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Principles
of Buddhism To one who is seeking to become enlightened, taking refuge constitutes a continuing commitment to pursuing enlightenment and following in the footsteps of the people who have followed the path to enlightenment before. It contains an element of confidence that enlightenment is in fact a refuge, a supreme resort. Many Buddhists take the refuges each day, sometimes more than once in order to remind themselves of what they are doing and to direct their resolve inwardly towards liberation. In most— if not all— forms of Buddhism, the Three Jewels are taken before the Sangha for the first time, as a part of the conversion ritual. Although Buddhists concur that taking refuge should be undertaken with proper motivation (complete liberation) and an understanding of the objects of refuge, the Indian scholar Atisha identified that in practice there are many different motives found for taking refuge. His idea was to use these differing motivations as a key to resolving any apparent conflicts between all the Buddha's teachings without depending upon some form of syncretism that would cause as much confusion as it attempted to alleviate. It is extremely important to note that in Buddhism, the word "refuge" should not be taken in the English sense of "hiding" or "escape"; instead, many scholars have said, it ought be thought of as a homecoming, or place of healing, much as a parent's home might be a refuge for someone. This simple misunderstanding has led some Western scholars to conclude that Buddhism is "a religion for sticking one's head in the sand", when most Buddhists would assert quite the opposite. In the 11th century, Lamp for the Path by Atisha, and in the subsequent Lamrim tradition as elaborated by Tsongkhapa, the several motives for refuge are enumerated as follows, typically introduced using the concept of the "scope" (level of motivation) of a practitioner: Worldly scope is taking refuge to improve the lot of this life The Four Noble Truths Dukkha: All
worldly life is unsatisfactory, disjointed, containing suffering. Right Understanding The Eightfold Path essentially consists of meditation, following the precepts, and cultivating the positive converse of the precepts (e.g. benefiting living beings is the converse of the first precept of harmlessness). The Path may also be thought of as a way of developing sila, meaning mental and moral discipline The Five Precepts The five precepts are: I undertake the precept to refrain from harming living creatures (killing).
In some schools of Buddhism, serious lay people or aspiring monks take an additional three to five ethical precepts, and some of the five precepts are strengthened. For example, the precept pertaining to sexual misconduct becomes a precept of celibacy; the fourth precept, which pertains to incorrect speech, is expanded to four: lying, harsh language, slander, and idle chit-chat. Monks and nuns of the Theravada school also vow to follow the 227 patimokkha rules. Mahayana monks and nuns follow 348 equivalent rules with an additional set of, generally, 41 bodhisattva vows. The three marks of conditioned existence According to the Buddhist tradition, all phenomena (dharmas) are marked by three characteristics, sometimes referred to as the Dharma Seals: Anatta (Pali; Sanskrit: anatman): In Indian philosophy, the concept of
a self is called atman (that is, "soul" or metaphysical self),
which refers to an unchanging, permanent essence conceived by virtue of
existence. This concept and the related concept of Brahman, the Vedantic
monistic ideal, which was regarded as an ultimate atman for all beings,
were indispensable for mainstream Indian metaphysics, logic, and science;
for all apparent things there had to be an underlying and persistent reality,
akin to a Platonic form. The Buddha rejected all concepts of atman, emphasizing
not permanence but changeability. He taught that all concepts of a substantial
self were incorrect and formed in the realm of ignorance. However, in
a number of major Mahayana sutras (e.g. the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the
Tathagatagarbha Sutra, the Srimala Sutra, amongst others), the Buddha
is presented as modifying this teaching and saying that there does truly
exist an eternal, unchanging, blissful Buddhic essence in all sentient
beings, which is the uncreated and deathless Buddha-nature ("Buddha-dhatu")
or "True Self" of the Buddha himself. This immaculate Buddhic
Self (Atman) is in no way to be construed as a mundane, impermanent, suffering
"ego", of which it is the diametrical opposite. According to some thinkers both in the East and the West, the doctrine of "non-Self", when understood in a certain way, may imply that Buddhism is a form of nihilism or something similar. However, as thinkers like Nagarjuna have pointed out, Buddhism is not simply a rejection of the concept of existence (or of meaning, etc.) but of the hard and fast distinction between existence and nonexistence, or rather between being and nothingness. Buddhism thus has more in common with Western empiricism, pragmatism, and anti-foundationalism than it does with nihilism per se. Philosophers such as Nagarjuna stress that the lack of a permanent, unchanging, substantial self in beings and things does not mean that they do not experience growth and decay on the relative level. Anicca (Pali; Sanskrit: anitya): All things and experiences are inconstant,
unsteady, and impermanent. Everything is made up of parts, and is dependent
on the right conditions for its existence. Everything is in flux, and
so conditions are constantly changing. Things are constantly coming into
being, and ceasing to be. Nothing lasts. Buddha-dhatu ("Buddha-Principle", Buddha-nature) The Buddha's Mahayana doctrines contain a set of "ultimate" (nitartha) teachings on the immanence of a hidden core Reality within all sentient beings which is linked to the eternality of the Buddha and Nirvana. This immanent yet transcendent essence is variously called, in the key tathagatagarbha sutras which expound it, the Buddha-dhatu ("Buddha-element", Buddha-nature) or the Tathagatagarbha. This Buddha-dhatu is empty of all that is contingent, painful and impermanent. In the Nirvana Sutra, it is called by the Buddha the "True Self" (to distinguish it from the "false" worldly self of the five skandhas). It is no less than the unfabricated, uncreated, uncompounded, immaculate, immortal, all-knowing, radiantly shining Principle of blissful Buddhahood - the very Dharmakaya. This Tathagatagarbha/ Buddha-dhatu, inherent in all beings, can never be destroyed or harmed, and yet is concealed from view by a mass of obscuring mental and moral taints within the mind-stream of the individual being. Once the Buddha-dhatu is finally seen and known by the faithful Buddhist practitioner, it has the power to transform that seer and knower into a Buddha. The doctrine of the Tathagatagarbha/Buddha-dhatu is stated by the Buddha of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra to be the "absolutely final culmination" of his Dharma.
The first lay precept in Buddhism prohibits killing. Many see this as implying that Buddhists should not eat the meat of animals. However, this is not necessarily the case. The Buddha made distinction between killing an animal and consumption of meat, stressing that it is immoral conduct that makes one impure, not the food one eats. In one of the Pali sutras belonging to the Theravada lineage of Buddhism, Buddha says that vegetarianism is preferable, but as monks in ancient India were expected to receive all of their food by begging they had little or no control over their diet. Furthermore, Buddha did not wish to lay an extra burden on his lay followers by demanding that the food should be vegetarian. During the Buddha's time, there was no general rule requiring monks to refrain from eating meat. In fact, at one point the Buddha specifically refused to institute vegetarianism and the Pali Canon records the Buddha himself eating meat on several occasions. There were, however, rules prohibiting certain types of meat, such as human, leopard or elephant meat. Monks are also prohibited from consuming meat if the monk witnessed the animal's death or knows that it was killed specifically for him. This rule was not applied to commercial purchase of meat in the case of a general who sent a servant to purchase meat specifically to feed the Buddha. Therefore, eating commercially purchased meat is not prohibited. On the other hand, the Buddha in certain Mahayana sutras strongly denounces the eating of meat. In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha states that "the eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion", adding that all and every kind of meat and fish consumption (even of animals already found dead) is prohibited by him. The Buddha also predicts in this sutra that later monks will "hold spurious writings to be the authentic Dharma" and will concoct their own sutras and mendaciously claim that the Buddha allows the eating of meat, whereas in fact (he says) he does not. A long passage in the Lankavatara Sutra shows the Buddha weighing strongly in favor of vegetarianism, since the eating of the flesh of fellow sentient beings is said by him to be incompatible with the compassion which a Bodhisattva should strive to cultivate. Several other Mahayana sutras also emphatically prohibit the consumption of meat. A solution to this problem was given when monks from the Indian sphere of influence migrated to China, as of the year 65 AD. There they met followers who provided them with money instead of food. From those days onwards Chinese monastics, and others who came to inhabit northern countries, cultivated their own vegetable plots and bought in the market what else they needed in terms of food. In the modern world, attitudes toward vegetarianism vary by location. In the Theravada countries of Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, monks are bound by the vinaya to accept almost any food that is offered to them, often including meat, while in China and Vietnam, monks are expected to eat no meat. In Japan and Korea, some monks practice vegetarianism, and most will do so at least when training at a monastery, but otherwise they typically do eat meat. In Tibet, where vegetable nutrition was historically very scarce, and the adopted vinaya was the Nikaya Sarvastivada, vegetarianism is very rare, although the Dalai Lama and other esteemed Lamas invite their audiences to adopt vegetarianism when they can. In the West, of course, a wide variety of practices are followed. Lay Buddhists generally follow dietary rules less rigorously than monks. Main Master1 Master2 buddhism1 buddhism2 buddhism3 buddhism4 buddhism5dental Atlanta luxury hotels and resorts |