What did the Buddha teach?
Directions:
Annotate the text with the focus questions in mind:
 What are the teachings of the Buddha?
 How was Buddhism similar to and different from
Hinduism?
WHAT DID THE BUDDHA TEACH?
At first the Buddha thought that nirvana and his other insights
could not be taught. Soon, however, he decided they must be
taught, and he devoted the rest of his life to teaching people
how to live in peace and achieve nirvana. The Buddha taught
Four Noble Truths. The first is “life is suffereing.” Life is out
of joint, like an axle loose from a wheel or bone from the
socket. It is a glittering illusion, a sea of impermanence,
constantly changing, tempting people into ever-revolving
cycles of bith and death. Nothing is the same now as it was an
instant before. Amidst this flux we worry about keeping hat we
have or getting things we do not have.
“Suggering is caused by desire” is the Buddha’s second Noble
Truth. We sugger because we long for permanence; we want
things to stay the way they are. We get attached to material
objects and to our own opinions and fo not want to let go. The
more we try to hold on, to grasp or clutch, the quicker things
slip away. Youth, gone; beauty; gone; loved ones, gone.
Life—gone. We we fight against impermanece and try to hold
on to our egos and desires, we suffer.
“There is a way out of suffering,” the Buddha taugh as his third
Noble Truth. Stop desiring and suffering will cease. Stop
hankering after things and life is transformed. Whatever you
have is what you want; whatever you are is who you want to
be. Ultimately what it real has nothing to do with haing and
being, with self and ego.
Buddha’s fourth Noble Truth offers a way to end suffering and
experience nirvana by following the Eightfold Path. When on
has experienced nirvana, he or she will never be born again.
The Eightfold-Path included:
1. Right Understanding: Know the truth of the Four Noble
Truths;
2. Right Purpose: Have the urge to follow the path and
reach nirvana;
3. Right Speech: Do not lie or slander anyone and do not
say things that are unkind;
4. Right Conduct: Do not kill, steal, lie be unchaste or
drink;
5. Right Livelihood: Choose an occupation that serves
humanity and does not harm life;
6. Right Effort: Have self-control, especially over your
thoughts. Strive for the good;
7. Right Awareness: Have psychological insight into your
own motives and deeds. Do not be moved by either joy
or sorrow;
8. Right Concentration: Ponder deeply and meditate until
you experience nirvana.
THE MIDDLE WAY AND COMPASSION FOR
EVERYTHING
The Buddha’s teaching offered a Middle Way between the
brahmins’ exhaustive rules and rituals and the extreme
asceticism of the Jains and others. The Buddha taugh that
anyone can have a meaningful existence by following the
Middle Way. Eat enough to survive, but do not live to eat.
Try to hurt others as little as possible, but recognize that it
is impossible to be blameless and hurt nothing. The Buddha
also found a middle way between the concerns of life in
this world (samsara) and the reality of enlightenment
(nirvana). The first five steps of the Eightfold Path deal
with life within society and how one can live an ethical life.
Steps six, seven, and eight are concered with developing
one’s spiritual side and how, through discipline and
meditation, one can gain freedom and this wordly existence
and experience nirvana.
A central concept of Buddha’s life and teaching was karuna
or compassion. Compassion for people’s suffering start
Buddha on his spiritual quest in the first place. Compassion
moved him to teach and informed his instruction to hurt
others as little as possible. The Buddha knew that it was
impossible to eliminate things that made people suffer, but
he helped people change their attitude toward those things.
For example, one day a grieving young mother came to
Buddha, cradling her dead baby in her arms. “please,” she
implored, “you are a holy man. Bring my baby back to
life.” The Buddha promised to do so as soon as she brought
him a mustard seed from any home where no one had ever
died. She was overjoyed to have been asked to perform
such a simple task, and she knocked on one door after
another. In every household death had come. Resigned she
returned to the Buddha to listen to his teachings.
People should not rely on the rituals brahmins performed,
the Buddha preached, or get involved in intricate
philosophical arguments. When asked theological
questions, he replied with other questions. “If your friend
were hit by an arrow and lay wounded before you,” he said,
“would you first try to establish who had made the arrow,
the materials used, the direction of its flight, and the speed
at its impact? Wouldn’t you first help your friend? My
fellow humans are in pain. I strive to minister to their
suffering.” And he devoted the last forty years of his life to
that ministry.
Buddha was a reformer who wanted to correct some of the
problems in Indian society, especially that excessive power
of the brahmins. He believed in karma, but he thought that
if a paersom had not intended to do wrong, then he or she
would not build up bad karma. In a radical departure for his
time, the Buddha did not believe in gods or goddesses. He
taught that everyone could seek enlightenment on his or her
own, without the help of brahmins, rituals or deities.
Anyone could follow his Eightfold Path and become a
Buddha, and he taught in the language spoken by ordinary
people, so anyone could understand his teachings. Equally
radical was his insistence on complete equality among his
followers. “No one is an outcaste by birth,” he said, “nor is
anyone a brahmin by birth. It is by deeds that a person
becomes a brahmin.”
By the end of the Axial Age, people who lived in the Indian
sub-continent tended to agree on certain principles and
accepted dharma, karma, and samsara as major core ideas.
Most believed in a single, ultimate reality often called
Brahman, and worshipped one or more of the major gods.
Because any effort to explain Brahman fell short, Indian
thinkers tended to be tolerant of the various ways people
understood it. They also had come ot believe in moksha or
nirvana—the possibility of realizing their true nature and
not being born again.
For the Buddha, blowing out the flame of desire would set
a person free. The ultimate goal of both teachers was
freedom from samsara. Others looked inward to the deep
recesses of the human mind and spirit to find insight into
ultimate reality and answers to the perennial questions of
meaning, justice, suffering, and evil. In the next act we will
consider how as the years go by, their insights would
reshape the Indian worldview, influence other cultures, and
lead to many changes in how people live their lives.
Source: The Human Drama. Johnson-Johnson. Pages 164-167.