World Religions Notes

050830 0510 0605 0702 0704 F T Please report any errors, typographical or otherwise. D R A World Religions Notes prepared by the Reverend Vern Barnet, DMn, minister emeritus of CRES, www.cres.org Box 45414, Kansas City, MO 64171; Email: [email protected] NOT FOR PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, OR QUOTATION WITHOUT PERMISSION. © copyright 2007, 2009 T ABLE OF CONTENTS Motto Primal faiths Monotheistic faiths he History of Religions is not 8 Ancient Mesopotamian religion 28 Abrahamic religions merely an historical discipline, 9 Ancient Egyptian religion 29 Zoroastrianism T 10 The Greek style, the Roman style 30 Judaism as for example, are archeology and 11 The Maya, the Inca 31 Christianity numismatics. It is equally a total 12 American Indian religions 35 Islam hermeneutics being called to decipher 13 Traditional African religions 38 Sikhism [local notes] and explicate every kind of encounter 14 Wicca 39 Bahá'í [local notes] with the sacred, from prehistory to Conclusions Asian faiths 39 A Pluralistic View our own day. —Mircea Eliade 16 Ancient Chinese religion 41 Comparisons and 17 Hinduism the future of religions Epitomizing texts 18 From the Gita 42 What is sacred? 2 Chief Seattle’s Letter 19 Buddhism in India Capsule summaries 3 The Heart Sutra 20 The enlightened no-self 43 Chart, final exam 4 Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address 21 Buddhism in China 23 Buddhism in Japan / Zen stories History of religions theory 24 Buddhism in Tibet 5 Religion before history 25 Smokey the Bear Sutra 6 Wheat 26 Amitabha’s Vow 7 Myth, ritual, and religious style 27 Thirty-five Voidistic Quotations World religions can be classified many ways, none of which is without flaws and exceptions. Here, two scholars imply a scheme similar to the one this course uses. [1] Judaism is a religion of history and as such it may be con- God has already done. The feasts of Judaism are chiefly com- trasted with religions of nature and religions of contempla- memorative: Passover recalls the deliverance of the Jews from tion. bondage in Egypt; Purim, Esther’s triumph over Haman, who Religions of nature see God in the surrounding universe; sought to destroy the Jews in the days of King Ahasuerus; and for example, in the orderly course of the heavenly bodies, or Hanukkah, the purification of the Temple after its desecration by more frequently in the recurring cycle of the withering and re- Antiochus Epiphanes. And this religion looks forward with surgence of vegetation. This cycle is interpreted as the dying faith; remembrance is a reminder that God will not forsake his and rising of a god in whose experience the devotee may share own. The faith of Judaism was anchored in the belief that God through various ritual acts and may thus also become divine was bound to his people by a covenant, at times renewed and en- and immortal. For such a religion, the past is not important, for larged. [emphasis added] —Roland Bainton, Christendom, p3-4 the cycle of the seasons is the same one year as the next. Religions of contemplation, at the other extreme, regard the physical world as an impediment to the spirit, which, abstracted [The Greeks] inquired as to the nature of things, the nature of na- from the things of sense, must rise by contemplation to union ture, the nature of God. The Hebrews desired to know only God’s with the divine. The sense of time itself is to be transcended, will. — ibid, page 17. so that here again history is of no import. But religions of history, like Judaism, discover God “in his [2] “[B]ecoming God” happens individually, communally, and mighty acts among the children of men.” Such a religion is a cosmically. [emphasis added] —Huston Smith, compound of memory and hope. It looks backward to what The Soul of Christianity, p124. “World Religions” Notes © 2007, 2009 by Vern Barnet, Box 45414, Kansas City, MO 64171, [email protected]; 6/6/2010, page 1 DRAFT — Not for publication — Please report errors, misattributions, and other problems. THANK YOU. Chief Seattle’s Letter This is edited and arranged from several versions of the apocryphal text prepared by screenwriter Ted Perry, inspired by fragments unwittingly attributed to the Chief, for Home, a 1972 ABC film about ecology. 1. The Great Chief in Washington sends falo on the prairie, left there by those who word that he wishes to buy our land. shot them from a passing train. I do not under- 2. How can you buy or sell the sky, the stand how the smoking iron horse is more im- warmth of the land? The idea is strange to portant than the buffalo that we kill only to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air stay alive. or the sparkle of the water, how can you 12. What will happen when the buffalo are buy them? all slaughtered? the wild horses tamed? 3. Every part of this earth is sacred to my 13. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is people. Every shining pine needle, every the eagle? Gone. sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, 14. What will happen when the secret cor- every clearing, every humming insect. ners of the forest are heavy with the scent of 4. All are holy in the memory and expe- many men and the view of the ripe hills blot- rience of my people. ted by talking wires? 5. We know the sap which courses 15. And what is it to say goodbye to the through the trees as we know the blood that swift pony and the hunt? — For us it is the courses through our veins. end of living and the beginning of sur- 6. This beautiful earth is mother of us vival. all. We are part of it; it is part of us. 7. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; 17. The earth does not belong to the two- the bear, the deer, the great eagle — these leggeds; the two-leggeds belong to the earth. are our brothers; the rocky crests, the juices 18. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the in the meadows, the body heat of the pony children of earth. all belong to the same family. 19. We did not weave the web of life; we 8. The shining water that moves in the are merely strands in it. streams is the blood of our ancestors. The 20. Whatever we do to the web, we do to rivers are our brothers. They quench our ourselves. thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our 21. You may think you own your [God] as children. You must give the rivers the kind- you wish to own our land; but you cannot. ness you would give any brother. 22. To harm the earth is to heap contempt 9. The air is precious to us, for all things on its Creator. share the same breath — beast, tree, man 23. Contaminate your bed, and you will and woman. The white [people] do not one night suffocate in your waste. seem to notice the air [they] breathe. The wind that gave our grandfather his first 24. When the last [of my people] has van- breath also receives his last sigh. The wind, ished, these shores and forests will still hold sweetened by the meadow flowers, also the spirits of my people. gives our children the spirit of life. 25. We love this earth as the newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. 10. Will you teach your children what we 26. So if we sell you our land, care for it as have taught ours? that the earth is our we've cared for it. mother? 27. Preserve it for your children, and love 11. I have seen a thousand rotting buf- it. “World Religions” Notes © 2007, 2009 by Vern Barnet, Box 45414, Kansas City, MO 64171, [email protected]; 6/6/2010, page 2 DRAFT — Not for publication — Please report errors, misattributions, and other problems. THANK YOU. SHORTER VERSION NOTES The Heart Sutra 1 The Heart Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom, or one so compassionate that one postpones 24 The Sutra on the Essence of Transcendent Knowledge one’s own entrance to Nirvana in or- Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra [Sanskrit] der to aid others. Shingyo [Japanese] 2 a major Bodhisattva embodying compas- sion; nickname: Padmapani, lotus- 1 2 carrier; female in China and Japan. 1 When the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was tool- 3 3 saw (intuitively), beheld. ing in the deep Prajnaparamita, he flashed: looking 4 skandhas, aggregates [comprising the down from on high, he saw but five heaps,4 and even presumed being]; see 8-12. 5 in their 5 6 self-nature. they were nothing. Thus he overcame all troubles. 6 7 8 sunya(-ta), void(-ness): Absolute Rela- 2 O Sariputra, form does not differ from empti- tivity, Transitoriness. In Madhyamika, 6 ness, and emptiness is no diff’rent than form; form is pratitya-samutpada, dependent origina- 6 tion, is identified with sunyata. void, and the Void is form. The same is true of sensa- 7 9 10 11 12 an especially sharp disciple of Buddha. tions, thoughts, intentions, and consciousness. 8 9 10 11 13 rupa. vedana. sanjna. samskara. 3 O Sariputra, the nature of ev’rything is empty, 12 vijnana. not arising nor annihilated, not defiled nor immaculate, 13 dharma, here meaning object, event, not deficient nor perfected. matter, and perhaps ultimate reality. 14 a way of abbreviating the 18 Dhatus, 4 O Sariputra, in the Void there is no form, no sen- elements of existence, viz. six types of sation, no thought, no intention, and no consciousness; sense data, six sense organs, six sense no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind; no sound, consciousnesses.

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