household life Gautama identified, and his subsequent idea
crowded and dusty, a difficult environment to live a holy life in - led to idea to go forth into a wandering, open life
Harvey: what the Buddha learned from his first two teachers
Kalama: to enter the ‘sphere of nothingness’ where the mind goes beyond apparent objects and dwells on the remaining ‘nothingness’
Ramaputta: to attain mystical state of ‘sphere of neither perception’ where the consciousness is ‘so attenuated as to hardly exist’
Harvey: the goal of the Buddha as an ascetic
strive earnestly to overcome attachment to sensual pleasures by intense efforts, trying to dominate such tendencies by force of will
Harvey: what the buddha developed during his ascetic period, but at what cost, which led to promotion of the path of what
clarity of mind and energy at cost of a pained and untranquil body - promoted path of mindful awareness of the body
Harvey: how the Buddha progressed through the jhanas under the bodhi tree
gradually deepened his state of concentrated calm until he reached the fourth
Harvey: description of the fourth jhana
state of great equanimity, mental brightness and purity
Harvey on the Buddha’s awakening: ‘he was now a Buddha, with joyful direct experience of…
…the unconditioned Nirvana, beyond ageing, sickness, and death’
Harvey: what brought about the Buddha’s awakening
completion of the third of the threefold knowledge: destruction of the asavas which ‘fester in the mind and keep it unawakened’
Harvey: why the decision of the buddha to teach was necessary
it was ‘the stimulus for the unfolding of his compassion, the necessary complement to his awakened wisdom for his role as a perfect Buddha’
Harvey: the Deer Park sermon brought about the beginning of the…
‘era of spiritual influence of the dhamma’
Cush: events between the Buddha’s final words and his parinibbana
went into deep meditation and spent last conscious moments in fourth jhana of total peace and calm
Cush: Mara is the ‘Buddhist personification of…
…change and death’
