4 4 14 Siddhartha Gautama The first Buddha Shakyamuni Buddha normally who people are thinking about when they talk about the Buddha o Buddha means enlightened one o Born in what is now Nepal Siddhartha means he who achieves his aim Sometime around 500 400 BCE o According to myth immaculately conceived after his mother dreams of a white elephant entering her side o Born with 32 major and 80 minor marks indicating he was superhuman Was sheltered in his palace for the first 29 years of his life o He sneaks out with his chariot drives and sees on three successive trips sick man and old man and a dead man o This is his first experience with suffering resolves to become a monk and figure out how to end suffering Siddhartha is unsatisfied with every teaching he comes into contact to o So he decides to find his own way by sitting under the Bodhi tree and meditating until he has solved the problem o What he discovers becomes known as the Middle Way or Buddhism It s between extremes the way of moderation and balance o While he sits the demon king Mara tests Siddhartha He resists and achieves enlightenment after 49 days at the age of 35 He becomes the first Buddha of our age o He eventually decides to spread what he learned This becomes his first teaching Dharma dhamma in pali The corpus of teachings expounded by the Buddha that you should follow Dharma is compared to a wheel that can be set in motion but that will eventually lose momentum and disappear Then new teachings will have to be presented Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth Supposedly the Buddha s first teaching The Four Noble Truths o The Truth of Dukkha This is the truth of suffering Everybody suffered Dukkha means suffering but includes lots of related concepts pain anxiety stress confusion ignorance etc Life is constituted by suffering o The Truth of Origin of Dukkha Dukkha comes from underlying desires and attachments When I desire something or become attached but that desire is not met I suffer Think about the structure of desires Desires are world conforms to mind direction of fit states My mind represents something and we want the world to match it When the world DOESN T match it my desire is frustrated and I suffer o The Truth of the Cessation of Dukkha To eliminate dukkha we must eliminate the root cause we must get rid of underlying desires and attachments Remember the Vinegar Tasters the Buddha s stoic expression shows that he has gotten rid of underlying desires and attachments o The Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Dukkha We eliminated desire and attachment by following the Noble Eightfold Path nibbana nirvana When suffering has completely disappeared you have reached Right view Right intention right speech right action right livelihood right effort right mindfulness right concentration Think of right in this context as skillful or ideal not necessarily morally appropriate 4 7 14 The Four Noble Truths Noble 8 Fold Path You must do these things to get rid of desires and attachments Right view Don t be motivated by greed selfishness o Division of wisdom o Understand the world as it is Right intention o Division of wisdom o Act in the right sort of way Right speech Right action o Division of ethical conduct o Don t use speech hurtfully o Division of ethical conduct o Don t do bad things Right livelihood o Division of ethical conduct o Don t live a life that promotes suffering or desires and attachments Right effort o Division of concentration o Use the correct amount of effort in performing tasks Not too much or too little o Physical aspect of the middle way Right mindfulness o Division of concentration o Be mindful of what you do don t just go through the motions Right concentration o Division of concentration o Meditate Reflect on which behaviors promote desires and attachments Practice them all at once Is the way when appropriately practiced to reduce desires and attachments in order to pursue enlightenment At least three ways you must know each of these truths o Recognize that they obtain They are true o Recognize the function that should be taken towards the truths o Recognize that you have performed the appropriate function towards the truths Kondanna teaching o The only disciple listening to the Buddha who first understands this o Realizes there is no atman o No permanent underlying unchanging nature in Buddhism Difference between Buddhism and previous philosophies o Buddhists and Daoists advocate 4 9 14 Buddhism Four Seals All compounded things are impermanent All emotions are pain All things have no inherent existence Enlightenment is beyond all concepts All compounded things are impermanent All things are the result of prior causes and conditions Things change there is no underlying impermanence o This will amount to a rejection of atman Theseus ship change all the way down o Seems to suggest we have some idea of underlying permanence through EVERYTHING objects and phenomena result from prior causes and conditions o This includes ideas like souls nominal selves etc This is supposed to be a hopeful message Once I know the causes and conditions that bring certain events about I can take steps to prevent that from happening o Example Justin Bieber o When you recognize impermanence you have more control over it by bringing about the appropriate causes and conditions o You also need t recognize at a certain point things have moved beyond your control All emotions are pain Diamond etc Certain emotions are obviously involved in suffering Pain sadness Neil o However even good emotions like happiness love etc are pain Why should we think good emotions are pain too o HUGE amount of suffering comes from the failure to fulfill desires o Thus in pursuing good emotions we are setting ourselves up for future o Even when our desires are met we become dissatisfied in pursuing other suffering goods o We end up engaging in a race to maintain a temporary fleeting understanding of happiness So here s the key We need to get rid of desires as they are in all emotions and are constitutive of suffering o Desires and attachments that are part of emotion lead us to be ignorant about the way the world is o They encourage an attachment to the Self Even to say I m happy is to engage with the world committed to In this sense attachment to the self is underpinned by desires an underlying Self that doesn t really exist o Siddhartha Gautama s battle with Mara can be understood as a battle with the attachment to a permanent self