Buddhist Ethics:
1. What is Buddhism:
Buddhism is a unique perspective on reality and the best life for human beings. It seeks to transcend all cultures and traditions by teaching the Dharma---the eternal truth about reality.
2. What is the base for Buddhist Ethics:
The law of Karma: Karma is like a natural law. It says that any cause will lead an effect.2. 1. Buddhism is known as both a teaching and a way of deliverance.
2. 2. Buddhism is also a way of life: freed them from life and freed them for life:
2. 3. Buddhism is also considered as religion: a way of salvation from oneself and from the world, an answer to man’s finite condition
2.4. Buddha left a tremendous doctrine;
2.5. Human history is of little significance compared to the timeless truth.
3. Difference between Western religions and Buddhism:
Buddhism recognizes:
3.1. no supreme God and has no theology of the sort that characterizes Christianity:
3.2. Human experience rather than divine revelation:
4. Buddha: Siddhartha Gautama (ca 563-483 B.C.E.) :
The brief outline of Buddha’s life:
4.1. One of the first true biographies war the Buddhacarita ("Acts of the Buddha"), 1 or 2 Century AD, by the Sanskrit poet Ashvaghosha.
4.2. Buddha is the founder of Buddhism. He was the son of a chief of the hill-tribe of Shakyas. He was born at Lumbini (the kingdom of Nepal today) around 563 BC. His given name was Siddhartha. His father was Suddhodana. His mother was Mahamaya
4.3. The story of Buddha-to-be: From Tushit Heaven, in the form of a white elephant.
4.4. A wise sage, Asita’s prediction and Suddhodana’s response:
4.5. Siddhartha married when he was 16. His wife is Yasodhara, his beautiful young cousin.
4.6. Siddhartha’s four fateful trios to the outside world:
4.6.1. Human conditions:
4.6.2. Human existence:
4.7. Suffering:
1.1. The true nature of human existence: old age, sickness and death
1.2. Suffering is the primary fact of human existence
1.3. The way of live amidst the suffering of the world
1.4. "The great renunciation": the night when his son Rahula was born, Siddhartha escaped from his palace.
5. Enlightenment: The cause of suffering and the way to overcome it
5.1. Nothingness
5.2. The realm of neither perception nor non- perception
5.3. Self-mortification
5.4. The meaning of Buddha is"the Enlightened One,"
6. Buddha’s contribution:
6.1. Buddha exemplified to millions of his followers a living Truth, a dynamic wisdom, and an active compassion.
6.2. The difference between Buddha and God:
6.3. Buddha questioned whether the concepts or practices of that tradition offered any fundamental solution to the human predicament.
6.4. Buddhism is not a set of static truths but has its own power of development.
6.5. Buddhism’s initial orientation is to the human reality rather than a divine reality.
7. What the Buddha Taught:
Elements of his teaching: about human existence, morality, and the path to enlightenment
Buddha says: "you should do your work, for the Tathagatas only teach the way."
7.1.The Path to Liberation:
7.2.The freedom of thought:
The Four Noble Truth:Dukkha,
Sammdaya, the arising or origin of dukkha,
Nirodha, the cessation of dukkha,
Magga, the way leading to cessation of dukkha.
Buddhist Attitude of Mind:
1. The Path to Liberation—Nirvana:
2. The spirit of tolerance: violence in any form is not allowed
3. The spirit of understanding:
3.1.The Dhamma: Teaching, knowledge