03 Buddhism Huston Smith

03 Buddhism





An Outline Review

of

Huston Smith's

The World's Religions

(Our Great Wisdom Traditions)

Chapter III. Buddhism

Part One: Buddha the Man


The Man Who Woke Up. - The Silent Sage.


Born around 563 B.C.

Heir to a throne, he deserted it at age twenty-nine.

Sensing that that a breakthrough was near, he seated himself one epoch-making evening vowing not to arise until enlightenment was his. At morning his mind pierced at last the bubble of the universe and shattered it to naught, only, wonder of wonders, to find it miraculously restored with effulgence of true being.

Nearly half a century followed, during which the Buddha trudged the dusty paths of India preaching his ego-shattering, life-redeeming message.

Part Two: Buddhism the Religion


A. The Rebel Saint.


Buddhism drew its lifeblood from Hinduism, but against its prevailing corruptions Buddhism recoiled like a whiplash and hit back - hard.

Buddha preached a religion devoid of authority, devoid of ritual, a religion that skirted speculation, devoid of tradition, a religion of intense self-effort, devoid of supernatural.

Original Buddhism can be characterized in the following terms:


empirical - experience was the final test of truth

scientific - quality of lived experience its final test

pragmatic - concerned with problem solving

therapeutic - "One thing I teach, suffering and the end of suffering."

psychological - begins with the human lot, its problems, and the dynamics of coping with them

egalitarian - women as capable of enlightenment as men; rejected the caste system's assumption that aptitudes were hereditary

directed to individuals - each should proceed toward enlightenment through confronting his or her individual situation and predicaments

B. The Four Noble Truths. - the postulates from which the rest of his teachings logically derive


1. Life is suffering, is dislocated, something has gone wrong.

2. The cause - all forms of selfishness


Instead of linking our faith and love and destiny to the whole, we persist in strapping to puny burros of our separate selves, which are certain to stumble and give out eventually.

3. Since the cause of life's dislocation is selfish craving, its cure lies in the overcoming of such craving.

4. The Forth Noble Truth prescribes how the cure can be accomplished.


The way out of our captivity is through the Eightfold Path.

C. The Eightfold Path. - it is a treatment by training - by right association - We should associate with Truthwinners, converse with them, serve them, observe their ways, and imbibe by osmosis their spirit of love and compassion.


1. Right Views - The first step summons us to make up our minds as to what life's problem basically is.

2. Right Intent - The second advises us to make up our hearts as to what we really want.

3. Right Speech


first become aware of our speech

second move toward charity

4. Right Conduct


understand one's actions

change to the direction of selflessness and charity

do not drink intoxicants

5. Right Livelihood - For the lay person, Buddhism calls for engaging in occupations that promote life instead of destroying it.

6. Right Effort - A low level of volition, a mere wish not accompanied by effort or action to obtain it - won't do.

7. Right Mindfulness


This seventh step summons the seeker to steady awareness of every action that is taken, and every content that turns up in one's stream of consciousness.

Special times should be allotted for undistracted introspection.

8. Right Concentration


This involves substantially the techniques of Hinduism's raja yoga and leads to substantially the same goal.

The final climactic state is the state in which the human mind is completely absorbed in God.

D. Basic Buddhist Concepts. - Certain key notions in the Buddha's outlook


1. nirvana - Life's goal - boundless life

2. anatta - The human self has no soul

3. karma - One's acts considered as fixing one's lot in the future existence

4. anicca - impermanence, everything finite is transitory

5. Arhat - a Buddhist who has reached the stage of enlightenment


Do human beings survive bodily death? - his answer is equivocal

E. Big Raft and Little. - Two main Paths in Buddhism


Buddhism divided over three questions: are people independent or interdependent, is the universe friendly or hostile toward creatures, and what is the best part of the human self, its head or its heart.

One group says "Be lamps unto your selves, work out your salvation with diligence"

For the other group, human beings are more social than individual, and love is the greatest thing in the world.

The division into the two main paths is schematized as follows:

THERAVADA	MAHAYANA
Human beings are emancipated by self-effort, with out supernatural aid.	Human aspirations are supported by divine powers and the grace they bestow.
Key virtue: wisdom	Key virtue: compassion
Attainment requires constant commitment, and is primarily for monks and nuns.	Religious practice is relevant to life in the world, and therefore to laypeople.
Ideal: the Arhat who remains in nirvana after death	Ideal: the boddhisattva
Buddha a saint, supreme teacher, and inspirer.	Buddha a savior
Minimizes metaphysics	Elaborates metaphysics
Minimizes ritual	Emphasizes ritual
Practice centers on meditation	Includes petitionary prayer

After Buddhism split into Thervada and Mahayana, Theravada continued as a fairly unified tradition, whereas Mahayana divided into a number of denominations or schools. The two with the most influence in western society, Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism are discussed next.

F. The Secret of the Flower. - Zen Buddhism Buddhism that Taoism profoundly influenced, Ch'an (Zen in Japanese) It makes breaking the language barrier its central concern. Strains by every means to blast their novices out of solutions that are only verbal. Zen masters are determined that their students attain the experience itself, not allow talk to take its place. By paradox and non sequitur Zen provokes, excites, exasperates, and eventually exhausts the mind until until it sees that thinking is never more than thinking about, or feeling more than feeling for. It counts on a flash of sudden insight to bridge the gap between secondhand and firsthand life. Zen's object is to infuse the temporal with the eternal. A condition in which life seems distinctly good Also comes an objective outlook on one's relation to others. The life of Zen does not draw one away from the world; it turns one to the world. An attitude of generalized agreeableness Even the dichotomy between life and death disappears. G. The Diamond Thunderbolt. - Tibetan Buddhism The Tibetans say that their religion is nowise distinctive in its goal. What distinguishes their practice is that it enables one to reach nervana in a single lifetime.  They say that the speed-up is effected by utilizing all the energies latent in the human make-up , those of the body emphatically included, and impressing them all into the service of the spiritual quest. The energy that interests the West most is sex, but the physical energies they most regularly work with are the ones that are involved with speech, vision, and gestures. Tibetan Buddhism distinctiveness also includes a unique institution - The Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is a receiving station toward which the compassion-principle of Buddhism in all its cosmic amplitude is continuously channeled, to radiate thence to the Tibetan people most directly, but by extension to all sentient beings. H. The Image of the Crossing.    Do the various Paths of Buddhism deserve to be considered aspects of a single religion?  Yes, in two ways: (1.) They all revere a single founder from whom they claim their teachings derive. (2.) All can be subsumed under a single metaphor - the image of the crossing. Buddhism is a voyage across life's river, a transport from the common-sense shore of ignorance, grasping, and death, to the further bank of wisdom and enlightenment. Before the river was crossed the two shores, human and divine, had to appear distinct from each other, different as life and death, as day and night. But once the crossing has been made, no dichotomy remains. The realm of the gods is not a distinct place. It is where the traveler stands; and if that stance happens to be in this world, the world itself is transmuted. Part Three: The Confluence of Buddhism and Hinduism in India. Today Buddhists abound in every Asian land except India, the land of its birth. The deeper fact is that in India Buddhism was not so much defeated by Hinduism as accommodated within it. Its contributions, accepted by Hindus in principle if not always practice, included its renewed emphasis on kindness to all living things, on non-killing of animals, on the elimination of caste barriers in matters religious and their reduction in matters social, and its strong ethical emphasis generally.