Video Transcript: Buddhism Lecture 1

We shift now to Buddhism. And your first thing to understand is that it grew out  of Hinduism. It has the same schema, then the one that I did have the relation of the Divine to the not divine, the not divine, the world of Maya is included within  the being of Brahman Atman, the divine. That's the Hindu term. The most  Buddhists, and including himself don't like giving a term like that, to the divine  being, because they're afraid that it will still convey that the Divine Being is an  individual, or maybe even a person. And so they prefer terms like nothingness.  Not a thing, ness. They don't literally mean there's nothing at all. It's there.  There's the divine being, but it's not like anything, and it has no quality that you  could possibly know or conceive of. So they have talked about nothingness  suchness. Dharmakaya is another term, and there are many more that Buddhist  use. The scheme is basically the same and many of the main major concepts  are the concept of Karma, the kind of faith that drives you, and samsara the  cycle of rebirth that determines reincarnation, which is what we're trying to  escape from. And, and it includes the idea that what stands in the way of the  Escape is attachment to the illusory world. Instead of to be absorbed into  Brahman Atman. And in Nirvana, those ideas remain. But Buddha has a lot of  changes to introduce as well. And we have to, in order to understand those go  back to the life of the man, which has a great deal of bearing on what he came  to teach is a real person, all right. His real name is Siddhartha , Siddhartha  Gautama . He was born in Nepal, somewhere around 563, 563 years before  Christ was and born into a wealthy family. In facts, lots of stories have grown up  around Buddha and some of them are fanciful, a lot, it's hard to sort out, which  genuinely affect his life and which don't. But there's a core of them that seemed  to be pretty reliable. And what they tell us is that his father was so wealthy had  an estate so big, that, in his youth, Siddhartha never left it. He never saw the  world, as it as it is, with poverty and disease and grief and sorrow and so on. His father wanted to protect him from all of that, but it produced exactly the wrong  result was counterproductive. Because one day he did leave his father's estate.  And when he got to villages and towns and saw people in abject poverty  starving to death, and he saw the filth and squalor and disease, people have  children. He was so appalled that he decided to become a monk and leave is  father's estate permanently. One of the stories reads a bit like this, in all the  beauty of my early prime, with cold wealth of cold black hair untouched by grey,  despite the wishes of my parents who cried the lamented. I cut off my hair and  beard and put on the yellow robe and went out to become a mendicant  homeless, to beg for my living and to seek enlightenment and to achieve  nirvana. Then the stories tell us that He did this for six years, and had five  companions that were fairly constant companions. And they tried everything.  And Buddha was the most assiduous of all in keeping the strict discipline. And in asceticism, asceticism means repressing bodily desires, that includes for food  and drink and sleep and just repressing a body. And he got to the point where he

was down to eating just one tiny fruit a day. And he looked like skin and bones.  And he went down to a river for some water, and collapsed. And his friends  thought he's he has died. I wonder if he achieved nirvana. But when they went  down to get him, he came to and sat up. And the thought that struck him was,  why is it that if I have sought so hard for Nirvana, and repressed my body so  greatly that I called nearly died? And I still haven't achieved it? Why is that? Why have I failed, and he came back into the, into the part of left the water came and  sat under a tree, a bodhi tree there in the Deer Park, which is where the, the  wandering monks the begging monks had gone. And he and he sat there and  said, I'm going to sit here until I get the answer. I want enlightenment, and I'm,  I'm going to sit here till it comes. So he sat there and meditated. And then when  the answer came to him, it was so apparent on his face, that the other monks  immediately knew that something had changed, and that he had gained great  enlightenment. And the story is that the great enlightenment is itself rather  simple. It's desire, he was so desirous of achieving nirvana and so desirous of  repressing his body, and so desirous of achieving the meditative state of trance  that would transport him to Nirvana. That his own desire got in its own way.  That its desire itself that had to be given up, Shunned, it's not enough to reject  the attachments to the world, which is a mere illusion, and to other people,  which are parts of that world and, and also a mere illusion. But it's, one must  give up desiring anything. Now, this is a tricky bit, because what it means is that  you have to shift from desiring Nirvana to desiring not to desire in Buddhism is  very aware of the, the irony of that, you shift, and then you try to divest yourself,  of all desire whatsoever of anything. That was the enlightenment. He regarded it as the middle path between the extreme asceticism of world rejection and  accepting the world is real, and just living in it, and paying no attention to the  soul's destiny, and so on. So, he, he began to preach this doctrine to these five  companions. And this act on his part, what is referred to as Buddha love. The  act was done in order to help his friends. Their point is that at that point, he was  enlightened, and he could have achieved nirvana instantly. But instead, he  decided to stay among his friends and other people. And to preach this new  doctrine of that the way to enlightenment was the repression, the divestation of  desire. And so he preaches a sermon, often referred to as the discourse in the  Deer Park. And he explains it to them. And they instantly see that he has been  enlightened, and that he could have achieved nirvana right then and there but  didn't for their sake. This is, he still, of course is going to live a life in which  bodily desires are kept under control. But he's not going to. He's not thinking any longer that by nearly starving himself to death, he's coming closer to Nirvana. So he sets in motion now, the wheel of the Dharma, of the duties of seeing what  sort of life one should live in the awareness that the the world around us is  Maya. Now, I mentioned several points when I covered Hinduism, that contrast  with what grows here out of out of Buddhism. Buddhism is in a way, a reform of 

the Hindu view of life. But there are certain things that that clearly reject  Buddhist, unlike Hindus, take the doctrine of the world is illusion very seriously.  They don't think that it's possible to have genuine science, about the world.  Because the world is illusory, is not able to be rationally understood. Reality is  self contradictory. Reality has all kinds of craziness about it. The ordinary I  mean, ordinary common sense reality. It's not, it's not real. And so they will not  tolerate someone saying, Well, I'm a pious, Buddhist, I'm here to achieve  Nirvana and so on. And but I'm going to do scientific experiments in my spare  time or something like that. No, that that's to invest non reality with reality.  That's, that's what's wrong. That's attachment. That's desire. That's part of what  has to be given up. Another difference is that a Buddhist, Monk, or Lama will not  bless and participate in, say, pagan rituals and lower levels of spiritual insight  and so on, they will not put their seal of approval on that, because that's not the  truth. That's not right. Maybe it is true that somebody is practicing a religion or  worshiping or whatever, at a level, which is the best they can do given their level of reincarnation. But it's still not the truth. The truth is that there's only the  nothingness, the Dharmakaya, there's only we should be striving to achieve  nirvana, and these other things are false teachings, because they regard other  things as real, then the only thing that is real. So those points are very great  points of difference. It would be the height of oxymoron, of hyperbole of  craziness to have a Buddhist be a scientist for example, or a Buddhist to  participate to the rite of another religion and give his blessing to it. They don't do that. What came out of this was for the 10 commandments, of Buddhism. There  are five of these that are for non Buddhists and non monks and five are for  monks. And I will give you their 10 commandments, but I would add this in  Buddhist countries, just about every young boy is sent to the temple as an  apprentice for schooling and to have an opportunity be exposed to Buddha's  teaching. And then he has the choice to make to return to his family and pursue  secular schooling and a secular life or remain and become a monk. And they do  believe that it has to do with your level of reincarnation, whether you stay and  become a monk that's only a very minor or minor minority number of people who do that The 98% Go back and live their lives and they with the this attitude.  Maybe in the next life I'll have enough insight that I'll be a monk. But for now I'm  going to get my education I'm going to get a job, I'm going to get married I'm  going to buy a house and so on. And then the 2% who stay enter into the, the  care of the temple, and they stay there and become monks. Here are the 10  commandments. Do not destroy life. Do not take what is not given. Abstain from  unchastity. Do not lie or deceive. Abstain from intoxicants. that's those are, that's those are for everybody. The laity too these last five are for the monks only for  the monks eat moderately and not after noon. So a Buddhist goes out in the  morning and begs a monk goes out and begs for food, but not after noon. From  noon on they don't eat, do not look upon dancing, singing or dramatic 

spectacles. Do not use Garland's or scents, unguents or ornaments. Do not  sleep on a high or broad bed, don't accept gold or silver. Those last are just for  the monks. There's also a very great difference in Buddha's attitude from this  Hindu background, having to do with gods. I hope I made clear in the section on  Hindu and Hinduism, that the gods and goddesses are all regarded as  manifestations of the one divine Brahman Atman. They're not real. But that may  be the best way a certain person can conceive of them and serve the divine  through these gods and there are village gods, regional gods and so on and so  on. There are the three big ones, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. But Buddha  rejected all that. When asked about gods, he said he didn't know whether they  are they existed or they didn't and he didn't care. And famous remark is, if there  are gods they can't help you. You are to seek enlightenment, and Nirvana. And  everyone is on his or her own to do it. Nobody else no other person can help  you. And if there were gods they couldn't help you. It's up to you. You're the only  one that can help yourself. He rejected the way of knowledge, the way of  devotion as they existed in Hinduism, praying gods and being faithful at Temple  worship and so on. It's not going to cut any ice, it's not going to help you get  closer to being achieving nirvana. Neither is studied meditation. The only thing  that's going to help, no ritual sacrifices, prayers. The only thing that's going to  help is for you to Divest yourself of desire and live a life devoted to that. And  then finally achieve enlightenment and Nirvana. So Buddhism has no doctrine of creation, no doctrine about life after death. It has only a recipe for escaping woe  and sorrow in this life, and not and escaping, being reborn into another one  here's a quote from goes back is supposed to go back to Buddha. Bearing  always in mind what it is, I have not said and what it is that I have. I have not  said that the world is eternal. I haven't said that. It isn't. I have not said that the  world is finite. And I have not said that it's infinite, I have not said that the world,  that the soul and body are the same. And I have not said that the monk who has attained nirvana exists after death. I have not said that he does not exist after  death. I have not said that he both exists and does not exist. I have not said that he neither exists, nor does not after death, and why have I not said these things, because they don't profit anyone, anything. None has to do with the  fundamentals of religion. Therefore, I don't speak of those things. Now, later on,  he did reaffirm rebirth, reincarnation. But he held the strange view that  reincarnation is a fact. But there is no soul that passes from one life over into the new one. We'll come to that when I explain further, in more detail that doctrine,  because that's a peculiar thing to say. But there are a lot of, as you can see,  very great differences that are going to annoy Hindus, mightily. And not the least of which is that he rejected the whole caste system, as part of Maya. There are,  there are no castes, as far as he's concerned, Buddhists regard everyone the  same, even women. So women can become monks, as far as he's concerned,  anybody can achieve nirvana if they just do it right. This is really going to annoy 

the Hindus. And it's remarkable that though Buddhism originated in India, and it  spread is a very small population, percentage of the population of India is  Buddhist. Buddhism spread into Nepal and Tibet, and China and Korea and  Japan went north and east. But it didn't make a very big dent in India. That's just a side comment. Because our main focus here is always on their doctrine of the  Divine, and how to achieve the right relation of the Divine and for Buddha, that  certainly being absorbed into nirvana. And we will return next time, and we'll talk  about the doctrines in greater detail, particularly the doctrine of no soul, passing  from one life to another. Be sure to do your reading. Remember again, that my  recommendation is that you read, hear the lecture and read the stuff again, and  that will get you a much better picture of what the religion is like. So we'll end  there for today.