0:01 this video is brought to you by Buddhist
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0:07 philosophy and languages of Buddhism top
0:09 bytop university professors Buddhism is
0:11 a complex religious and philosophical
0:13 tradition with over 500 million
0:16 adherence that spans 2500 years of
0:18 history as Buddhism has developed over
0:20 its long history it's marked by constant
0:23 reinterpretation of central ideas
0:25 introduction of new scriptures and
0:27 practices and intermingling with local
0:29 traditions in the places where Buddhism
0:31 has spread because of this internal
0:33 diversity early European visitors to
0:35 Asia actually did not realize that what
0:37 was practiced in Sri Lanka and what was
0:39 practiced in China or Japan was in some
0:41 sense the same thing what we call
0:44 Buddhism so what is this thing called
0:46 Buddhism what are some of the key ideas
0:48 questions or practices that run through
0:51 this tradition this is episode one in a
0:53 multi-part series on Buddhism in this
0:55 first episode we'll examine buddhism's
0:58 Origins major themes in the tradition
1:00 and the modern forms of Buddhism that we
1:01 today I'm sure there's a question that a
1:04 lot of you are asking is Buddhism even a
1:06 religion you can find plenty of people
1:08 today who will argue that no Buddhism is
1:10 not a religion and that instead it's a
1:12 philosophy or a way of life this
1:14 stretches all the way back to European
1:16 writers in the 1850s when an Anglican
1:18 Minister Charles Hardwick who wrote
1:20 extensively on Buddhism tried to argue
1:22 that it was a philosophy instead of a
1:24 religion he wrote what I intend by
1:26 Buddhism is the system of metaphysical
1:28 and social philosophy organized by the
1:30 Buddha neither am I speaking here of
1:32 Buddhism in its modern development and
1:34 by modern development he basically meant
1:37 a mixture of folk religion and in his
1:40 words older superstitions he concluded
1:42 that we shall be dealing now with a
1:45 philosophy rather than with a religion
1:48 and sure if you remove rituals and
1:49 beliefs and sacred writings and
1:52 institutions like monks and nuns I guess
1:54 what's left over is a metaphysical and
1:56 social philosophy but what we're seeing
1:59 here is Hardwick's explicitly Protestant
2:01 Christian understanding of religion a
2:03 definition of religion that focuses
2:05 strongly on belief in a monotheistic
2:07 Creator God and deemphasizing ritual
2:09 when we run into this question it's
2:11 important to remember that religion as a
2:14 category has been defined in different
2:16 ways by different people and for
2:19 different purposes so when someone asks
2:22 is Buddhism a religion one good question
2:25 to ask back is how are you defining
2:27 religion if your definition of religion
2:29 follows Charles Hardwick's definition
2:31 trying to to distill Buddhism down into
2:34 some essentialized form by removing
2:35 culturally specific beliefs and
2:38 practices I'm sure you can create a
2:39 version of Buddhism that is not a
2:41 religion but it's also important to
2:43 remember that the very word religion
2:45 emerges out of a particular Christian
2:48 Centric historical and social context
2:50 there's not actually a word in any Asian
2:51 language that corresponds directly to
2:54 the English concept of religion another
2:56 good question to ask is why do they
2:58 think it matters whether Buddhism is a
3:00 religion or not for many Buddhists today
3:02 especially in English language contexts
3:05 religion has become kind of a dirty word
3:08 associated with Blind Faith and the lack
3:10 of personal freedom and so people who
3:12 think religion is bad may not want to
3:15 associate Buddhism with religion for our
3:17 academic purposes here we will be
3:19 treating Buddhism as a religion and
3:21 we'll be following Dr Steven Pro's model
3:22 of religion which suggests that
3:24 religions provide an account of a human
3:27 problem that people face claim to
3:29 provide a solution to that problem
3:31 advocate various practices and
3:33 techniques for solving that problem and
3:35 offer exemplars of people who have
3:38 solved the problem like all definitions
3:40 of religion this one has pros and cons
3:42 but it will be helpful today to better
3:44 understand Buddhism even if the category
3:46 itself is imperfect now with that
3:47 abstract theoretical question out of the
3:49 way let's turn our attention to Buddhism
3:51 itself a good question to start with
3:54 would be what makes someone a Buddhist
3:55 one traditional answer is that a
3:57 Buddhist is someone who has gone for
4:00 Refuge to the three jewels going for
4:02 Refuge means that someone has gone to
4:04 Buddhism for protection from the
4:06 sufferings of the world and the three
4:08 jewels are the Buddha who teaches a path
4:11 out of suffering the Dharma the Buddha's
4:14 teachings about reality and the S the
4:16 community of Buddhists all seeking a
4:18 path out of suffering so let's use this
4:20 model of the three jewels to structure
4:23 our intro to Buddhism let's start with
4:24 the Buddha who is considered to be the
4:26 founder of Buddhism now we'll examine
4:28 this much more deeply in episode two of
4:30 this series but briefly Buddha is
4:33 actually a title meaning awakened one
4:35 it's used to refer to a man named sadar
4:37 gaama who lived in the 5th Century BCE
4:39 and what is now around Nepal and
4:41 Northern India historians don't know
4:43 very much about Sedar Gala as a
4:45 historical figure but according to
4:47 Buddhist Legend he was a wealthy prince
4:49 who abandoned his life of luxury to
4:51 search for a solution to the problem of
4:54 suffering or Dua the Buddha argued that
4:57 human life is marked by Dua a term
4:59 that's often translated as suffering but
5:02 really means something closer to stress
5:06 unsatisfactoriness or even disease not
5:08 disease in the sense of sickness but
5:11 just that sense of not being at ease or
5:14 not fitting into the world the Buddha
5:15 spent many years searching for a
5:18 solution to this problem of stress and
5:19 suffering and eventually claimed to have
5:22 attained Awakening or Enlightenment also
5:25 known as Nirvana In other words the
5:27 Buddha claimed to attain deep
5:28 understanding of reality that allowed
5:30 him to finally blow out or eliminate the
5:32 problem of suffering he then spent the
5:34 rest of his life teaching to a growing
5:36 group of disciples what he realized the
5:38 Buddha is said to have given many
5:40 teachings in his life but among the most
5:42 important ones are contained in his very
5:44 first sermon known as the discourse
5:47 which turns the wheel of Dharma this
5:49 text can be found in the samuta Nika
5:50 section of the polyan Canon which is
5:52 today believed by terava Buddhists to be
5:54 the oldest record of the Buddhist
5:56 teachings these teachings were said to
5:57 have been memorized by the Buddha's
5:59 disciples and passed down orally for
6:01 hundreds of years before being written
6:03 down in the first century BCE now
6:05 Scholars debate whether this was in fact
6:08 the Buddha's first sermon some argue
6:09 that it was edited in the first few
6:11 hundred years and was only later
6:13 identified as the first sermon but this
6:15 question is still left open Dharma here
6:16 refers to the Buddhist teachings about
6:19 the nature of reality and turning the
6:22 wheel of Dharma indicates teaching the
6:24 truth about reality in this sermon the
6:27 Buddha outlines the four noble truths
6:30 the first truth is suffering ing
6:31 suffering according to the Buddha is
6:33 just a fact of life we suffer when we
6:36 get sick or when we get old or when
6:39 loved ones die we also suffer mentally
6:41 because we spend our lives chasing after
6:43 things that we think will make us happy
6:44 we suffer when we don't get them and
6:46 even if we do get them we worry that
6:48 they'll be taken away or we'll get bored
6:50 and start to fixate on some other thing
6:52 thus we're trapped in this endless and
6:56 stressful cycle of craving and suffering
6:58 meanwhile this intense fixation on our
7:00 own wants and needs needs blinds us to
7:03 the needs of others causing us still
7:05 more suffering the Buddha is not saying
7:07 that there is no joy and happiness to be
7:09 found in life instead he's pointing out
7:12 that moments of Happiness are fleeting
7:14 but that we often return to a baseline
7:17 situation of stress and worry so the
7:20 first Noble Truth is a recognition that
7:22 part of being alive in this world is
7:26 dealing with suffering stress and pain
7:28 the second Noble Truth is that this
7:30 suffering has an origin it doesn't just
7:32 come out of nowhere there are a couple
7:33 ways of thinking of the origin of
7:34 suffering in the first sermon the Buddha
7:36 points to craving as the origin of
7:38 suffering in other texts though he
7:41 expands that to recognize other causes
7:44 one major cause of suffering is karma
7:45 karma is a Sanskrit term that literally
7:48 means action we can understand it as
7:51 cause and effect if you do good things
7:53 good things will happen to you and if
7:55 you do bad things bad things will happen
7:57 to you and so the Buddha says that much
7:59 of the suffering in our lives results
8:01 from the consequences of previous
8:03 actions so you might ask why don't we
8:05 just stop doing bad things if we know
8:08 they'll result in bad consequences well
8:10 the Buddha argued that most of the time
8:12 when humans do bad things it's because
8:15 they're being driven by hatred greed or
8:17 delusion these three reactive emotions
8:20 are known as the three poisons and the
8:22 Buddha argue that they're at the root of
8:25 human suffering the third Noble Truth
8:28 then is that suffering can be ended and
8:29 that's because of hatred greed and
8:32 delusion cause bad actions humans can
8:34 end the bad actions and ultimately end
8:37 suffering if those are removed moreover
8:39 if humans can replace hatred greed and
8:42 delusion with wisdom and compassion they
8:44 can attain Nirvana the state of freedom
8:47 from suffering finally the fourth Noble
8:49 Truth is the path from suffering this
8:51 path has been described as the middle
8:53 way between the extremes of
8:55 self-indulgence and self-mortification
8:57 it's also been described as an
8:58 eight-fold path that the Buddha
9:00 prescribes for for overcoming suffering
9:02 steps that include training and moral
9:06 discipline concentration and wisdom we
9:08 can summarize the four noble truths like
9:11 this life sucks here's why you can fix
9:14 it here's how or to use a metaphor that
9:15 the Buddha himself is said to have used
9:18 repeatedly in the poly Canon the Buddha
9:20 is like a doctor who observes symptoms
9:23 offers a diagnosis makes a prognosis and
9:26 then offers a treatment two important
9:28 ideas emerge from this Central teaching
9:31 first all things are impermanent meaning
9:34 that everything is changing all the time
9:36 this is true for all of the material
9:39 things we own but also for ourselves
9:40 even as you sit there watching this
9:44 video you are changing second because
9:46 all things are impermanent all things are
9:46 are
9:48 interconnected nothing exists
9:51 permanently and independently just as an
9:54 oak tree depends on sun and water the
9:56 soil from which it's emerging the acorn
9:58 that it grew from and the squirrel that
10:02 buried the Acorn itself so do all things
10:04 depend on one another the Buddha taught
10:06 that beings who recognize these truths
10:08 about reality would be naturally
10:10 compassionate and would suffer less
10:12 these teachings and many others are
10:14 preserved in the Buddhist Canon the
10:15 collection of sacred texts different
10:17 Buddhist groups have different versions
10:19 of what they consider to be the Buddhist
10:22 Canon but in each case it's many times
10:24 larger than the Bible or the Quran for
10:26 example The Tao edition of the Japanese
10:28 Buddhist Canon contains
10:32 2,920 texts T collected in over 85
10:34 volumes the oldest version of the Canon
10:36 known as the poly Canon was published in
10:38 Translation by the poly text Society in
10:41 57 volumes so yeah a lot of texts that
10:44 we couldn't possibly cover in one video
10:46 let's turn now to the third Jewel the
10:48 Buddhist Community or the S while the
10:50 Buddha was teaching he gained many
10:52 followers however not all of these
10:53 followers undertook the same kind of
10:56 practices that is the Buddha did not
10:58 present a single set of teachings and
11:00 practices that are one size fits all
11:02 instead he taught a general path for
11:05 beings to follow this is known as the
11:07 teaching of the gradual or graduated
11:09 path the starting point is ordinary
11:11 desire and suffering and the end point
11:14 is Awakening to freedom from suffering
11:16 or Nirvana according to the Buddha the
11:19 path from the starting point to Nirvana
11:22 takes many many lifetimes to fully
11:24 Traverse as we're born again and again
11:27 in an unsatisfactory cycle called
11:29 samsara some beings may be at one stage
11:31 in the path and so should focus on
11:33 certain kinds of practices other beings
11:35 may be at another point along that path
11:37 and so should focus on different sorts
11:39 of practices at the beginning of the
11:41 path are lay people who form the
11:43 majority of Buddhists for them Nirvana
11:46 is a distant and mostly unachievable
11:47 goal and so they generally focus on
11:50 generating Merit and Good Karma they do
11:52 this by cultivating generosity by making
11:55 donations to the monks and nuns by
11:57 making offerings to images or generally
11:59 trying to accumulate Merit and good
12:01 karma in hopes of attaining a good
12:04 rebirth in the next life they also might
12:06 take vows as a way of cultivating Purity
12:08 and moral discipline for the most part
12:11 scholars believe that most lay Buddhists
12:12 rarely or never studied Buddhist
12:15 scriptures or meditated themselves they
12:17 were way too busy working or taking care
12:19 of kids to do stuff like that instead
12:21 they hoped that by accumulating Merit
12:24 they might be reborn as a monk or a nun
12:26 in their future Life The Next Step along
12:28 the path as I just alluded to is
12:30 becoming a monk or a nun monks and nuns
12:33 shave their heads wear robes and give up
12:35 ordinary family life in order to focus
12:37 on following the Buddha's path out of
12:39 suffering they undertook practices such
12:40 as memorizing and reciting the Buddhist
12:43 scriptures performing rituals aimed at
12:45 generating good karma and generally
12:47 trying to cultivate moral discipline
12:49 even further along the path Advanced
12:51 monks and nuns might take up the
12:53 philosophical study of Buddhist texts or
12:55 meditation practices as we'll examine in
12:57 episode three of this series these
12:59 meditation practices aimed at
13:01 cultivating mental concentration and
13:03 deep personal realization of the truth
13:05 of the Buddha's teachings this was
13:07 thought to be able to lead to Awakening
13:09 and escape from the problem of suffering
13:11 these days Buddhism and meditation are
13:14 often stereotypically conflated such
13:15 that people think that Buddhism is all
13:18 about meditation and while it might be
13:20 true that meditation is very important
13:23 to Buddhism because it's a key technique
13:25 for realizing the truth about reality it
13:27 has usually been thought of as an
13:29 advanced technique rather than one that
13:32 all Buddhists can or should do instead
13:34 for most Buddhists throughout time the
13:36 focus was on everyday practices such as
13:38 ritual and generosity still we can say
13:41 that each stage of the gradual path is
13:43 focused on gradually transforming the
13:45 mind in order to prepare for the next
13:48 stage of the path and to get a little
13:50 bit closer to Awakening to continue our
13:51 exploration of the broader Buddhist
13:53 Community I want to say a little bit
13:54 about the different forms of Buddhism
13:57 that are around today each form deserves
13:58 its own video but it's worth summarizing
14:00 that here as Buddhists throughout
14:02 history interpreted and reinterpreted
14:04 the Buddhist teachings new schools of
14:07 thought and practice emerged today we
14:08 can think of Buddhists as living in
14:10 three broad Traditions they share many
14:13 of the same ideas and practices but they
14:15 also differ about what texts they
14:17 consider to be the best representation
14:19 of the Buddhist teaching and also how
14:22 they understand buddhahood itself each
14:23 of these forms of Buddhism is also
14:25 shaped by long interaction with the
14:28 cultures where they took root monks and
14:30 nuns in each of these places also wear
14:32 somewhat different robes and follow
14:33 somewhat different versions of the
14:36 monastic code first we have terava
14:37 Buddhism which is practiced in much of
14:40 Southeast Asia including Sri Lanka
14:42 Myanmar Cambodia Laos and Thailand
14:44 terava Buddhists consider themselves to
14:45 be practicing the form of Buddhism that
14:47 is closest to what early Buddhist
14:49 communities would have practiced they
14:52 enshrine the poly Canan a collection of
14:54 texts composed in the ancient language
14:55 of P that is believed to go back to the
14:57 Buddha's lifetime in these texts the
14:59 Buddha is portrayed as a relatively
15:01 human figure who teaches individuals the
15:04 long and gradual path out of suffering
15:06 which is assumed to take many millions
15:08 of lifetimes next we have forms of
15:10 Buddhism as it's practiced in China
15:13 Korea Japan and Vietnam these forms of
15:14 Buddhism largely follow a school of
15:17 Buddhism known as the Mahayana literally
15:19 the great vehicle this is a school of
15:21 Buddhist thought that emerged in the
15:23 early centuries of the Common Era it
15:25 introduced new Buddhist scriptures and
15:27 ideas including the notion that Sedar
15:29 Gala was only the emanation of a
15:31 fundamental principle of Awakening that
15:34 pervades the whole universe Mahayana
15:36 Buddhism interacted with religious
15:37 Traditions already present in East Asia
15:39 and developed forms such as Zen and
15:42 pureland Buddhism which we'll examine in
15:45 future episodes finally we have Tibetan
15:46 Buddhism which took root in Tibet and is
15:48 still practiced in Tibet Mongolia as
15:50 well as parts of Nepal and Northern
15:52 India Today Tibetan Buddhists also
15:54 consider themselves to be part of the
15:56 Mahayana or great vehicle but their
15:58 orientation towards Mahayana Buddhism is
16:00 deeply influenced by a group of texts
16:02 called tantas that Tibetan Buddhists
16:04 consider scripture these books outline
16:07 complex philosophical ideas and ritual
16:09 practices aimed at attaining Awakening
16:12 as quickly as a single lifetime they are
16:13 thus considered to be representatives of
16:16 vadana Buddhism which literally means
16:18 the diamond vehicle the most famous
16:20 representative of this form of Buddhism
16:22 is his Holiness the Dal Lama who is
16:23 considered to be an emanation of a
16:25 bodhisatta himself so to summarize the
16:27 key themes the first is that Buddhist
16:29 Traditions are very diverse verse here I
16:31 focused on some of the earliest and most
16:34 influential ideas and practices but the
16:36 highly localized quality of Buddhism
16:37 means that it's important to remind
16:39 ourselves that particular manifestations
16:42 of Buddhism may be quite different than
16:44 this General picture Buddhism has also
16:47 continually evolved over its 2500 year
16:49 history and it continues to change today
16:51 no single video can capture the
16:54 complexity of all 2500 years that said
16:56 the second point I want to reiterate is
16:58 that certain questions and concerns do
17:00 run through Buddhist Traditions the
17:02 first is the continual emphasis on the
17:06 three jewels the Buddha the Dharma aka
17:08 the Buddhist teachings and the S the
17:10 Buddhist community in addition we see a
17:12 pervasive concern to recognize and
17:15 overcome the problem of suffering a
17:17 recognition that so much suffering stems
17:20 from our own ingrained mental habits and
17:22 a commitment to cultivation to remove
17:24 these causes of suffering moreover
17:26 Buddhism is grounded in a worldview that
17:28 takes impermanence and interdependence
17:31 as the fundamental nature of reality if
17:32 you'd like to learn more about Buddhism
17:34 then i' really recommend that you check
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