Lecture part 2 Flashcards

Question

Hinduism: Samsara lead to a new meaning of karma

Answer 1

All human actions are karma (not just rituals) and the consequences of actions are not felt in this life, but rather influence the person's rebirth

Answer 2

Human self

Answer 3

The atman (human self) is at a fundamental level, one with Brahman

Answer 4

There are illusions that keep us from realizing our one-ness with Brahman, and meditation will allow us to break through the illusion and tap into the part of ourselves that knows this connection

Answer 5

"liberation" The goal of Hinduism is to reach liberation by experiencing the oneness with Brahman (Realizing that all pain and suffering is just an illusion)

Answer 6

The path of knowledge t0 moksha (wisdom, need to experience it)

Answer 7

Every human has an inner self. This is what transits from life to life in the cycle of samsara. It is not created, it exists eternally because it is one with Brahman, and the goal of this process is to realize that identity

Answer 8

There are schools of thought for both

Answer 9

Hindu Devotionalism

Answer 10

No, they are all equally good

Answer 11

Giving the fruits of your actions to the divine

Answer 12

Knowledge from direct, personal experience with the divine. Knowing your purpose in life is one with the divine

Answer 13

Focus on a personal relationship between the individual and the divine. > The most accessible of the three

Answer 14

Devotional love of the divine | > Individuals and families having personal relationships with the gods and making personal sacrifices

Answer 15

they are all focused on bhakti

Answer 16

To be unified with the god at the centre at your chosen devotion after death

Answer 17

Naraka: hell

Answer 18

No, it is also the mindset you have when you perform the action

Answer 19

"final sacrifice", a funeral

Answer 20

- Cleansing the body (those who did the cleansing are impure) - Transportation of family to burial ground - Cremation --> releasing the spirit (note: the importance of fire in ritual/sacrifice) - the ashes are collected and disposed of in sacred waters

Answer 21

Memorial rites - the goal of the rites is to construct a body for the soul of a deceased loved one in order for it to become an ancestor (pitra)

Answer 22

Being symbolically cremated to have their body "die" to be reborn

Answer 23

The twenty-fourth tirthankara who founded Jainism, rejected the caste system

Answer 24

"striving/effort" severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons.

Answer 25

"conqueror" | Conquerors of human nature, pleasures of the self, material life

Answer 26

renunciant

Answer 27

"ford maker" a person who makes a path for people to cross a body of water (samsara). He is showing you WHERE to cross, but does not help you/carry you across. It is up to the individual to carry themselves across

Answer 28

``` non-violence (ahimsa) non-attachment sexual continence honesty avoidance of theft ```

Answer 29

``` uncreated person middle/navel below.... progressively above... progressively liberated beings ```

Answer 30

your karma can physically weigh you down and drag you to a lower level of hell.

Answer 31

Immediately after death.

Answer 32

All living things that have a sense can feel pain and therefore have a soul. This is why you are not allowed to harm living beings

Answer 33

Goal is to separate the body from the jiva as much as possible so that there is no karma holding it down at death.

Answer 34

"The good death" in Jainism. Die while reciting a prayer Voluntarily decide to take in less and less nourishment until you die. It is also having the right attitude towards the process

Answer 35

"virtue". The influx of karmic matter due to good activities of the mind, body, and speech with the potential of producing pleasant sensations.

Answer 36

Jainism's rejection of Vedic sacrifice | Also change in funerary practices

Answer 37

Dualistic - all things are made up of souls and matter

Answer 38

No, because a person is reborn right away so they do not need to be nourished by their ancestors in the afterlife

Answer 39

"enlightened/awakened" The Awakened One

Answer 40

No, it accommodates them into their beliefs, but believes that they are also susceptible to the cycle of samsara

Answer 41

An old man (aging) A funeral (death) A sick man (disease) An ascetic (someone who sees the suffering and believes anyway)

Answer 42

A being whose essence is enlightened but hasn't truely achieved being a Buddha yet

Answer 43

Regular life is too distracting to seek religious truth Extreme asceticism is also too much, it clouds the mind and they can't meditate properly There is a path between those two that leads to true enlightenment

Answer 44

experiential effort, like meditation

Answer 45

"extinguishing or blown out" getting out of the cycle of samsara When you reach nirvana you are no longer generating karma, however you are still continuing on in your current human life

Answer 46

The community of monks and nuns established by the Buddha

Answer 47

Final or ultimate nirvana | When a being who has achieved nirvana dies. The are fully and completely outside the cycle of nirvana

Answer 48

1. Where the Buddha was born 2. Where the Buddha became enlightened 3. Where the first preaching of dharma took place 4. Where the Buddha died

Answer 49

1. Impermanence 2. Suffering/unsatisfaction) (dukha) 3. No immortal souls (anatman)

Answer 50

No soul exists

Answer 51

Because having a permanent soul would make people attached to a thing, and attachments only bring suffering. So for there not to be suffering there needs to be no permanent soul

Answer 52

The "self" is made up of 5 aggregates: | One physical and four mental

Answer 53

Like a candle being lit by another candle's flame, there is a direct link of cause and effect, but each flame is new It depends more on a pattern rather than the transfer of a thing like a soul

Answer 54

Everything that exists is enmeshed in a net of causality Our ability to see the world is tied up with our craving for that world. That craving leads to the next link in the chain (samsara) Issue is that most stages in the chain is outside of our control. The only thing that is under our control is craving

Answer 55

The 6 realms someone can be born into based on their karma Upper/Good rebirth: human, god, demi-gods Lower/Bad rebirth: hungry ghosts, animal, hell realms

Answer 56

1. Life is Unsatisfactory (suffering) 2. Suffering is caused by craving (attachment to impermanent things) 3. Craving can cease 4. Cessation of craving through the Eightfold Path

Answer 57

Based on your karma | not tied to ritual anymore like in Hinduism, but rather based on your own actions

Answer 58

To expiate your bad karma | It is temporary, not forever

Answer 59

Negative emotional states that cause you to go through the cycle of life, death and rebirth Pig = ignorance Snake = anger Rooster = desire/greed

Answer 60

this heavily influences your karma on top of your accumulated karma. Example: a monk who is very angry at the moment of death is reborn as a snake

Answer 61

1. Morality - behaving properly 2. Insight - through meditation 3. Wisdom

Answer 62

1. Join sangha (Buddhist monks and nuns) 2. Follow the Eightfold Path 3. Become arhat --> achieve nirvana > this was an elite path and was not thought to be easy to do - it was only though good karma that you could achieve a life to be able to pursue this path

Answer 63

"worthy one" or "perfected one" | This is usually accomplished over many lives learning how to perfect oneself

Answer 64

Very rarely

Answer 65

"Birth story" Explain how the Buddha became the Buddha. Tells the stories of the previous births of the Buddha before he was the Buddha Can take almost any moral story and explain what role the bodhisattva played to teach a lesson and show how the bodhisattva gradually perfected himself

Answer 66

- Vow to be moral - Undergo acts that generate merit (punya) - Goal: a better rebirth

Answer 67

- Do acts that benefit the sangha | - Veneration of relics and participation in the stupa cults (places that where the Buddha's body were buried)

Answer 68

"mound" a place where a relic of the Buddha is housed. Going to a stupa is equivalent to seeing the Buddha himself and generates merit

Answer 69

A way of operationalizing the realization of impermanence by looking at a corpse (which were seen as disgusting)

Answer 70

After a loved one has died, to sponsor a monk to perform merit generating rituals on your loved one's behalf. Goal is to offset negative karma the person did in their past life

Answer 71

"Great(er) vehicle" | Considered itself to be the greatest text

Answer 72

An individual who wants to save all living beings

Answer 73

Not just the Buddha is past life but any being how wants to save lives Vow: I will stay in the cycle of samsara until all sentient beings achieve liberation Precepts: rules to live by

Answer 74

a new class of beings in this religion

Answer 75

"sound hearer" A super human being with many arms who is always listening to the world and will lend a helping hand to anyone to asks for it

Answer 76

"earth storer" or "earth womb" A celestial bodhisattva | Can descend into the hell realms and help the people stuck in hell

Answer 77

Anyone can become a Buddha with practice > no longer thought to be reserved for only the elite who were perfected over many lives

Answer 78

The earthly Buddha was a projection of the heavenly Buddha. The heavenly Buddhas in turn are a projection of a transcendent, all encompassing Buddha (the body of the teaching of the Buddha that is universal and omnipresent)

Answer 79

If everything that exists in the universe is empty, then, logically, there cannot be a distinction between samsara and nirvana. Nirvana is just our misunderstanding of existence. It is through combating that ignorance that we become liberated. Samsara = Nirvana

Answer 80

They said that the Buddha preached based on the audience's capacity to understand. Thus the early Buddhists had a different teaching because thats all they were able to understand

Answer 81

There is a terrible house. In the house, a man lives with his children. He goes to the store and on his way home he sees smoke rising from the terrible house with his children still inside. He yells to his children to get out but they refuse. He realizes he needs to tell them something (a lie) to convince them to come out of the house. He appeals to each child's preferences and entices them all to come outside Explanation: In the story the terrible house is the world/samsara and we are the children. Buddha is arguing that he didn't lie when preaching a different story to appeal to the audience. It was necessary for them to think that to be able to be liberated.

Answer 82

On a specific day, the ghosts can wander the earth, and it is the responsibility of the living to take care of the dead. You support all of the dead, not just your ancestors.

Answer 83

You can no longer give merit to your dead family on your own. Now you must go through monks and nuns through making donations who will then give merit to your dead relatives

Answer 84

A redefinition of Buddhist cosmology in light of Chinese social teachings where instead of being reborn immediately after death, there is a "purgatory" where the dead person's karma can be purged before their next brith The dead person passes through the courts of the ten kings to face judgement

Answer 85

Behaviours around the texts (Mahayana Surta or Scripture on the Ten Kings) could give you merit towards your karma - Copying the texts - Reciting the texts

Answer 86

Once a week for seven weeks, then 100 days, then 1 year, then 3 years after the loved one's death, the family pays a monk to recite scripture to transfer merit to their dead relative in the hopes of reducing the sentence they are given by the kings of the underworld. Do it a total of 10 times for each of the 10 courts

Answer 87

Pure land is not part of the cycle of samsara. Once a person is born in the pure land they never again face an unpleasant rebirth. You stay there until you have used up all your karma, at which point you achieve total enlightenment and have achieved Buddha-hood

Answer 88

The Buddha that oversees the Pure Lands

Answer 89

Chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha | Purposely made it simple so even regular people can make it there

Answer 90

There was the belief that the age of the decline or end of dharma had been reached and Buddhism could no longer be properly practised. Thus getting into the Pure Lands was interpreted to be a simple and accessable devotional practice: chanting the name of the Amitabha Budda

Answer 91

To stress the accessibility of the Pure Land

Answer 92

"partitioners" | Each family was associated with one temple

Answer 93

Since every family was associated with one temple., the performance of funerary rituals became the responsibility of one specific temple. Social system where the temples start to rely on their partitioners as their primary source of revenue

Answer 94

It is complex and inaccessible to the lay person, so you need to have someone teach it to you, like a guru

Answer 95

Mantra - set of sacred syllables that represent the deity that is invoked Mandala - geometrical arrangements that depict Buddhas. They are thought to represent celestial abodes, used in meditative practices Mudra - a particular hand position to assume a bodily form of a desired Buddha

Answer 96

Used to meditate and visualize the self merging with a deity. Tantric belief system is that every living thing has innate Buddha-hood, and it is only our failure of understanding that prevents us from seeing this. Sand mandalas are used to symbolize impermanence, they are destroyed when they are finished being created

Answer 97

Homology | Identification of self with chosen deity. Buddhahood in this lifetime

Answer 98

Realizing that every living being contains every other living being, including all the Buddhas

Answer 99

The lightning bolt weapon that Indra welds | It is a ritual implement and an artistic motif

Answer 100

"return from death" Religious figures like shamans who claim to have descended into the realm of the dead and then to come back to talk about it Intended to prove the truth of the Buddhist teachings on death and the samsara

Answer 101

"Gurus/Lama" or "the first level body of the Buddha" | The Dalai Lama is one of these

Answer 102

"The great liberation" A book that outlines death bed practices and liberation at the time of death Over the course of life we pass through various intermediate states (bardo). Theory in the book is that in between death and birth, one goes through a succession of these intermediate states. Idea is that if a dying person manages to maintain their composure at the time of death, they can obtain Buddhahood because we are all Buddha's already

Answer 103

"intermediate state"

Answer 104

As your body dies it is thought that each of the elements in your body (earth, water, fire, air) will give itself up.

Answer 105

"Giving alms to the birds" Offering up the body to sacred birds as food as the Bodhisattva did Impermanence: once the consciousness is gone, there is no need for the body anymore

Answer 106

People would write questions on animal bones. Then a religious leader would place a heated rod on the bone. The way the bone cracked was supposed to be the answer to the question. Typically asked moral questions or about the future

Answer 107

The assumption that things out there in the world are animated by spirits

Answer 108

Bargaining with the supernatural world

Answer 109

The extent to which super natural beings have power to influence the world

Answer 110

Tell that there was a notion of continuity because people were buried with things to help them "survive" in the afterlife. The afterlife was somehow continuous with regular life because people would need the same things

Answer 111

Things are happening in the world because there are ghosts, gods, and spirits that are interacting directly with with humanity

Answer 112

Assumes that things happen in the world due to the interaction between natural forces

Answer 113

Gods were not thought to be these being in another realm, but it was thought that they interacted with humans directly. Not necessarily supernatural nor superhuman. They can be defeated by humans and humans can have power over them

Answer 114

They differ in their relationships with human beings but they are not fundamentally different in type. Relationship depends on the point of view of the individual

Answer 115

Ghosts who had a lot of clout (ling) could demand to be worshiped as a god with threats of misfortune if they were not

Answer 116

Everything has a destiny or a pre-determined life span that is given to them at birth. Over the course of a persons life, their actions can cause this lifespan to change

Answer 117

People who would allow spirits to enter them (allow themselves to be possessed) They typically performed one of three different types of rituals: - communication, allows spirit to speak through them - exchange, can intercede and make offerings to spirits to keep them from making trouble - antagonism, exorcism or combat with evil spirits

Answer 118

Before the funeral they tried to call the spirit back to the body

Answer 119

They were technical manuals, practical manuals to be used by lay people to give advice on how to deal with members of the invading spirit realm

Answer 120

"material energy" There are forces out in the world that we can feel but not see (like wind) There is this energy in things, it has a physicality

Answer 121

"dark and light" They generate each other, they have a cyclical nature Need to understand their flow to be able to live a good life

Answer 122

Everything has a thing that it is and a thing that it will become. The Doa is that which makes things as they are.

Answer 123

There was ambiguity Not assuming that life is better than death. There might be a transformation in death, death might give you a better existence

Answer 124

Hun = cloud or spirit soul Po = light or material soul They are associated with ying and yang Hun leaves body at death, po soul remains with the body and bones

Answer 125

A realm of the dead under the earth | It was thought that the souls living in this realm had property rights over the places they were burried

Answer 126

We are who we are because of our social relationships

Answer 127

"humankind-ness" | Acknowledging the humanity of other people

Answer 128

"Filial piety" Respect that is due to the old from the young This is for both living and deceased relatives

Answer 129

To give us practical experience to know how to interact with others Rituals from ancestor veneration to table manners are a discipline and teach us how to behave properly in the context of our relationships

Answer 130

The youngest relative plays the role of the deceased ancestor. It was thought that the spirit of the ancestor dwells within the personator and literally get to share the food with the living family The personator gets to experience what it is like to experience filial piety. The idea is that the young person will be inspired by this and want to treat their elders with respect so they too will be treated with respect when they are older

Answer 131

3 years | Because as a child you were completely dependent on your parents for 3 years, so you are paying them back that honour

Answer 132

People could be given a government position solely because they exemplified Confucian moral ethics (like properly mourning the death of a parent or proper performance of ancestor rituals)

Answer 133

Benevolent figures, their very existence can protect those around them

Answer 134

Centred around cultivating qi. - Through behaviours like breathing exercises Elixirs were also made to help with immortality

Answer 135

1. Heavenly immortals - in broad daylight would ascend up to heaven as divine beings 2. Earth bound immortals - they leave human society behind and walk off into the wilderness 3. Simulated corpse immortals - they feign death, their bodies are placed into a coffin but when the coffin is reopened at a later time, they are no longer there

Answer 136

A group of people who were responsible for updating the "fate roster" for their communities. They kept record of all the births and deaths to report them to the gods to make sure that the fate roster of the Celestial community was never out of synch with reality because they could lead to terrible consequences. The "fate roster" is tied to the idea that everyone has a set lifespan and that one's lifespan is being determined by divinities.

Answer 137

The Celestial Masters community set up a bureaucracy to parallel the bureaucracy of the gods. And they are regularly performing rituals to maintain contact with the gods.

Answer 138

Each Celestial Master had one. This was the list of gods that they could call on that would do their bidding. As they were promoted, they had access to more gods. >parallels between the human and celestial bureaucracy

Answer 139

If you sin or behave immorally, years will be taken off of your fated lifespan

Answer 140

Sin was understood to have consequences, and as such, any time you felt sick they first thing you would do was confess your sins to your local libationer. The libationer would then perform rituals on your behalf to try to regain the lost years on your lifespan.

Answer 141

There was the understanding that the underworld functioned almost the exact same way as the human world bureaucratically. So if bad things were happening in your life, it might be that there was a land dispute with a dead person and they were filing a law suit against you.

Answer 142

A piece of paper containing the person's name and other details. The paper is brought to the burial site and is venerated. It is thought that the soul transitions into that paper. That paper is kept on a separate alter from the ancestor alter. After some time has passed they officially become an ancestor and then get a tablet on the alter of ancestors. (right of passage)

Answer 143

1. Denial 2. Anger 3. Bargaining 4. Depression 5. Acceptance

Answer 144

The person who is dying Also the people around the dying person

Answer 145

1. Every person goes through the grieving process in the same way 2. Prescriptive reading of the theory because it is linear nature (worrying about skipping a stage or that you are not grieving properly)

Answer 146

There is no linearity to grief, rather there are 3 main patterns: Chronic Grief = no matter how much time passes the grief does not change Recovery = have high grief at the beginning and get better after around a year, but still feel the loss forever Resilience = grief hits them hard initially, but they are able to adapt to the loss (most common)

Answer 147

Suggest that one of the major drivers of human activity is the fear of death. Psychologically humans crave a feeling of continuity. To have an understanding that in some why, they will survive this present moment (symbolic immortality)

Answer 148

1. Biological immortality - biosocial immortality (one can continue on by reproducing) 2. Creative immortality - having a creative work be famous that you name lives on 3. Theological immortality - believing that you will live on in some form after death 4. Natural Immortality - we are all part of a natural cycle of life. As a result, when you die your body is simply reincorporated into the natural world 5. Experiential immortality - there are certain experiences of changes in psychological states that radically redefine how death is seen or interpreted

Answer 149

Cancer, because we are living longer

Answer 150

Dying with dignity | Allows for physician assisted suicide

Answer 151

Medicalization Professionalization Bureaucratization

Answer 152

The removal of death from the familial context and its transition into an institutional medical one. Most people are dying in hospitals

Answer 153

The removal of families from the process of managing death and all of those responsibilities being off loaded onto professionals

Answer 154

The overwhelming number of laws and procedures surrounding death

Answer 155

By using terms like "they passed away" "they are in a better place" or even gallows humour

Answer 156

When one is in a socially acceptable relationship with a person who had a "good death", then there is social support for the grieving individual. When one is in an unconventional relationship that is not socially recognized or has a degenerative disease so grieving starts before death, their grief is not supported by society and therefore feel disenfranchised

Answer 157

The liminal state between the death of an individual and their funeral service During this period, the deceased person is seen to be in a liminal space between death and life The family holds a wake and the person is treated as if they were alive (talked to)

Answer 158

"without bonds" | Fear of being forgotten after death, of no longer being bound to anybody, both socially and karmically

Lecture part 2 Flashcards

(184 cards)