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HISTORY
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A Brief Overview of Buddhism
Initiated by the teachings of Guatama Buddha in the 5th or 6th Century BCE, Buddhism today is followed by millions of people across the world.
Jul. 25, 2019, 11:30 AM
By Will Street
The Gautama Buddha
In both the Pāli and Sanskrit traditions, Buddhism was initiated by Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived in the fifth or sixth century BCE in the area around the India-Nepal border. He was a prince from the Śākya clan and predominantly lived a sheltered life in the palace during his early years, however as a young man he ventured out beyond the palace walls. In the town, he observed a sick person, an old person, and a corpse, prompting him to reflect on the suffering nature of life. He also saw a wandering mendicant, which is a person who asks other people for money for a living, prompting him to also consider the possibility of liberation from samsāra (the cycle of death and rebirth.)
Therefore, at the age of 29, he decided to leave the palace and adopt the lifestyle of a wandering mendicant. As a mendicant, he studied with distinguished teachers of his time, mastering their techniques of meditation however he discovered that these methods did not lead to liberation. He then for six years pursued severe ascetic practices in the forest, however realising that torturing the body doesn't tame the mind, he instead adopted a middle ground of maintaining the body healthy for spiritual practice while avoiding unnecessary comforts.
At the age of 35, Siddhārtha Gautama was sitting under the bodhi tree, which is now in modern day Bodhgaya in India, and pledged not to arise until he had attained full awakening. When the full moon of the fourth lunar month came, he completed the process of cleansing his mind of all obscurations and developing all good qualities, and he became a fully awakened buddha.
He spent the next forty-five years of his live teaching what he had discovered with his own experience to anyone who came to hear. The Buddha taught all demographics of society. Many of his students chose to relinquish the property-owner's life in favour of a monastic life, and thus the sangha community was born. In turn, his followers attained their own realisations and, becoming teachers themselves, shared what they had learnt with others. In this way, Buddhadharma spread throughout ancient India, and from there into other parts of Asia in the subsequent centuries.
Gautama Buddha was important as the originator of Buddhism and the first Buddha. The Dalai Lama in his book "Buddhism: One Teacher, Many Traditions" (2014) heralds the importance of the Buddha for his teaching that one's outlook impacts their experience and that our experiences of suffering and happiness are not brought upon us by others but rather are a product of the "ignorance and afflictions in our minds". He states that "liberation and full awakening are likewise states of mind, not the external environment."
The Development of the Different Strands of Buddhism
There are four main strands of Buddhism that emerged in the subsequent centuries after the Buddha. These are the Pāli tradition, which is an ancient Indo- Aryan liturgical
language that is the sacred text of some religious texts in Hinduism and all texts of Theravāda Buddhism, the Sanskrit tradition, the primary liturgical language of Hinduism whose origins date back to 1500 BCE, and the Chinese and Tibetan traditions.
The Pāli tradition has its origins in India, however it wasn't until it spread to Sri Lanka that it fully formed. The name Theravāda, a sect of Buddhism whose sacred texts are all compiled in Pāli, is a name of Sri Lankan origin, therefore suggesting a school didn't exist in India prior to the spread of Buddhism to Sri Lanka. Theravādan Buddhism had three subgroups, each with their own monastery. These were the Abhayagiri, the Mahāvihāra and the Jetavana. The Abhayagiri and Jetavana sub-groups had close links with India and brought in many Sanskrit traditions. However, the Abhayagiri and Jetavana sub-groups were abolished by the king in the 12th Century and the monks were incorporated into the orthodox Theravāda Mahāvihāra tradition, which remains the predominate character of Buddhism in Sri Lanka today. Theravāda Buddhism had also gone through a period of
decline of Buddhism during the invasions of the Cola forces in the 11th Century, however it recovered over time.
Theravāda Buddhism also became the dominant religion in Thailand, with King Rāma I having removed elements of Brahmanism and tantric practice in the late 18th Century CE and later the Sangha Act brought all monastics under royal control in 1902. Theravāda Buddhism also became the dominant strand in Burma, where in particular meditation techniques were organised and flourished.
Buddhism spread into China during the 1st Century CE through the Silk Road trade with Central Asian lands where Buddhism was flourishing, and later by sea from India and Sri Lanka. China Buddhism is historically comprised of ten schools, out of which some today remain as separate schools. In the early 20th century, the arrival of technology and modernity prompted Buddhist monks, such as Taixu, who lived from 1890 to 1947 to encourage Buddhist monks to engage more in the secular society and travel across parts of Asia. Indian and other Asian Buddhist literature were also translated into Chinese and Tibetan during the 20th Century. The schema of major philosophical systems in Chinese Buddhism that exist today were developed by Taixu's disciple, Yinshun, who lived from 1906 to 2005.
Buddhism first came to Tibet in the 7th Century AD through two wives of the Tibetan monarch, Songsten Gampo, who reigned from 605 or 617 to 649 CE. One was a Nepali princess and the other was a Chinese princess, who both brought Buddhist statues to Tibet. Following their marriages to the monarch, Buddhist texts in Sanskrit and Chinese followed also. However, from the late 8th Century onwards, Tibetans preferred the texts coming directly from India, and these became the majority of Buddhist literature translated into Tibetan.
Buddhism in Tibet went through a period of prosperity from 756 - ca. 800 CE, during the reign of King Trisong Detsen, who invited the monk, Madhaymaka philosopher (a meditative philosophy founded in India) and logician, Śāntaraksita, from Nālandā, which was a Buddhist monastic university in India, and the Indian tantric yogi, Padmasambhava, to come to Tibet. Śāntaraksita ordained Tibetan monks and established a sangha in Tibet, which is a monastic community of those who have renounced the worldly life to wander with the Buddha and listen to his teachings. Padmasambhava gave tantric initiations and teachings, which were elevated practices and concepts on the path to enlightenment. Following Śāntaraksita's encouragement in the early 9th Century, many Buddhist texts were translated into Tibetan and a commission of Tibetan and India scholars standardised many technical terms and produced a Sanskrit-Tibetan glossary.
Following the persecution of Buddhism during the reign of King Langdarma (838-842 CE) when Dharma texts became no longer available and religious practices became fragmented, a scholarly practitioner from the Nālandā tradition, Atiśa, was invited to Tibet. He taught that both the sutra, which were the religious canons, and the tantra could be taught together in a non-contradictory way, and he started a new line of teaching that grew into three traditions, the "Kagyu", "Sakya" and "Kadam", which became "Gelug" along with the Nyingma, which was the line of teaching prior to Atiśa. All four traditions emphasise the Bottisattva vehicle and also incorporate both Atiśa's initiation of teaching of both tantra and sutra and also the Madhyamaka school of philosophy. Following the example of Śantaraksita also, many Tibetan monks engage in rigorous debate and study alongside meditation.
An Overview of the Differences and Similarities in Dogma Between Each Strand
The Buddha set forth practices of three vehicles concerning dharma, which were methods to achieve a spiritual goal. These were the "Hearer Vehicle" (Śāvakayāna, Śrāvakayāna), the "Solitary Realizer Vehicle" (Paccekabuddayāna, Pratyekabuddhayāna) and the Bodhisattva Vehicle (Bodhisattayāna, Bodhisattvayāna), which is centred around compassion and being informed by deep wisdom.
These vehicles are followed in the teachings and practices of both the Sanskrit and Pāli traditions, which were the two original traditions, however Buddhists practising different vehicles follow different traditions. Buddhists practicing the "Hearer Vehicle" principally follow the Pāli tradition while those practicing the "Bodhisattva Vehicle" principally follow the Sanskrit tradition and very few people follow the "Solitary Realizer Vehicle" in the modern world today.
A Sanskrit canon was not compiled in India, however the Pāli, Chinese and Tibetan canons exist. Each canon is divided into three "baskets" (pitaka), which include the Vinaya
basket, which encompasses monastic discipline, the Sūtra basket, which are the religious texts and the Abhidharma basket that is mainly concerned with wisdom.
Chinese, Korean, Tibetan and many Vietnamese Buddhists share the monastic traditions and bodhisattva ethical restraints, which Japanese Buddhists share as well. Bodhisattva is central in the Sanskrit tradition, with examples such as in the Samyutta Nikāya, where there is a story of the Buddha experiencing severe pain when his foot was cut by a stone splinter, however he was not distressed stating "I lie down full of compassion for all beings", which has become a meditation technique in the Sanskrit tradition where the practitioner imagines taking the sufferings of others upon himself and giving others his own happiness. However, the same altruism is present in the Pāli tradition, for instance in the four immeasurables.
Buddhist Ethical Principles
Although not essential for all Buddhists, Buddhists' higher training in an ethical context is characterised by celibacy, monastic communities and ethical restraint. According to the Sanskrit tradition, the wisdom gained realising selflessness eliminates obscurations, or virtuosity blockages, from the root, which is a form of Bodhisattva. For wisdom to be gained, single-pointed concentration is needed, which requires the removal of non-virtuous physical and verbal actions.
Tibetan Buddhism contains three levels of ethical restraints. These are Prātimoksa, which involves abandoning harmful physical and verbal actions, Bodhisattva, which revolves around abandoning self-centred thoughts, words and deeds, and the tantric, which aims to overcome subtle mental obscurations.
Boddhicitta is the Sanskrit term applied to someone's aspiration to attain full awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Buddhist Wisdom and Meditative Practices
Buddhists believe meditation of the brain, when combined with wisdom, can bring deep realisations. They stress the importance of concentration (samādhi) and serenity (samatha), and that serenity united with insight into selflessness uproots the causes of samsāra. Concentration enables someone to integrate Dharma understanding with their minds and attain the superknowledges, which are higher capabilities gained through wisdom.
Concentration leads to the four meditative stabilisations (jhāna, dhyāna). These are the first, which can be entered when one is secluded from sensuality and unskillful qualities, the second, which is a state where someone experiences only non-sensual pleasure, is free from discursive thoughts and is a state of inner-tranquility, the third where someone's mind is calm and composed and they are detached from the disturbances of the external environment, and the fourth where they have purity of equanimity, experience neither pleasure nor pain, and are at the beginning of having psychic power.
The Buddha emphasised the importance of samādhi and the jhānas. Meditation techniques are found both in the Sanskrit and Pāli traditions. The Buddha also spoke of the eight meditative liberations, recorded in the Majjhima Nikāya (77:22). These are deep states of concentration bringing temporary liberation from defilements.
Alongside meditative concentration, Buddhism also stresses the importance of mindfulness. The Buddha set forth the thirty-seven "aids to awakening", which directly or indirectly contribute to the cultivation of the wisdom that comprehends the selflessness and four truths that the Buddha came to understand during his meditation under the Bodhi tree (Dukkha: the truth of suffering, Samudāya: the origin of suffering, Nirodha: the cessation of suffering and Magga: the truth of the path to the cessation of suffering.). The thirty seven "aids to awakening" are present in both the Pāli and Sanskrit canons, for instance in the Abhidharmakośa and Abhisamayālamkāra in the Sanskrit tradition and in the Mahāvagga in the Samyutta Nikāya in the Pāli tradition.
There are four establishments of mindfulness, which are: contemplating the body in the body with a one-point concentrated mind, contemplating feelings in feelings, contemplating the mind in mind and contemplating phenomena in phenomena. Mindfulness is necessary for someone wishing to attain nirvana, for it gives them the ability to understand the four seals of the Buddha. These are: number 1: that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent, number 2: that all polluted phenomena are unsatisfactory, number 3: that all phenomena are empty and selfless and number 4: that nirvāna is true peace.
In the Buddhist religion, meditative techniques are therefore used to actualise nirvāna. In doing so, a Buddhist follows the "four supreme strivings", which were a Buddhist's exerting of his intent for the sake of: number 1: the non-arising of evil or non-skilled qualities that have not yet arisen, number 2: the abandonment of evil, unskilful qualities that have arisen, number 3: the arising of skilful qualities that have not yet arisen and number 4: the maintenance of skilful qualities that have arisen.
By exerting effort, a Buddhist develops concentration and serenity. They then put special attention on the five faculties and five powers to surmount all unfavourable conditions, and attain union of serenity and insight on selflessness. The five powers and five faculties are: faith (saddhā), perseverance (viriya), mindfulness (sati), stillness of the mind (samādhi) and wisdom (pañña).
Following this, on the pathway to nirvāna, a Buddhist would then cultivate the seven awakening factors and the noble eightfold path. The seven awakening factors are: mindfulness (sati), investigation (Dhamma vicaya), energy (viriya), joy or rapture (pīti), relaxation or tranquility (passaddhi), concentration (samādhi) and equanimity (uppekkha). The noble eightfold path was an early summary of the Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsāra, including: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right samādhi, (meditative union).
By first exerting concentration, supported by insight into benevolent qualities such as the four immeasurables, which Buddhists believe therefore brings serenity alongside concentration, a pathway of the seven awakening factors and noble eightfold path actualises nirvāna.
Buddhist Moral Principles
Buddhism generally promotes love, compassion, joy and equanimity. These are categorised as the four immeasurables or "boundless states". They are widely taught in Buddhism and practiced in both the Pāli and Sanskrit traditions. The term "immeasurable" is applied to indicate that the qualities are directed towards immeasurable sentient beings with a mind free from conscience and because they are states of jhāna that are not blocked by the five hindrances of the desire-realm mind, which are sensory desire, ill-will, lethargy, restlessness and doubt. The name, brahmavihāras, that is also applied to them, reflects this state of peacefulness in the mind, since in the brahmā worlds of the first jhāna, being's minds are gentle, and the word vihāras means "abodes".
Buddhist Tantric Practices
Tantrayāna is a Buddhist practice that enables a Buddhist to reach nirvāna at a quicker pace. It is conjoined with refuge in the Three Jewels, which is a person's entry into and safety in the Buddhist religion, at its foundation, but also is dependent on renunciation, bodhicitta and correct wisdom. It enables a buddhist to attain full awakening far quicker than the Sūtrayāna, which is the basic way of realising emptiness before reaching nirvāna.
Tantrayāna is a higher training for those with great compassion who find other's suffering in samsāra unbearable, and involves someone who is well trained in the three higher trainings - the higher training in an ethical, concentration and wisdom context - and the six perfections - generosity, ethical conduct, fortitude, joyous effort, meditative stability and renunciation, and wisdom. They must also have an exceptionally strong bodhicitta. They take on the extra ethical restraints and diligently devote themselves to study and meditation on the tantric teachings on top of the usual sūtras.
Buddhists following Tantrayāna aim to reach the highest state of bliss, gained from concentration and serenity fuelled by insight. An idea of the emptiness of nature is reached by a blissfully composed mind, free from obscurations, which enables someone to respect karma and thereby reach a full awakening.
Tantrayāna is widespread in Tibetan Buddhism and the Japanese Shingon sect, but also has traces in the Buddhist fabric in China, Korea and Vietnam.
Samsāra
In a similar way to Hinduism, out of which religion Buddhism developed, Buddhists believe in the cycle of death and rebirth, called samsāra. All traditions of Buddhism agree that the awakened mind is free from the defilements causing samsāra.
Buddhists believe that within the continuum of sentient beings, that is samsāra, there is the ultimate nature of the minds, which is called buddha nature, or buddha potential. When the sentient being becomes endowed with a state of separation from defilements, it is called nirvāna.