Buddhism: Story of Buddha, 4 Noble Truths, & Terms
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Exam Review Items
Buddhism (as explained by CK, lectures, and Hanh)
Terms: nirvana, interbeing, compassion, dharma, (the law of) karma, sangha, samsara, Buddha (and
Buddha nature), mindfulness
● 4 Noble Truths
● Story of the Buddha and how it illustrates the 4 Noble Truths and writings of Thich Nhat Hanh
● Be prepared to apply the concepts from CK and the lectures to Thich Nhat Hanh. For example,
“How do the three marks of the sacred apply or not to Hanh’s writings?”
Reading Questions
1. What are your reactions to the Hanh text and Hanh’s approach to living? Is it practicable?
Realistic? How does it challenge our ordinary western ways?
2. Should we smile when we feel sad or mad? (24)
3. Does Hanh’s mode of writing embody what he argues for?
4. How does Hanh describe the sacred? (see 30-32; bottom of 40; 46) How can movements be
sacred?
5. What does Hanh mean by the term Buddha? (32)
6. Can we slow down time? (31)
7. How does the glass of apple juice illustrate mindfulness? (27-28)
8. How should we prioritize our attention according to Hanh? Should we give equal attention to a
toothache as to a non-toothache? Is everything worthy of equal attention according to Hanh?
9. Does Hanh adequately allow us to analyze our past mistakes and learn from the past and plan for
the future?
10. What can the readings tell you about why Hanh identifies American consumerism as one of our
greatest problems?
11. How does Hanh understand the four Noble Truths? What is his take on Nirvana?
12. How do the three characteristics of the sacred for CK apply or not to Hanh?
13. Once you have completed the Alston readings this semester, which of the nine RMC’s of Alston
would Hanh’s notion of “interbeing” fall under and why?
14. Is Buddhism a religion according to Alston’s definition? According to CK’s definition? What are
the strongest arguments pro and con?
15. What is relationship of Hanh’s worldview to his morality?
Readings and Lecture
Story of the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakyas Approx. 563-483 B.C.E.)
Siddhartha (given name): one who has reached his goal.
Four Phases
1. Extreme Hedonism (excessive indulgence in bodily pleasures). Siddhartha was born into royalty and a
life of luxury. When Siddhartha was five days old a group of brahmins examined his body and found
marks to foretell his future: if his child remained in the world he would become a world conqueror; if
he forsook the world, he would become a world savior. Suddhodana, his father tried to steer
Siddhartha to become a world conqueror. He showered Siddhartha with worldly pleasures and tried to
prevent him from the very sight of suffering in order to keep him attached to the world. Siddhartha
married at age 16 and had a son. In his 20’s, he saw the “Four Passing Sights” of old age, disease,
death, and withdrawal from the world in the form of an ascetic monk (Sannyasin—“a castor off).
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Once Siddhartha observed human suffering, he became aware of the unsatisfactoriness of life (dukkha)
and he saw the way of the ascetic monk as a possible answer to the problem of suffering.
2. Extreme Asceticism/The Great Renunciation (excessive denial of bodily pleasures). At age 29
Siddhartha leaves his wife, child, and parents, and his wealth to follow the ascetic monk. In her book
Buddha (New York: Penguin Books, 2001), Karen Armstrong claims that he felt that his life had
become meaningless (p. 13). He lives in the forest and joins a band of monks who seek to purify their
souls completely of bodily and sensual inclinations. Siddhartha pursues this self-denial to its utmost
and almost dies of starvation until he stops fasting and eats a normal meal. This experience taught him
the futility of extreme asceticism and led to the first part of his path: the middle way between
overindulgence and underindulgence. This involves giving the body only what it needs to function
optimally—no more, no less. Yet Siddhartha remained dissatisfied.
3. Mastery of Disciplined Concentration. Siddhartha learned to master the disciplines of yoga, i.e., to
immobilize the body so that the mind can rise above the body. Karen Armstrong, (Buddha, pp.66-67)
describes a Pali legend that, as a young child, Siddhartha experienced momentary, yet profound
ecstasy immediately after feeling sorrow at the destruction of young shoots of grass, insects, and their
eggs by the plowing of a field: “The child had been taken out of himself by a moment of spontaneous
compassion, when he had allowed the pain of creatures that had nothing to do with him personally to
pierce him to the heart. This surge of selfless empathy had brought him a moment of spiritual
release.” Armstrong claims that later in his life, his memory of this experience gave him confidence
that he could attain enlightenment. So he sat alone under the bodhi tree by the river and vowed to
remain there until he experienced enlightenment. After he emptied himself of his finite self, he was
enlightened and transformed into the Buddha—the enlightened one. Immediately after his
enlightenment he saw the whole world lost in illusion, suffering, and in need of his help. He felt deep
compassion and delayed his full entry into nirvana in order to help suffering humanity.
4. Public Ministry and Traditio (“handing over” the Way). He helped suffering humanity by preaching,
teaching, advising, and training the sangha (a religious order or community of followers of the path).
His first sermon after enlightenment taught the Four Noble Truths. Buddha challenged and reformed
Hindu religious practices--hereditary authority and the caste system, ritual for its own sake,
speculation and focus on the supernatural. Instead, he taught a path available to persons from all
castes and he shifted the focus from metaphysical questions to the practical question of how to end
suffering (a person shot by an arrow should not ask who shot the arrow before he asks how can I get
the arrow out and treat the wound), and his teachings were only a raft to be discarded once they have
served their usefulness. At his death, he entered fully into nirvana.
Four Noble Truths
“I teach only suffering and the path of release from suffering.” The Buddha.
1. Life is dukkha. [Dukkha (Pali): the sensation of a bone that is out of joint]. We experience life
as out of joint or unsatisfactory and full of frustration of our desires, suffering, sickness, death,
and impermanence.
2. Dukkha is caused by tanha. [Tanha (Pali): thirst] We experience life as out of joint because
of our unquenchable thirst to possess what cannot be possessed, our self-clinging/egoexpanding desire for a permanent self when none exists, and our craving for permanence in a
world of impermanence. In short, we suffer unnecessarily because we desire reality to be other
than what it is: we live in a transient reality yet we desire permanence.
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Tanha leads us to construct the illusion that our self (and the things in our lives) are
permanent, to feel frustrated by our “immediate experience” of reality as falling short of this
illusion, and to remain caught up in samsara (the cycle of rebirths, suffering, and perishing).
Religion itself can become an expression of false clinging when it seeks to avoid our
“immediate experience” of transience and suffering without going through this experience.
3. Release from dukkha and suffering is possible through nirvana. Nirvana is the cessation of
tanha; the “letting go” of our tanha-driven illusions, it is what remains after tanha is
extinguished and full enlightenment is experienced. It comes only when we face our
perishability and suffering head on by immersing ourselves in it mindfully rather than seeking
to escape it by taking refuge in some “higher” reality or God. Transcendence can only be
experienced in and through mindful immersion in the immediacy of our experience and a
cultivated silence about ultimate reality.
4. The way to attain nirvana is the eightfold path of cultivating
a) right understanding--grasping reality through the lens of the Four Noble Truths,
b) right intention—motive purified of unwholesome emotional patterns and self-centeredness,
c) right speech--truthful and harmonious communication (no lying, divisive speech, etc.),
d) right action--avoid taking life, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxicants,
e) right livelihood--making a living without harming others or disrupting social harmony,
f) right effort--through continual striving to let go of tanha and follow the eightfold path,
g) right mindfulness—awareness of reality in the present as it really is, i.e., impermanent, and
h) right concentration/meditation—quieting the mind by witnessing all things, especially our
emotions, non-reactively, so that one’s mind clearly reflects the true nature of everything.
The rightness of each element in the eightfold path is determined by right mindfulness as well
as the middle way between excessive pleasure and in excessive denial of pleasure
Nirvana
(Pali: Nebbana “blowing out; extinguishing”) Ultimate liberation; the negation of illusory
reality and self; the cessation of suffering, mindlessness, and the ego expanding self (putting out the
flame of the self); a remainder concept—what remains after one has extinguished the self; state of
enlightenment and transcendence of ordinary reality. A state of oneness with the true nature of reality.
One might use John of the Cross’s description of God to describe nirvana: “everything and nothing”
(Todo y Nada) (CK, 58).
Thich Nhat Hanh describes nirvana as follows.
“Nirvana is the ultimate dimension of life, a state of coolness, peace, and joy. It is not a state
to be attained after you die. You touch nirvana right now by breathing, walking, and drinking
your tea in mindfulness. You have been ‘nirvanized’ since the very non-beginning.
Everything and everyone is dwelling in nirvana” (90).
Nirvana refers to “the infinity of time” (91) or the transcendence of time (91) (St.
Francis of Assisi did this).
Interbeing
“The one is all and all is one”; a worldview in which all things are interdependent, deeply
interrelated, and interpenetrate each other; all reality shares a common being. Thich Nhat Hanh says
that “everything is in here in this sheet of paper” (55) and “everything coexists with this sheet of
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paper” (56). “As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe” (56). Without a
cloud there can be no rain, so trees cannot grow, so paper cannot be made without trees. The cloud
and the paper “inter-are”. The cloud exists in the paper. Matter is neither destroyed nor created—just
recycled, transferred, and shared among one thing to another.
“When you touch one thing with deep awareness you touch everything” (91).
“The present is made of the past and is creating the future” (91). Time “inter-is.”
Compassion
Literally “to suffer with’ another person” (100). The supreme virtue of one who is enlightened
(a bodhisattva) and has achieved ultimate insight/wisdom; the recognition that we are all
interconnected and experiencing and feeling this insight.
Compassion is the act of deeply understanding the suffering or joy of others and feeling their
suffering or joy through empathy or “going inside” the skin, the body, feelings, and thoughts of
another (100). “In order to be able to understand, you have to be one with what [or who] you want to
understand” (95). If one is in “deep contact with the suffering of another . . . the mind of compassion
will naturally be transformed into action” (100) that seeks to remove that suffering (101).
The Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha
Buddha (and Buddha nature): Buddha literally means “awakened” or “enlightened.” The story of the
Buddha reveals the path to enlightenment and its consequences. The Buddha experienced pleasure
and suffering and attained true enlightenment. Buddha nature is present in everyone. For Mahayana
(“big raft”) Buddhists, the Buddha was the earthly manifestation of a transcendent, heavenly being
(and there are many Buddhas or many reincarnations of this being). Theravada (“way of the elders”)
Buddhists focus on the Buddha as a real historical person.
Dharma (dhamma): The teachings of the Buddha. His teachings are like a raft to travel across a river
to nirvana. Once one has reached this other shore, she can abandon the raft (teachings).
Sangha: Community of followers of the Buddha.
Samsara: The seemingly endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (status of rebirth depends upon
karma—past deeds).
Karma: Law of Karma—you reap what you sow; past deeds determine future rebirth.
Mindfulness
While it must be experienced to be understood, it involves an awareness of the present moment
and of reality as it really is. Mindfulness is perhaps the most central of the “eightfold path” because it
especially determines whether the other seven paths are being followed.
Terms in the Hanh readings
1. sutra: a short explanation of the Buddha’s teaching
2. prajna: wisdom
3. paramita: virtue