DOCSLIB.ORG

The Eightfold Path Week One: Overview, Right View Sutta Readings

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Eightfold Path Week One: Overview, Right View Sutta Readings The Eightfold Path Week One: Overview, Right View Sutta Readings The Middle Way The Middle Path realized by the Buddha gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path? It is the Noble Eightfold path, and nothing else, namely: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. This is the Middle Path realized by the Buddha which gives vision, which gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment, and to Nibbana. What Is Dukkha? "Now what, friends, is the noble truth of dukkha? Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha.” – SN 56.11 Good and Bad Seeds For a person with wrong view, whatever actions, intentions, aspirations or decisions are undertaken according to that view incline toward what is unwelcome, unagreeable, unpleasing, unbeneficial — towards suffering. Just as when a chokeberry seed is planted in moist soil, whatever nutrients it draws from the earth or from the water inclines it towards bitterness, acridity, and disagreeableness. Why is that? Because the seed is bitter. For a person with right view, whatever actions, intentions, aspirations or decisions are undertaken according to that view incline toward what is welcome, agreeable, pleasing, beneficial — towards non-suffering. Just as when a sugarcane seed is planted in moist soil, whatever nutrients it draws from the earth or from the water inclines it towards sweetness, agreeableness, deliciousness. Why is that? Because the seed is sweet. – A 1:17.9–10 Kamma “I am the owner of my actions, heir of my actions; born of my actions, and bound to my actions, and supported by my actions. Whatever deeds I do, good or bad, of that I will become the heir.” – A 5.57 Right View and Kamma “When a noble disciple understands what is kammically unwholesome, and the root of unwholesome kamma, what is kammically wholesome, and the root of wholesome kamma, then he has right view.” This Week’s Lists and Pali Terms Four Noble Truths • Understanding suffering, • Its origin or arising, • Its cessation, • Path leading to its cessation Eightfold Path • Right view • Right intention • Right speech • Right action • Right livelihood • Right effort • Right mindfulness • Right concentration Three Unwholesome Roots • Greed (attachment, lust) • Aversion (hatred, anger, aggression) • Delusion (ignorance, indifference) Three Marks of Existence • Unsatisfactoriness (dukkha) • Impermanence (anicca) • Not self (anatta) Five Aggregates (Skandhas) • Form (rupa: the physical world) • Feeling (vedana: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) • Perception (sanna) • Mental Formations (sankharas: mental states, emotions, volitions) • Consciousness (vinnana) Taints (Asavas) • Craving for sense pleasures • Becoming, or craving for existence • Ignorance/not understanding true nature of things • Attachment to opinions, views Group Reflection What’s your motivation for taking this course? What do you hope to get out of it? To learn more about Buddhism? To improve your quality of life? To awaken? Something else? Explore these questions together, and wrap up by setting a brief intention for our six weeks together. Home Reflection and Practice 1. What views do you live by? Tune into the primary views, orientations, or beliefs that inform your life — those that are both obvious and more subtle. How do your views influence your experience? How do they help or hinder? 2. Explore the experience of dukkha in your life. Tune in to the moments when dissatisfaction, stress, and suffering arise. Keep track of them in a journal if you can. At the end of the week, write a one-two sentence summary of your observations and what you learned from the discussion on dukkha in class to share the next time we meet. 3. Optional but highly recommended: Watch The Buddha, a 2-hour PBS documentary .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna's Middle
    Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna’s Middle Way 1994 Jonah Winters About this Book Any research into a school of thought whose texts are in a foreign language encounters certain difficulties in deciding which words to translate and which ones to leave in the original. It is all the more of an issue when the texts in question are from a language ancient and quite unlike our own. Most of the texts on which this thesis are based were written in two languages: the earliest texts of Buddhism were written in a simplified form of Sanskrit called Pali, and most Indian texts of Madhyamika were written in either classical or “hybrid” Sanskrit. Terms in these two languages are often different but recognizable, e.g. “dhamma” in Pali and “dharma” in Sanskrit. For the sake of coherency, all such terms are given in their Sanskrit form, even when that may entail changing a term when presenting a quote from Pali. Since this thesis is not intended to be a specialized research document for a select audience, terms have been translated whenever possible,even when the subtletiesof the Sanskrit term are lost in translation.In a research paper as limited as this, those subtleties are often almost irrelevant.For example, it is sufficient to translate “dharma” as either “Law” or “elements” without delving into its multiplicity of meanings in Sanskrit. Only four terms have been left consistently untranslated. “Karma” and “nirvana” are now to be found in any English dictionary, and so their translation or italicization is unnecessary. Similarly, “Buddha,” while literally a Sanskrit term meaning “awakened,” is left untranslated and unitalicized due to its titular nature and its familiarity.
    [Show full text]
  • Early Buddhism: Karma, Anatta (No-Self)
    BUDDHISM: CLASS OUTLINE 2 KARMA, NO-SELF, REBIRTH 1. Three Marks of Existence (Tri-lakṣṣṣaaaṇṇṇa [in Pali: Tri-lakkhaaaṇṇṇa] 1) anicca (impermanence) 2) anatta (no-self) 3) dukkha (suffering/grasping) 2. Karma: 1) intention / volition / state of the mind 2) conditioning: neither fatalistic nor deterministic - Twelve Links of Dependent Origination - Five Skandhas 3) no-self (anātman [Pāli: anatta]) 3. Samsāra 4. Twelve Links of Dependent Origination (Paticca-samuppāda) PAST LIVES 1. ignorance (avidyā) [Cause of Future Lives] 2. volitions (saṃṃṃskāra [in Pali: sankhara]) 3a. consciousness leading to another appearance/birth (vijñāna [Pali: viññāna]) PRESENT LIFE 3b. consciousness (vijñāna) [Effect of Past Lives] 4. mind and body (literally, name and form) (nāma-rūpa) 5. six sense organs 6. contact with sense objects 7. sensations (vedanā) 8. desire (tṛṣṇaaa [Pali: tatataṇṇṇhhhāāā]) [Cause of Future Lives] 9. grasping (upādāna) 10. becoming (bhāva) NEXT LIFE 11. Birth (jāti) [Effects in Future Lives] 12. Old age, senility and death 5. Five Skandhas [Pali: Khandhas] (Aggregates of Being) 1. Form (rūpa) The physical body. All the other four aggregates are mental phenomena. 2. Sensations or Feelings This denote two things: (vedanā) (1) it is raw sensory input before it is processed by the mind (e.g., the light that enters your eyes, the sound in your ears, etc., before the mind has a chance to identify them). (2) it is a judgment that these things are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral 3. Perceptions The mind imposes an interpretation on sense data, (saṃṃṃjña [in Pali: sañña]) so that one recognizes a visible form of brown and green light as a tree, a certain smell as a skunk, etc.
    [Show full text]
  • The Middles of the Middle Way
    The Middles of the Middle Way In his very first sermon, the Buddha introduced his path of practice as a middle way that avoids two extremes: a commitment to sensual pleasures related to sensual desires, and a commitment to self-affliction. On the surface, this statement makes the path sound like a middling way, at a bland halfway point on the continuum between pleasure and pain. But if you read further in the Canon on the middle way, you realize that its middleness is much more complex than that. To begin with, there are times when the Buddha recommends pursuing pleasant practice; and other times where he recommends painful practice. There are also times where he talks of the middleness of his middle way in different terms entirely. When discussing one of the more advanced stages of the first factor of the path, right view, he describes it as a perspective that avoids questions requiring an either/or response, where both the either and the or entangle you in issues that distract you from the task of putting an end to suffering and stress. This aspect of the path is middle in the sense that it cuts right through the middle of such questions and throws both alternatives off to the side. This means that the Buddha chose his words carefully. The path doesn’t necessarily lie between two extremes. It avoids two extremes. But exactly which directions it goes in avoiding them is up to the discernment of each practitioner to find out. Sometimes you avoid extremes by finding a point of moderation on a continuum running between them: a point that doesn’t always stay right in the middle, and that can move unexpectedly.
    [Show full text]
  • A Departure for Returning to Sabha: a Study of Koan Practice of Silence Jea Sophia Oh West Chester University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
    West Chester University Digital Commons @ West Chester University Philosophy College of Arts & Humanities 12-2017 A departure for returning to sabha: a study of koan practice of silence Jea Sophia Oh West Chester University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/phil_facpub Part of the Buddhist Studies Commons Recommended Citation Oh, J. S. (2017). A departure for returning to sabha: a study of koan practice of silence. International Journal of Dharma Studies, 5(12) http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40613-017-0059-7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts & Humanities at Digital Commons @ West Chester University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ West Chester University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Oh International Journal of Dharma Studies (2017) 5:12 International Journal of DOI 10.1186/s40613-017-0059-7 Dharma Studies RESEARCH Open Access A departure for returning to sabha: a study of koan practice of silence Jea Sophia Oh Correspondence: [email protected] West Chester University of Abstract Pennsylvania, 700 S High St. AND 108D, West Chester, PA 19383, USA This paper deals with koan practice of silence through analyzing the Korean Zen Buddhist film, Why Has Boddhidharma Left for the East? (Bae, Yong-Kyun, Why Has Bodhidharma Left for the East? 1989). This paper follows Kibong's path along with the Buddha's journey of 1) departure, 2) journey in the middle way, and 3) returning with a particular focus on koan practice of silence as the transformative element of enlightenment.
    [Show full text]
  • Print This Article
    Journal of Global Buddhism Vol. 18 (2017): 112–128 Special Focus: Buddhists and the Making of Modern Chinese Societies Buddhism and Global Secularisms David L. McMahan, Franklin and Marshall College Abstract: Buddhism in the modern world offers an example of (1) the porousness of the boundary between the secular and religious; (2) the diversity, fluidity, and constructedness of the very categories of religious and secular, since they appear in different ways among different Buddhist cultures in divergent national contexts; and (3) the way these categories nevertheless have very real-world effects and become drivers of substantial change in belief and practice. Drawing on a few examples of Buddhism in various geographical and political settings, I hope to take a few modest steps toward illuminating some broad contours of the interlacing of secularism and Buddhism. In doing so, I am synthesizing some of my own and a few others’ research on modern Buddhism, integrating it with some current research I am doing on meditation, and considering its implications for thinking about secularism. This, I hope, will provide a background against which we can consider more closely some particular features of Buddhism in the Chinese cultural world, about which I will offer some preliminary thoughts. Keywords: secularism; modern Buddhism; meditation; mindfulness; vipassanā The Religious-Secular Binary he wave of scholarship on secularism that has arisen in recent decades paints a more nuanced picture than the reigning model throughout most of the twentieth century. For most of the twentieth century, social theorists adhered Tto a linear narrative of secularism as a global process of religion waning and becoming less relevant to public life.
    [Show full text]
  • Mindfulness and the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path
    Chapter 3 Mindfulness and the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path Malcolm Huxter 3.1 Introduction In the late 1970s, Kabat-Zinn, an immunologist, was on a Buddhist meditation retreat practicing mindfulness meditation. Inspired by the personal benefits, he de- veloped a strong intention to share these skills with those who would not normally attend retreats or wish to practice meditation. Kabat-Zinn developed and began con- ducting mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in 1979. He defined mindful- ness as, “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment to moment” (Kabat-Zinn 2003, p. 145). Since the establishment of MBSR, thousands of individuals have reduced psychological and physical suffering by attending these programs (see www.unmassmed.edu/cfm/mbsr/). Furthermore, the research into and popularity of mindfulness and mindfulness-based programs in medical and psychological settings has grown exponentially (Kabat-Zinn 2009). Kabat-Zinn (1990) deliberately detached the language and practice of mind- fulness from its Buddhist origins so that it would be more readily acceptable in Western health settings (Kabat-Zinn 1990). Despite a lack of consensus about the finer details (Singh et al. 2008), Kabat-Zinn’s operational definition of mindfulness remains possibly the most referred to in the field. Dozens of empirically validated mindfulness-based programs have emerged in the past three decades. However, the most acknowledged approaches include: MBSR (Kabat-Zinn 1990), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT; Linehan 1993), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT; Hayes et al. 1999), and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT; Segal et al.
    [Show full text]
  • Buddhist Doctrines (Source: Phillip Novak
    Buddhist Doctrines (source: Phillip Novak. The World’s Wisdom. Edison, NJ: Castle Books. 1994:65-83.) a. The Three Jewels (The Buddha “the Awakened One,” Dharma (Sanskrit)/Dhamma (Pali) – the way of truth he taught, and the Sangha – the community of those who live by that teaching, are called the Three Jewels because of their purity and inestimable value. They are held as essential by all schools of Buddhism. The triple recitation of the following formula is a basic Buddhist act of piety.) I go for refuge to the Buddha. I go for refuge to the Dharma. I go for refuge to the Sangha. b. The Four Noble Truths (from the Buddha’s first sermon, “Setting Rolling the Wheel of Truth.”) Suffering (Dukkha), as a noble truth, is this: Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and pain . and despair are suffering, association with the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering – in short suffering is the five (groups) of clinging’s objects (the five skandhas/skandas or “groupings of existence,” that make up a human individual). Thus the origin of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is the craving that produces renewal of being, accompanied by enjoyment and lust – in other words, craving for sensual desires, craving for being, craving for non-being (Tanha). Cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is remainderless fading and ceasing, . letting go and rejecting, of that same craving (Nirvana/Sunyata). The way leading to the cessation of suffering, as a noble truth is this: It is simply the eightfold path of (Prajna) right view and right intention, (Sila) right speech, right action and right livelihood, and (Dhyana) right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.
    [Show full text]
  • “The Buddhist Theory of Impermanence and Marketing”
    “The Buddhist Theory of Impermanence and Marketing” Alan Ching Biu Tse Ka Chun Tse AUTHORS Ka Ho Tse Alan Au Vane-ing Tian Alan Ching Biu Tse, Ka Chun Tse, Ka Ho Tse, Alan Au and Vane-ing Tian ARTICLE INFO (2007). The Buddhist Theory of Impermanence and Marketing. Innovative Marketing , 3(2) RELEASED ON Tuesday, 05 June 2007 JOURNAL "Innovative Marketing " FOUNDER LLC “Consulting Publishing Company “Business Perspectives” NUMBER OF REFERENCES NUMBER OF FIGURES NUMBER OF TABLES 0 0 0 © The author(s) 2021. This publication is an open access article. businessperspectives.org Innovative Marketing, Volume 3, Issue 2, 2007 19 THE BUDDHIST THEORY OF IMPERMANENCE AND MARKETING Alan Ching Biu Tse*, Ka Chun Tse**, Ka Ho Tse***, Alan Au****, Vane-ing Tian***** Abstract The Buddhist theory of impermanence bears a high level of relevance to the many cyclical theories in marketing and economics. This article attempts to connect these two areas, both of which have general and wide-ranging implications, and explain the utility of the concept of impermanence to business managers. Key words: Marketing Management, Impermanence, Buddhist Philosophy, Cyclical Theory. he Buddhist Theory of Impermanence and Marketing The application of Buddhist logic in the development of marketing theory and practice is new. So far little, if anything, has been written on applying Buddhist logic in marketing. The lack of at- tempts to link Buddhism and business marketing is largely due to the common but over-simplistic notion that Buddhist ideologies are nihilistic and advocate that nothing is worthwhile, directly con- tradicting the profit-driven perspective of marketing managers seeking to maximize a firm’s wealth.
    [Show full text]
  • The Dao Or Tao Quanzhen School of Daoism
    The Dao or Tao The Dao or “The Way” is one of China’s major religions. The main belief is to follow “the way”. It traces its roots back to the sixth century BC. A Chinese philosopher called Laozi wrote a famous book (“Tao te Ching”). After Laozi, came the philosopher Zhuang Zi. He wrote in the Zhuang Zi of “The Butterfly Dream”. In this he describes how he dreamt he was a butterfly but when he work up he asked himself: “Was it the butterfly dreaming he was the Tuan Zhuangzi?” The person who is a believer in “The Way” (the Dao) is called a daoist. The daoist believes that life is generally happy but that it should be lived with balance and virtue (“being good”.) During the Tan Dynasty (618-906 AD), Daoism became the official religion but in later dynasties it was overtaken by Buddhism. During the Cultural Revolution from 1966-1976 many Daoist temples were destroyed. Following the economic reforms in the 1980s, many have been restored and the number of Daoists has grown. There are currently 25,000 Daoist priests and nuns in China. Quanzhen School of Daoism This is a “school of thought”. It consisted of meditation and breathing exercises to help people live longer. Many are also vegetarian. Daoists do not believe in extremes. There is nothing totally good or totally evil. The symbol which shows this clearly is the black and white Ying and Yang. Ying – black: negative, feminine. A symbol of dark, cold, moon, emptiness, weakness. 1 Yang – white: positive, masculine .A symbol of strength and activity, light, warmth, sun, full.
    [Show full text]
  • Dharma Kings and Flying Women: Buddhist
    DHARMA KINGS AND FLYING WOMEN: BUDDHIST EPISTEMOLOGIES IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY INDIAN AND BRITISH WRITING by CYNTHIA BETH DRAKE B.A., University of California at Berkeley, 1984 M.A.T., Oregon State University, 1992 M.A. Georgetown University, 1999 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English 2017 This thesis entitled: Dharma Kings and Flying Women: Buddhist Epistemologies in Early Twentieth-Century Indian and British Writing written by Cynthia Beth Drake has been approved for the Department of English ________________________________________ Dr. Laura Winkiel __________________________________________ Dr. Janice Ho Date ________________ The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. Drake, Cynthia Beth (Ph.D., English) Dharma Kings and Flying Women: Buddhist Epistemologies in Early Twentieth-Century Indian and British Writing Thesis directed by Associate Professor Laura Winkiel The British fascination with Buddhism and India’s Buddhist roots gave birth to an epistemological framework combining non-dual awareness, compassion, and liberational praxis in early twentieth-century Indian and British writing. Four writers—E.M. Forster, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Lama Yongden, and P.L. Travers—chart a transnational cartography that mark points of location in the flow and emergence of this epistemological framework. To Forster, non- duality is a terrifying rupture and an echo of not merely gross mismanagement, but gross misunderstanding by the British of India and its spiritual legacy.
    [Show full text]
  • Comments on Max Müller's Interpretation of the Buddhist
    COMMENTS ON MAX MÜLLER'S INTERPRETATION OF THE BUDDHIST NIRVANA BY G. R. WELBON Rochester, U.S.A. Close, analytical study of ancient Indian religious terminology is a demanding discipline today engaged in by only a few scholars 1). Compounding the impressive difficulties encountered in such investiga- tions, it will be noticed, some of the terms have become incorporated into the vocabulary of contemporary non-Indians. Sanctified by several decades of inclusion in dictionaries of the various Western European languages, they have acquired an uncritical significance which makes it all the more difficult to assess their "original" and contextual signifi- cations in the Indian thought schemata. Among the terms most bedeviling in its complexity of nuance is that of nirvdna according to Buddhist usage. Recently, the distinguished Belgian scholars, Ludo and Rosane Rocher, have expressed some of the frustrations shared by many who have tried to analyse that term: Qu'on conqoive les bouddhistes comme les antagonistes conscients de l'hin- douisme ou comme les "freres des brahmanes des Upanishads", il n'en reste pas moins que le concept bouddhiste de nirvti1la a ete construit sur ou a r6agi contre des elements de 1'hindouisme plus ancien, et qu'a son tour l'hindouisme plus recent s'est enrichi de ou a r6agi contre des elements du nirvana. Nous ne traiterons pas du Nirvana dans la presente 6tude, tout d'abord, parce que le concept hindouiste de mok,?a pose à lui seul, un tel nombre de pro- blemes qu'ils ne pourront être discutés dans leur totalite, et ensuite parce que les bouddhologues, eux-memes, n'en ont resolu les problemes fondamen- 1) Among the most distinguished must be mentioned Louis Renou and Jan Gonda.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter II DEFINITION of the TERM SATI and SAMMĀSATI
    Chapter II DEFINITION OF THE TERM SATI AND SAMMĀSATI The word “Sati” has been used in Buddhist psychology in the sense of “mindfulness" for over 2500 years. Sati is the most important for cultivation of mind, and Vipassanā (insight meditation). There are different ways to explain the term Sati, it may be so useful to take a fresh look at mindfulness to clarify its meaning. The approach in this chapter is to seek the nature of mindfulness by studying the Suttas in which the Buddha and his students have used the term. In these Suttas we find a number of themes associated with mindfulness. It consists of the concept of the word Sati and also of the word Sammāsati, which is used to give the sense of correct (right) mindfulness. The definition and the meaning of Sati and Sammāsati, the types of the Sammāsati and different functions of Sati are also discussed in this chapter. Now we should go in detail in order to understand the Term Sammāsati clearly. II.1. Concept of Sati (mindfulness) The psychological concept of mindfulness involves the non- judgmental acceptance of thoughts, feelings and body sensations. 16 Mindfulness and a practicing of mindfulness can also decrease negative thoughts that intrude upon a leader‟s mind.8 The research has shown that Sati (mindfulness) leads to a better quality of life through feeling better and having less emotional distress. Sati plays a central role in the teachings of Buddhist meditation where it is affirmed that "correct" or "right" mindfulness is the critical factor in the path to liberation and subsequent enlightenment.
    [Show full text]