BUDDHISM STUDY GUIDE
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So what is Buddhism?
EXERCISE
Before you read on, list ten words which you already associate with
Buddhism. These may be people, characteristics or other concepts or
things. It will help you at the outset to be aware of your own
preconceptions, whether or not you already know something about this
tradition.
DISCUSSION
Near the end of this study guide I will ask you to refer back to this list to
see whether your preconceptions have changed. The level of your
knowledge of the tradition certainly will! h
The very brief summary that follows will help to orient you as you begin
your study. It focuses on three key terms that will recur throughout this
study guide: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Buddhists from many parts of
the world ‘take refuge’ in (rely on) these three jewels or precious things of
Buddhism.
Buddha
Buddhism is the name applied by scholars to the range of practices and
beliefs which have developed from the teachings of the Buddha, ‘the one
who has woken up’. When we refer to ‘the Buddha’ we usually mean the
historical Buddha who lived in India for eighty years during the fifth
century BCE. The term ‘Buddha’, however, may be used to refer to
anyone who has reached the goal of Buddhism: someone who has
become fully enlightened through his or her own efforts. It usually refers
to someone who has also taught other beings the way to enlightenment.
As we shall see, the historical Buddha of India was one of a number of
beings who are believed to have reached this goal. Enlightenment or
awakening in Buddhism means to discover the truth of ‘the way things
really are’ and to ‘wake up’ from the dreamlike state of ordinary beings.
Buddhism is concerned with helping all sentient beings to wake up in this
way and leave behind the unsatisfactory, unenlightened state which is
characterised by greed, hatred and ignorance and which keeps beings
circling in samsara, the cycle of ageing, death and rebirth.
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Dharma
In theory at least, the truth – called the Dharma (or Dhamma) by
Buddhists – is open to discovery by anyone provided they are ready to
understand it. Indeed the idea that the Buddha did not invent a new
truth but instead discovered what is always there to be known is central
to Buddhism. The thrust of the Buddha’s teaching career, and of the
careers of those who followed him, was to explain the Dharma in ways
that people are capable of understanding and which are helpful to them.
The recorded sayings and sermons of Buddhism, which are very
extensive, represent attempts by the Buddha and his followers to
communicate the Dharma. The contrasting needs of beings who have not
yet ‘woken up’ and the difficulty of putting the Dharma into words in
meaningful ways mean that there are many ways in which it has been
expressed: Buddhists often claim that there are 84,000 teachings. This
claim is used as an explanation for why the texts of Buddhism are so
extensive and it also goes some way to explaining why texts and schools
of Buddhism may sometimes appear to be contradictory. Practices which
are central in one part of the Buddhist world may be dropped in another
and replaced by something rather different. This can be confusing and
you will need to bear in mind that Buddhism is held together by its
teachings about effective ways to end suffering rather than by a rigid
orthodoxy (right belief or worship) or orthopraxy (right practice).
Sangha
In many of the areas where Buddhism is practised, there are and have
been over many centuries, communities of monks and nuns who preserve
the traditional teachings and practices and work to develop their own
understanding of the Dharma. Monastic life is often seen as the ideal
from which to develop understanding but all devoted Buddhists, even if
they live lay lives, are part of the Sangha.
When people start to study Buddhism they often become confused and
anxious about the breadth of the tradition. This confusion is not
comfortable, but according to Buddhism, it is a reflection of the way in
which people experience life. The Buddha taught that, in seeking to avoid
confusion, beings try to grasp or cling to the things they erroneously
regard as certainties. In spite of its richness, there are many aspects of
Buddhism that you can get to grips with. The Buddha was in the business
of questioning the idea of certainty but, fortunately, in this course we aim
to educate you about religions, not to bring you to enlightenment! The
point of this study guide is to help you understand the material and slot
into place contrasting elements of the Buddhist tradition. You will be
directed to various chapters and sections in the set book, but not in the
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BUDDHISM STUDY GUIDE
order in which Keown presents them. For example I will ask you to
consider the first chapter, ‘Buddhism and Elephants’, which addresses the
question of whether Buddhism is a religion only after you have worked
through the rest of the set book. You can then return to this interesting
question when you have more knowledge of your own to apply to it.
EXERCISE
Before you begin to work through the set book, please read page xiv (the
page facing page 1) where Keown discusses language and pronunciation,
and the shaded box on page 16 where he describes an early collection of
Buddhist scriptures. The term ‘canon’ here means a collection of religious
texts accepted as authentic within a religious tradition or at least a section
of a tradition. There are three key terms in the text box, Sutta (which is
the same as the Sanskrit term Sutra), Vinaya, and Abhidhamma (Abhidharma
in Sanskrit). You will find these three terms, with others, in the glossary at
the end of this study guide. h
Unlike the other authors in the ‘Very Short Introduction’ series, the
author of the Buddhism textbook has used diacritical marks to give an
indication of how technical terms and names should be pronounced. For
A217 we have decided to follow the majority of the ‘Very Short
Introduction to’ authors and have omitted the marks from the study
guides, including the readings reproduced from other publications. You
need not use diacritical marks in your written work.
As Keown points out here, the teachings of Buddhism exist in a number
of ancient languages. These scriptures are not all shared across the
Buddhist world and certain texts are much more important in some areas
than they are in others. Buddhists share the belief that their texts were
originated by enlightened beings, including the historical Buddha of
India, who had understood the ‘truth of the way things are’. The fact
that many of these texts originated after the death of the historical
Buddha is therefore less important than that they are thought to teach a
powerful and effective path to enlightenment. As Keown notes on page
17, the Buddha himself did not write down his teachings in any language.
It may be that writing did not even exist in India during his lifetime
(Gombrich, 1996, 13). Instead, the teachings were passed on orally: the
Buddha’s disciples remembered them and passed them on to the next
generation.
Pali, the language of the Pali Canon, is the language of the texts of a
form of Buddhism known as the Theravada (see glossary) which exists in
Sri Lanka and in South-East Asia. Theravada Buddhism is practised by
more than 100 million people in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar
(formerly Burma), Cambodia and Laos. Keown has used Pali for
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technical terms in his book, but many Buddhist texts are written in
Sanskrit (the scholarly Indian language which you encountered in your
study of Hinduism) and Sanskrit terms as well as their Pali equivalents
are in common use. This study guide cannot save you from the reality
that language is not always consistent in Buddhism, but this is something
that you should not worry too much about. You may use either the Pali
or the Sanskrit terms and you do not have to be consistent.
As Keown indicates, there are other languages which are important in
Buddhism. Tibetan is the language of northern Buddhism, which includes
tantric Buddhism, also known as Vajrayana Buddhism (see glossary).
Northern Buddhism is practised in and around Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal
and other Himalayan regions and areas in India where Tibetan people in
exile have settled. Chinese is a major language of East Asian Buddhism
as practised in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. It would be
fair to say that these linguistic and geographical distinctions also
distinguish the three broad living traditions of Buddhism (see Table 1
below and maps 2 and 3 in Keown). The traditions of northern and
eastern Buddhism are often grouped together since they belong to a
movement within Buddhism known as the Mahayana which means ‘great
way or vehicle’. We shall look at the development and characteristics of
Mahayana Buddhism in section 5.
Table 1
Area
Main textual
language
Main form of
Buddhism
South and South-East
Asian Buddhism
Pali
Theravada
Northern Buddhism
Tibetan
Mahayana including
Vajrayana/tantra
East Asian Buddhism
Chinese
Mahayana
It is worth spending a little time studying the maps in this study guide
and in the set book in order to get a feel for the extent of Buddhism. We
will come back to the spread of Buddhism in Asia when we reach
Chapter 6 of the set book. Study of that chapter, which receives more
extensive treatment in this study guide than the other chapters, will be
your main opportunity to learn about the practices of Buddhism.
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