Final Exam Spring 2018

For the questions below, provide the best answer. Best = most inclusive if there is more than one correct answer. Record your answers on a Scantron 882e form with a #2 pencil.

Part I: Zen Buddhism

1. What does shoshin mean? 2. Why is shoshin essential to Zen practice?

3. Why is posture important in Zazen?

4. In Zen, what is big mind and small mind? 5. Which of the following is true about the Zen practice called shikan taza?

6. How does Zen understand the relationship between practice and goal?

7. What is the Zen view of enlightenment/?

8. In Zen practice, what is relationship between things and the mind?

9. What is the Zen view of agreeable and disagreeable things?

10. What is meant by “stopping the mind” in Zen?

11. What does bowing to the Buddha mean in Zen?

12. What is the relationship between zazen as a formal sitting practice and the rest of our lives?

Part II: Panjvani’s Philosophy of Buddhism

13. “Negative” human conditions (e.g., birth, aging, sickness, death, pain, sorrow, grief, despair,) are not themselves dukkha, but dukkha arises when ______.

14. Which of the following best captures Panjvani’s understanding of craving (tanha)?

15. Which of the following best captures Panjvani’s understanding of the connection between craving (tanha) and suffering (dukkha)?

16. Which of the following understandings of dukkha does Panjvani reject?

17. What is “attachment to self”?

18. Why might “attachment to self” result in suffering?

19. Why is Buddhism often described as godless? 1

20. How does Panjvani describe samsara and nirvana?

21. Which of the following is what Panjvani says about nirvana?

22. Why does Panjvani say that it’s incorrect to describe nirvana as the annihilation of the self?

23. According to Panjvani, why is there some value in negative descriptions of Nirvana?

24. According to Panjvani, while Buddhism rejects a substantial enduring self, it does accept ______.

25. According to Panjvani, the idea of the self as pure awareness/consciousness is problematic since ______.

26. Panjvani argues that, unlike the atman/Brahman idea of the Upanishads, the Buddhist negative description of ______is less susceptible to producing attachment.

27. Panjvani argues that, unlike the “argument from aggregates,” the “argument from lack of control” is effective against______.

28. According to Panjvani, how is the model of universal causation (UC) related to dependent origination (DO)?

29. What is Panjvani’s “Buddhist” objection to causal determinism?

30. Which of the following claims about causation does Panjvani think fits best with Buddhism?

Part III: Buddhism and the Pali Canon

31. Which of the following most accurately describes the location and date of origin of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism?

32. Which of the following best describes the noble quest?

33. During Siddhartha Gautama’s noble quest, he cultivated ______under the gurus Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta.

34. Where was the Buddha when he had his final “enlightenment” experience?

35. What did the Buddha realize during his final “enlightenment” experience?

36. In the “Dart of Painful Feeling,” the Buddha says that the uninstructed worldling experiences dukkha because ______.

37. In the “Vicissitudes of Life,” the Buddha says that the difference between the instructed noble disciple and the uninstructed worldling is that ______.

38. The Pali term tanha means ______.

2

39. The first of the of Buddhism is ______.

40. The second of the four noble truths of Buddhism is ______.

41. The third of the four noble truths of Buddhism is ______.

42. The fourth noble truth is ______.

43. What are the 7th and 8th parts or aspects of the eightfold path?

44. The Pali word “dukkha” literally means ______.

45. Which of the following is not one of the three marks of existence according to Buddhism?

46. Which of the following accurately conveys the Buddha’s view about the relationship between serenity/calmness and insight as aspects of meditation practice?

47. Concentration on the body, bodily sensations, states of mind, and mind-thoughts constitute ______.

48. What is supposed to be experientially seen as an essential aspect of practice?

49. Nibbana is associated with cessation. What ceases?

50. The argument from aggregates purports to show that since the aggregates are impermanent and there is no object that could be a self other than the aggregates (individually or collectively considered), therefore, ______.

3