Buddhism before Theravada (audio)

John Peacock (audiodharma.org)  "Buddhism Before the Theravada"; Wisdom Quarterly

(Auto_Mattic/flickr.com)

 

The Buddha did not teach in a vacuum. His teachings were directed to those who shared the social world in which he lived. 

John Peacock, a British scholar who studies and translates in more than a dozen languages and is familiar with the philosophical environment of the Buddha’s day, maintains that by framing the Buddha’s teachings in their original context, it is possible to RECOVER the original meaning of teachings that have been ignored and lost by later Buddhist schools -- including the Theravada.

• Thera + vada = "Elders' Teaching" or "The Teaching of the Elders." Who are these "elders"? They are the immediate enlightened monastic disciples of the Buddha, the monks (theras) and nuns (theris) of ancient India.

These talks examine many of the ways in which Buddhist practice was radically different from the Brahminical and Upanishadic thinking of the time and, indeed, how it differs in substantive ways from much present-day understanding of the Dharma. 

This exploration details the Buddha’s shift away from metaphysical thinking to a focus on internal experience and ethical activity. In the process there will be consideration of how the Buddha’s earliest teachings diverge from much of the Western philosophical tradition and often from what has become the traditional view of the Dharma today as well.

 

Part 1	John Peacock	2011-09-03	1:36:43	Download Stream
Part 2	John Peacock	2011-09-03	0:42:32	Download Stream
Part 3	John Peacock	2011-09-03	1:53:13	Download Stream
Part 4	John Peacock	2011-09-03	1:13:40	Download Stream
Part 5	John Peacock	2011-09-04	1:16:31	Download Stream
Part 6	John Peacock	2011-09-04	1:54:06	Download Stream

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Seven things the Buddha taught

Dhr. Seven and Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Reclining Buddha in Pagan, Burma (KateMcKenna/flickr.com)

   

Buddha and change (Omoo/flickr.com)

Before passing into final nirvana, the Buddha gave a final exhortation. He had taught seven essential things:

1. As soon as a desire arises, dissatisfaction co-arises. Our entire psycho-physical existence is beset by this unsatisfactoriness. Clinging makes it worse. By their own nature things fall away. Everything of which we are composed falls away. Yet, we cling and will not let go. We cannot let go. But there is an escape from dissatisfaction and disappointment. 

   

Wisdom itself has the power to uproot clinging, harming, and ignorance to free us from all forms of "suffering," whether subtle or gross. This path to release is the Buddha's Dharma, the stainless path laid down 26 centuries ago although often reformulated with the essential message remaining: THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, which ennoble any individual who practices in accord with them, are the way to the development of compassion, wisdom, and final liberation.

  

2. Do not be content with this transient state, but instead really look at it and strive to undo the three bonds -- greed, hatred, and delusion -- that hold one like a poisoned slave who is sure to perish. We cannot walk the path alone unaided, yet no one can "save" (walk the path) for another. Indeed others may save our life, point out the way to the heavens, or help free us from miserable states. But striving to awaken is something one undertakes for oneself to benefit others as well as oneself

3. When the "self" (atta) is seen for what it actually is -- a composite constituted by many transient parts, it is realized that ultimately, in an unconventional way of speaking, there is "no self" (anatta) who suffers or is liberated, is trapped or is freed, dies or is reborn -- except that ignorance makes it so. So it is said that the universe is "illusory" (maya).

(The Brahminical/Hindu belief that uniting a self and the external world one leads to "eternal serenity" is exactly mistaken but widely believed in Mahayana forms of Buddhism. If non-duality were the answer, others would already have a path to final liberation and there would be no need for the Buddha to have arisen in the world and made know the fourth Noble Truth -- the Noble Eightfold Path).

  

(American Buddhist Perspective)

4. Practice "meditation" (bhavana and jhaneti: cultivation, self-development, progress in serenity then insight or proper-concentration then mindfulness of the factors of Dependent Origination to bring wisdom into being). 

   

5. Remember what the Buddha taught -- which he mostly limited to what would advance listeners (savakas) toward enlightenment or maintain the Teaching in the world (vinaya) as long as possible. His final exhortation was, "All component things are hurtling toward destruction, [so] work out your emancipation with diligence!"

 

6. When the first four absorptions (jhanas) are developed as "proper concentration" (samma samadhi), one can begin to see impermanence by mindful and penetrative observation. Every "thing" is constantly changing, including every component we call the parts of ourselves -- form, feelings, perceptions, formations, and [the process of] consciousness -- with the sole exception being "the unconditioned element" called nirvana.

   

7. Compassion and non-attachment (non-clinging) naturally emerge out of liberating-wisdom. Because everything -- and every component of our separate existence -- is fleeting, attachment to them makes no sense for one who knows-and-sees.

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The Best Book about Buddhism (FREE)

Ven. Dr. Walpola Rahula, ELECTRONIC EDITION (BuddhaSociety.com, PBS) Grove Press, Inc., New York, proofread by F. Ruzsa; online version by V. Máthé as a gift of Dharma

The entire core contents are available online. An expanded edition is also available.    What the Buddha Taught Countless volumes have been written on Buddhism. Wisdom Quarterly has gone through many of them -- finding a few diamonds and a great deal of dross in the process. This work stands the test of time. It manages to quickly explain, rather than outline, almost every important Dharma topic. How it does this is hard to understand.     But that it does it is easy to see. If one had only one Buddhist book to read, it might be a "best of" collection of well translated sutras (like In the Buddha's Words). But if one prefers a book about Buddhism that explains what the historical Buddha actually taught, one would be hard pressed to find a better book.    This indispensable volume is a lucid and faithful account of the Buddha’s teachings. “For years,” says the Journal of the Buddhist Society, “the newcomer to Buddhism has lacked a simple and reliable introduction to the complexities of the subject. Dr. Rahula’s What the Buddha Taught fills the need as only could be done by one having a firm grasp of the vast material to be sifted. It is a model of what a book should be that is addressed first of all to ‘the educated and intelligent reader.’ Authoritative and clear, logical and sober, this study is as comprehensive as it is masterly.”     Table of Content Foreword Preface The Buddha The Buddhist Attitude of Mind The Four Noble Truths The First Noble Truth: Dukkha The Second Noble Truth: Samudaya The Third Noble Truth: Nirodha The Fourth Noble Truth: Magga The Doctrine of No Soul: Anatta Meditation or Mental Culture: Bhāvanā What the Buddha Taught and the World Today             Abbreviations

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