BUDDHISM STUDY GUIDE

1 So what is Buddhism?
EXERCISE Before you read on, list ten words which you already associate with Buddhism. These may be people, characteristics or other concepts or things. It will help you at the outset to be aware of your own preconceptions, whether or not you already know something about this tradition. DISCUSSION Near the end of this study guide I will ask you to refer back to this list to see whether your preconceptions have changed. The level of your knowledge of the tradition certainly will! h The very brief summary that follows will help to orient you as you begin your study. It focuses on three key terms that will recur throughout this study guide: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Buddhists from many parts of the world take refuge in (rely on) these three jewels or precious things of Buddhism.

Buddha
Buddhism is the name applied by scholars to the range of practices and beliefs which have developed from the teachings of the Buddha, the one who has woken up. When we refer to the Buddha we usually mean the historical Buddha who lived in India for eighty years during the fth century BCE. The term Buddha, however, may be used to refer to anyone who has reached the goal of Buddhism: someone who has become fully enlightened through his or her own efforts. It usually refers to someone who has also taught other beings the way to enlightenment. As we shall see, the historical Buddha of India was one of a number of beings who are believed to have reached this goal. Enlightenment or awakening in Buddhism means to discover the truth of the way things really are and to wake up from the dreamlike state of ordinary beings. Buddhism is concerned with helping all sentient beings to wake up in this way and leave behind the unsatisfactory, unenlightened state which is characterised by greed, hatred and ignorance and which keeps beings circling in samsara, the cycle of ageing, death and rebirth.

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Dharma
In theory at least, the truth called the Dharma (or Dhamma) by Buddhists is open to discovery by anyone provided they are ready to understand it. Indeed the idea that the Buddha did not invent a new truth but instead discovered what is always there to be known is central to Buddhism. The thrust of the Buddhas teaching career, and of the careers of those who followed him, was to explain the Dharma in ways that people are capable of understanding and which are helpful to them. The recorded sayings and sermons of Buddhism, which are very extensive, represent attempts by the Buddha and his followers to communicate the Dharma. The contrasting needs of beings who have not yet woken up and the difculty of putting the Dharma into words in meaningful ways mean that there are many ways in which it has been expressed: Buddhists often claim that there are 84,000 teachings. This claim is used as an explanation for why the texts of Buddhism are so extensive and it also goes some way to explaining why texts and schools of Buddhism may sometimes appear to be contradictory. Practices which are central in one part of the Buddhist world may be dropped in another and replaced by something rather different. This can be confusing and you will need to bear in mind that Buddhism is held together by its teachings about effective ways to end suffering rather than by a rigid orthodoxy (right belief or worship) or orthopraxy (right practice).

Sangha
In many of the areas where Buddhism is practised, there are and have been over many centuries, communities of monks and nuns who preserve the traditional teachings and practices and work to develop their own understanding of the Dharma. Monastic life is often seen as the ideal from which to develop understanding but all devoted Buddhists, even if they live lay lives, are part of the Sangha. When people start to study Buddhism they often become confused and anxious about the breadth of the tradition. This confusion is not comfortable, but according to Buddhism, it is a reection of the way in which people experience life. The Buddha taught that, in seeking to avoid confusion, beings try to grasp or cling to the things they erroneously regard as certainties. In spite of its richness, there are many aspects of Buddhism that you can get to grips with. The Buddha was in the business of questioning the idea of certainty but, fortunately, in this course we aim to educate you about religions, not to bring you to enlightenment! The point of this study guide is to help you understand the material and slot into place contrasting elements of the Buddhist tradition. You will be directed to various chapters and sections in the set book, but not in the

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order in which Keown presents them. For example I will ask you to consider the rst chapter, Buddhism and Elephants, which addresses the question of whether Buddhism is a religion only after you have worked through the rest of the set book. You can then return to this interesting question when you have more knowledge of your own to apply to it. EXERCISE Before you begin to work through the set book, please read page xiv (the page facing page 1) where Keown discusses language and pronunciation, and the shaded box on page 16 where he describes an early collection of Buddhist scriptures. The term canon here means a collection of religious texts accepted as authentic within a religious tradition or at least a section of a tradition. There are three key terms in the text box, Sutta (which is the same as the Sanskrit term Sutra), Vinaya, and Abhidhamma (Abhidharma in Sanskrit). You will nd these three terms, with others, in the glossary at the end of this study guide. h Unlike the other authors in the Very Short Introduction series, the author of the Buddhism textbook has used diacritical marks to give an indication of how technical terms and names should be pronounced. For A217 we have decided to follow the majority of the Very Short Introduction to authors and have omitted the marks from the study guides, including the readings reproduced from other publications. You need not use diacritical marks in your written work. As Keown points out here, the teachings of Buddhism exist in a number of ancient languages. These scriptures are not all shared across the Buddhist world and certain texts are much more important in some areas than they are in others. Buddhists share the belief that their texts were originated by enlightened beings, including the historical Buddha of India, who had understood the truth of the way things are. The fact that many of these texts originated after the death of the historical Buddha is therefore less important than that they are thought to teach a powerful and effective path to enlightenment. As Keown notes on page 17, the Buddha himself did not write down his teachings in any language. It may be that writing did not even exist in India during his lifetime (Gombrich, 1996, 13). Instead, the teachings were passed on orally: the Buddhas disciples remembered them and passed them on to the next generation. Pali, the language of the Pali Canon, is the language of the texts of a form of Buddhism known as the Theravada (see glossary) which exists in Sri Lanka and in South-East Asia. Theravada Buddhism is practised by more than 100 million people in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Cambodia and Laos. Keown has used Pali for

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technical terms in his book, but many Buddhist texts are written in Sanskrit (the scholarly Indian language which you encountered in your study of Hinduism) and Sanskrit terms as well as their Pali equivalents are in common use. This study guide cannot save you from the reality that language is not always consistent in Buddhism, but this is something that you should not worry too much about. You may use either the Pali or the Sanskrit terms and you do not have to be consistent. As Keown indicates, there are other languages which are important in Buddhism. Tibetan is the language of northern Buddhism, which includes tantric Buddhism, also known as Vajrayana Buddhism (see glossary). Northern Buddhism is practised in and around Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal and other Himalayan regions and areas in India where Tibetan people in exile have settled. Chinese is a major language of East Asian Buddhism as practised in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. It would be fair to say that these linguistic and geographical distinctions also distinguish the three broad living traditions of Buddhism (see Table 1 below and maps 2 and 3 in Keown). The traditions of northern and eastern Buddhism are often grouped together since they belong to a movement within Buddhism known as the Mahayana which means great way or vehicle. We shall look at the development and characteristics of Mahayana Buddhism in section 5. Table 1 Area South and South-East Asian Buddhism Northern Buddhism East Asian Buddhism Main textual language Pali Tibetan Chinese Main form of Buddhism Theravada Mahayana including Vajrayana/tantra Mahayana

It is worth spending a little time studying the maps in this study guide and in the set book in order to get a feel for the extent of Buddhism. We will come back to the spread of Buddhism in Asia when we reach Chapter 6 of the set book. Study of that chapter, which receives more extensive treatment in this study guide than the other chapters, will be your main opportunity to learn about the practices of Buddhism.

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