Buddhist Paths
Insurmountable
Buddhism is vast - its forms and teaching infinite - we will only be able to
pick up a shaving of a shaving
It’s really about direct experience
NO God in Buddhism
Consciousness
Emptiness
Oneness
Oral Tradition
To be taken in
Metabolized
Deeply felt
Applied
Insight
Seeing
The Process
Taking in a teaching (sutra)
Analyze, discuss, meditate
For example: What was your original face?
Buddha
2500 years ago
Awake
After death 18 different schools emerged
Argued about his teachings - oral - they each were given a particular
medicine
Similar to what a client would receive from the same therapist depending
on their level of wakefulness
Four noble truths
The Truth of Suffering:
Nothing gives lasting happiness
The Truth of the Cause of Suffering:
Attachment and aversion keep us in samsara
The Truth of the End of Suffering:
If suffering has a cause so does happiness
The Truth of the Path leading to the End of Suffering:
Living in middle of extremes
Two Truths
Relative truth
Everything is understandable in relation to something else (Interbeing)
Absolute truth
Truth is not affected by anything inside time
Key Terms
Upeksha (equanimity)
Steady conscious realization of reality's transience
Bodhicitta (compassion)
To suffer with
Maitri (love)
The intention and capacity to offer joy and happiness
The Heart Sutra &
five Aggregates (Heaps)
Avalokita, the holy lord and bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course
of wisdom which has gone beyond. He looked down from high, he beheld
but five heaps, and he saw in their own being they were empty.
Shunyata
Ego arises from the five heaps (skandhas) empty - not permanent
By product of the 5 heaps = self
Find the substantial in the these five heaps
These five heaps are changing constantly as is our environment thus the
self cannot be a “thing” entity persisting through time unaltered
But we grasp and cling to things as if they were permanent and stable =
misery
Emptiness
Nirvana
No Mind
Lesser Vehicle / Greater Vehicle
Work towards enlightenment for their own sake