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What is Buddhism? | ReligionForBreakfast | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: What is Buddhism?
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Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
Buddhism is a diverse, 2500-year-old religious and philosophical tradition characterized by constant reinterpretation of core ideas, the introduction of new scriptures and practices, and adaptation to local cultures, all centered around understanding and overcoming suffering.
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bytop university professors Buddhism is
a complex religious and philosophical
tradition with over 500 million
adherence that spans 2500 years of
history as Buddhism has developed over
its long history it's marked by constant
reinterpretation of central ideas
introduction of new scriptures and
practices and intermingling with local
traditions in the places where Buddhism
has spread because of this internal
diversity early European visitors to
Asia actually did not realize that what
was practiced in Sri Lanka and what was
practiced in China or Japan was in some
sense the same thing what we call
Buddhism so what is this thing called
Buddhism what are some of the key ideas
questions or practices that run through
this tradition this is episode one in a
multi-part series on Buddhism in this
first episode we'll examine buddhism's
Origins major themes in the tradition
and the modern forms of Buddhism that we
today I'm sure there's a question that a
lot of you are asking is Buddhism even a
religion you can find plenty of people
today who will argue that no Buddhism is
not a religion and that instead it's a
philosophy or a way of life this
stretches all the way back to European
writers in the 1850s when an Anglican
Minister Charles Hardwick who wrote
extensively on Buddhism tried to argue
that it was a philosophy instead of a
religion he wrote what I intend by
Buddhism is the system of metaphysical
and social philosophy organized by the
Buddha neither am I speaking here of
Buddhism in its modern development and
by modern development he basically meant
a mixture of folk religion and in his
words older superstitions he concluded
that we shall be dealing now with a
philosophy rather than with a religion
and sure if you remove rituals and
beliefs and sacred writings and
institutions like monks and nuns I guess
what's left over is a metaphysical and
social philosophy but what we're seeing
here is Hardwick's explicitly Protestant
Christian understanding of religion a
definition of religion that focuses
strongly on belief in a monotheistic
Creator God and deemphasizing ritual
when we run into this question it's
important to remember that religion as a
category has been defined in different
ways by different people and for
different purposes so when someone asks
is Buddhism a religion one good question
to ask back is how are you defining
religion if your definition of religion
follows Charles Hardwick's definition
trying to to distill Buddhism down into
some essentialized form by removing
culturally specific beliefs and
practices I'm sure you can create a
version of Buddhism that is not a
religion but it's also important to
remember that the very word religion
emerges out of a particular Christian
Centric historical and social context
there's not actually a word in any Asian
language that corresponds directly to
the English concept of religion another
good question to ask is why do they
think it matters whether Buddhism is a
religion or not for many Buddhists today
especially in English language contexts
religion has become kind of a dirty word
associated with Blind Faith and the lack
of personal freedom and so people who
think religion is bad may not want to
associate Buddhism with religion for our
academic purposes here we will be
treating Buddhism as a religion and
we'll be following Dr Steven Pro's model
of religion which suggests that
religions provide an account of a human
problem that people face claim to
provide a solution to that problem
advocate various practices and
techniques for solving that problem and
offer exemplars of people who have
solved the problem like all definitions
of religion this one has pros and cons
but it will be helpful today to better
understand Buddhism even if the category
itself is imperfect now with that
abstract theoretical question out of the
way let's turn our attention to Buddhism
itself a good question to start with
would be what makes someone a Buddhist
one traditional answer is that a
Buddhist is someone who has gone for
Refuge to the three jewels going for
Refuge means that someone has gone to
Buddhism for protection from the
sufferings of the world and the three
jewels are the Buddha who teaches a path
out of suffering the Dharma the Buddha's
teachings about reality and the S the
community of Buddhists all seeking a
path out of suffering so let's use this
model of the three jewels to structure
our intro to Buddhism let's start with
the Buddha who is considered to be the
founder of Buddhism now we'll examine
this much more deeply in episode two of
this series but briefly Buddha is
actually a title meaning awakened one
it's used to refer to a man named sadar
gaama who lived in the 5th Century BCE
and what is now around Nepal and
Northern India historians don't know
very much about Sedar Gala as a
historical figure but according to
Buddhist Legend he was a wealthy prince
who abandoned his life of luxury to
search for a solution to the problem of
suffering or Dua the Buddha argued that
human life is marked by Dua a term
that's often translated as suffering but
really means something closer to stress
unsatisfactoriness or even disease not
disease in the sense of sickness but
just that sense of not being at ease or
not fitting into the world the Buddha
spent many years searching for a
solution to this problem of stress and
suffering and eventually claimed to have
attained Awakening or Enlightenment also
known as Nirvana In other words the
Buddha claimed to attain deep
understanding of reality that allowed
him to finally blow out or eliminate the
problem of suffering he then spent the
rest of his life teaching to a growing
group of disciples what he realized the
Buddha is said to have given many
teachings in his life but among the most
important ones are contained in his very
first sermon known as the discourse
which turns the wheel of Dharma this
text can be found in the samuta Nika
section of the polyan Canon which is
today believed by terava Buddhists to be
the oldest record of the Buddhist
teachings these teachings were said to
have been memorized by the Buddha's
disciples and passed down orally for
hundreds of years before being written
down in the first century BCE now
Scholars debate whether this was in fact
the Buddha's first sermon some argue
that it was edited in the first few
hundred years and was only later
identified as the first sermon but this
question is still left open Dharma here
refers to the Buddhist teachings about
the nature of reality and turning the
wheel of Dharma indicates teaching the
truth about reality in this sermon the
Buddha outlines the four noble truths
the first truth is suffering ing
suffering according to the Buddha is
just a fact of life we suffer when we
get sick or when we get old or when
loved ones die we also suffer mentally
because we spend our lives chasing after
things that we think will make us happy
we suffer when we don't get them and
even if we do get them we worry that
they'll be taken away or we'll get bored
and start to fixate on some other thing
thus we're trapped in this endless and
stressful cycle of craving and suffering
meanwhile this intense fixation on our
own wants and needs needs blinds us to
the needs of others causing us still
more suffering the Buddha is not saying
that there is no joy and happiness to be
found in life instead he's pointing out
that moments of Happiness are fleeting
but that we often return to a baseline
situation of stress and worry so the
first Noble Truth is a recognition that
part of being alive in this world is
dealing with suffering stress and pain
the second Noble Truth is that this
suffering has an origin it doesn't just
come out of nowhere there are a couple
ways of thinking of the origin of
suffering in the first sermon the Buddha
points to craving as the origin of
suffering in other texts though he
expands that to recognize other causes
one major cause of suffering is karma
karma is a Sanskrit term that literally
means action we can understand it as
cause and effect if you do good things
good things will happen to you and if
you do bad things bad things will happen
to you and so the Buddha says that much
of the suffering in our lives results
from the consequences of previous
actions so you might ask why don't we
just stop doing bad things if we know
they'll result in bad consequences well
the Buddha argued that most of the time
when humans do bad things it's because
they're being driven by hatred greed or
delusion these three reactive emotions
are known as the three poisons and the
Buddha argue that they're at the root of
human suffering the third Noble Truth
then is that suffering can be ended and
that's because of hatred greed and
delusion cause bad actions humans can
end the bad actions and ultimately end
suffering if those are removed moreover
if humans can replace hatred greed and
delusion with wisdom and compassion they
can attain Nirvana the state of freedom
from suffering finally the fourth Noble
Truth is the path from suffering this
path has been described as the middle
way between the extremes of
self-indulgence and self-mortification
it's also been described as an
eight-fold path that the Buddha
prescribes for for overcoming suffering
steps that include training and moral
discipline concentration and wisdom we
can summarize the four noble truths like
this life sucks here's why you can fix
it here's how or to use a metaphor that
the Buddha himself is said to have used
repeatedly in the poly Canon the Buddha
is like a doctor who observes symptoms
offers a diagnosis makes a prognosis and
then offers a treatment two important
ideas emerge from this Central teaching
first all things are impermanent meaning
that everything is changing all the time
this is true for all of the material
things we own but also for ourselves
even as you sit there watching this
video you are changing second because
all things are impermanent all things are
are
interconnected nothing exists
permanently and independently just as an
oak tree depends on sun and water the
soil from which it's emerging the acorn
that it grew from and the squirrel that
buried the Acorn itself so do all things
depend on one another the Buddha taught
that beings who recognize these truths
about reality would be naturally
compassionate and would suffer less
these teachings and many others are
preserved in the Buddhist Canon the
collection of sacred texts different
Buddhist groups have different versions
of what they consider to be the Buddhist
Canon but in each case it's many times
larger than the Bible or the Quran for
example The Tao edition of the Japanese
Buddhist Canon contains
2,920 texts T collected in over 85
volumes the oldest version of the Canon
known as the poly Canon was published in
Translation by the poly text Society in
57 volumes so yeah a lot of texts that
we couldn't possibly cover in one video
let's turn now to the third Jewel the
Buddhist Community or the S while the
Buddha was teaching he gained many
followers however not all of these
followers undertook the same kind of
practices that is the Buddha did not
present a single set of teachings and
practices that are one size fits all
instead he taught a general path for
beings to follow this is known as the
teaching of the gradual or graduated
path the starting point is ordinary
desire and suffering and the end point
is Awakening to freedom from suffering
or Nirvana according to the Buddha the
path from the starting point to Nirvana
takes many many lifetimes to fully
Traverse as we're born again and again
in an unsatisfactory cycle called
samsara some beings may be at one stage
in the path and so should focus on
certain kinds of practices other beings
may be at another point along that path
and so should focus on different sorts
of practices at the beginning of the
path are lay people who form the
majority of Buddhists for them Nirvana
is a distant and mostly unachievable
goal and so they generally focus on
generating Merit and Good Karma they do
this by cultivating generosity by making
donations to the monks and nuns by
making offerings to images or generally
trying to accumulate Merit and good
karma in hopes of attaining a good
rebirth in the next life they also might
take vows as a way of cultivating Purity
and moral discipline for the most part
scholars believe that most lay Buddhists
rarely or never studied Buddhist
scriptures or meditated themselves they
were way too busy working or taking care
of kids to do stuff like that instead
they hoped that by accumulating Merit
they might be reborn as a monk or a nun
in their future Life The Next Step along
the path as I just alluded to is
becoming a monk or a nun monks and nuns
shave their heads wear robes and give up
ordinary family life in order to focus
on following the Buddha's path out of
suffering they undertook practices such
as memorizing and reciting the Buddhist
scriptures performing rituals aimed at
generating good karma and generally
trying to cultivate moral discipline
even further along the path Advanced
monks and nuns might take up the
philosophical study of Buddhist texts or
meditation practices as we'll examine in
episode three of this series these
meditation practices aimed at
cultivating mental concentration and
deep personal realization of the truth
of the Buddha's teachings this was
thought to be able to lead to Awakening
and escape from the problem of suffering
these days Buddhism and meditation are
often stereotypically conflated such
that people think that Buddhism is all
about meditation and while it might be
true that meditation is very important
to Buddhism because it's a key technique
for realizing the truth about reality it
has usually been thought of as an
advanced technique rather than one that
all Buddhists can or should do instead
for most Buddhists throughout time the
focus was on everyday practices such as
ritual and generosity still we can say
that each stage of the gradual path is
focused on gradually transforming the
mind in order to prepare for the next
stage of the path and to get a little
bit closer to Awakening to continue our
exploration of the broader Buddhist
Community I want to say a little bit
about the different forms of Buddhism
that are around today each form deserves
its own video but it's worth summarizing
that here as Buddhists throughout
history interpreted and reinterpreted
the Buddhist teachings new schools of
thought and practice emerged today we
can think of Buddhists as living in
three broad Traditions they share many
of the same ideas and practices but they
also differ about what texts they
consider to be the best representation
of the Buddhist teaching and also how
they understand buddhahood itself each
of these forms of Buddhism is also
shaped by long interaction with the
cultures where they took root monks and
nuns in each of these places also wear
somewhat different robes and follow
somewhat different versions of the
monastic code first we have terava
Buddhism which is practiced in much of
Southeast Asia including Sri Lanka
Myanmar Cambodia Laos and Thailand
terava Buddhists consider themselves to
be practicing the form of Buddhism that
is closest to what early Buddhist
communities would have practiced they
enshrine the poly Canan a collection of
texts composed in the ancient language
of P that is believed to go back to the
Buddha's lifetime in these texts the
Buddha is portrayed as a relatively
human figure who teaches individuals the
long and gradual path out of suffering
which is assumed to take many millions
of lifetimes next we have forms of
Buddhism as it's practiced in China
Korea Japan and Vietnam these forms of
Buddhism largely follow a school of
Buddhism known as the Mahayana literally
the great vehicle this is a school of
Buddhist thought that emerged in the
early centuries of the Common Era it
introduced new Buddhist scriptures and
ideas including the notion that Sedar
Gala was only the emanation of a
fundamental principle of Awakening that
pervades the whole universe Mahayana
Buddhism interacted with religious
Traditions already present in East Asia
and developed forms such as Zen and
pureland Buddhism which we'll examine in
future episodes finally we have Tibetan
Buddhism which took root in Tibet and is
still practiced in Tibet Mongolia as
well as parts of Nepal and Northern
India Today Tibetan Buddhists also
consider themselves to be part of the
Mahayana or great vehicle but their
orientation towards Mahayana Buddhism is
deeply influenced by a group of texts
called tantas that Tibetan Buddhists
consider scripture these books outline
complex philosophical ideas and ritual
practices aimed at attaining Awakening
as quickly as a single lifetime they are
thus considered to be representatives of
vadana Buddhism which literally means
the diamond vehicle the most famous
representative of this form of Buddhism
is his Holiness the Dal Lama who is
considered to be an emanation of a
bodhisatta himself so to summarize the
key themes the first is that Buddhist
Traditions are very diverse verse here I
focused on some of the earliest and most
influential ideas and practices but the
highly localized quality of Buddhism
means that it's important to remind
ourselves that particular manifestations
of Buddhism may be quite different than
this General picture Buddhism has also
continually evolved over its 2500 year
history and it continues to change today
no single video can capture the
complexity of all 2500 years that said
the second point I want to reiterate is
that certain questions and concerns do
run through Buddhist Traditions the
first is the continual emphasis on the
three jewels the Buddha the Dharma aka
the Buddhist teachings and the S the
Buddhist community in addition we see a
pervasive concern to recognize and
overcome the problem of suffering a
recognition that so much suffering stems
from our own ingrained mental habits and
a commitment to cultivation to remove
these causes of suffering moreover
Buddhism is grounded in a worldview that
takes impermanence and interdependence
as the fundamental nature of reality if
you'd like to learn more about Buddhism
then i' really recommend that you check
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