Concepts and Ideas of Buddhas Teachings - Article Example

? Final Paper Concepts and Ideas of Buddha’s Teachings Introduction It is intriguing to that a simple human being could develop religious concepts and ideas that have had immense influence on human lives all over the world. Buddha was a creative thinker whose insight, efforts and intelligence led to the emergence of what is today known as Buddhism, which is a form of religion. However, Buddhism unlike other popular religions is very complex because it combines both religious and philosophical concepts in its ideas and teachings. Buddhism also has several schools and versions that may confuse a non-Buddhist such as Yogacara, Madyamika, Zen and Ch’an. All these have common teachings that is, the non-conceptual, non-dual and non-existent nature of reality. Buddhism is quite unique from other religions and this distinct nature lies in its search for “Ultimate Truth”, as well as the manner in which this “Ultimate truth” is found. For Buddhism, Truth is relative, such that, unlike most of world’s thoughts, there is no single, absolute, unchanging ground of being. Most religions from the traditional ones to the most recent ones view the universe as a contingent on a transcendent, ultimate essence of reality and absolute level of being. Moreover, the most skeptical and great philosophers such as Pyrrho and Zenoo, did not refute an ultimate ground of being, but rather stated that it was inconceivable. Other regions also acknowledge that there is an ultimate essence in being and things, but some philosophers declare it to be beyond existence. Nevertheless, they all agree that an “Ultimate” exists. This uniqueness of Buddhism makes it more confusing and complex to understand, especially for people from other religions. However, several authors present a background introduction into the concepts and ideas of Buddhism that are helpful in understanding Buddhism. The books, What Buddha Though by Walpola Rahula and Buddhism: Its Essence and Development by Edward Conze explicitly lays a foundation for understanding Buddhism. Therefore, this essay compares how the two authors present their themes, ideas and concepts on Buddhism with focus on the Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths The two authors, Conze and Rahula explore in their respective books the Four Noble Truths that arte the foundation of Buddhism. They are of the same idea that understanding Buddhism starts with learning and understand the Four Noble of Truths. However, Rahula presents the Four Noble of Truth plainly as taught by Buddha, while Conze present the Four Noble of Truths and attempts to describe how the different schools of though express these ideas of the Four Noble Truths. The Four noble of Truths are Dukkha, Samudaya, cessation of dukkha and Megga. According to Rahula, accurate account of essential Buddha’s teachings can only be gotten from the study of the Four Noble Truths (Rahula, 1974). The First noble truth is Dukkha also known as “The Truth of Suffering”. Translated simply, this means that life of human beings is nothing, but suffering, which portrays the idea of Buddhism as pessimistic. However, as Rahula clarifies, this is not true as Buddhism takes a realistic view of the world and that of life by looking at things objectively. The message we get from the First Noble of Truth is that regardless of how we live, human existence and experiences is characterized by suffering, but as humans we have the capacity and opportunity to function with this suffering. Buddha teaches people not to deny suffering, but to acknowledge and recognize it as the first step of bringing it into the path. This is because denial of suffering does not alleviate it; instead, it hinders human being from seeking liberation. Everything that existence has a character of impermanence and is subject to death, as well as birth, and so suffering is inbuilt in samsaric existence. Rahula (1959) illustrates that Buddha was objective and realistic in his teaching about the truth of suffering. According to the teachings of Buddha one should understand three things needed for enjoyment of sense of pleasure and life, which are liberation, evil consequence and attraction. Therefore, for one to understand this First Noble Truth and aspects of suffering in general, they need to achieve a gradual understanding that takes place in threefold process, that is, meditation, hearing and contemplation. There are several factors that hinder realization of Truth, which Buddhism is opposed to such as sorrow, melancholy, gloomy and penitent attitude of mind. Hence, Rahula gives an insight into the teachings of Buddha regarding the First Noble Truth, in a way that readers can understand better the religion. Second Noble Truth is the origin of suffering, which deals with the causes of suffering. Rahula expresses Buddha’s idea of suffering, whereby according to him suffering arises because of false belief in permanent and truly existent self (Revatadhama, 1997). The teaching mentions three source of poison that that cause destructive emotions and mental affiliations as ignorance, aggression and passion. These are what bring development of negative emotions, and so are the other aspects of suffering, which stems for ego-clinging nature of human that is caused by the poisons. One of the things that Rahula emphasize as the root cause of suffering is “thirst” that causes craving and consequently, re-becoming and re-existence (Rahula, 1974). Thirst as taught by Buddha comes in three forms, which are thirst for non-existence, thirst for becoming and existence and thirst for sense-pleasures. Selfish desires is another element that is used to illustrate the cause of suffering to humans, in a way that a reader can understand well. Evils that are seen in the world today result from selfish desires, which produce re-becoming and re-existence. Rahula takes a philosophical approach in explaining this matter of Second Noble Truth according to the teachings of Buddha. Consequently, it brings the subject of karma or rebirth, and continuity and existence of beings, which requires certain necessities such as consciousness, ordinary material food, mental violation or will and finally, sense organs contact with the external world (Revatadhama, 1997). Therefore the concept that one learns from this Second noble Truth through Rahula is that as long as there is a desire for the “thirst” to be or develop into a cycle of continuity. Hence, suffering only stops when “thirst”, which is its driving force, is cut off by means of wisdom that allows one to see truth, Reality and Nirvana. The Third Noble Truth is the cessation of suffering, which preaches that there is liberation, freedom and emancipation from continuity of dukkha. This noble deal with ‘Extinction of Thirst’ whereby for one to eliminate dukkha, it is required that he/she first eliminates thirst. Rahula simplifies this teaching for a better understanding by exploring various definitions of Nirvana such as absolute cessation of thirst, renouncing, giving up, detachment, extinction of thirst and so on (Rahula, 1974). The idea that Rahula is trying to make readers understand here is that suffering is something temporary that can be abolished by cessation of thirst. The most important thing is to discover the root cause of suffering, and relinquished these causes, then the disturbing emotions and samsaric eco-clinging nature cease. Thus, cessation is a state of nirvana whereby one has overcome the mental affiliations and all delusion, allowing the mind to be liberated unconditionally. Finally, Rahula explores the ideas behind the Fourth Noble Truth in a simple manner that readers can understand, thus, understanding Buddhism. This is the Truth of Path or “Magga”, which is the course that leads to cessation of Nirvana. Here Rahula explains that liberation and suffering do not occur randomly, as they relate directly with one’s actions towards the outcome that they wish to attain. It is this path that leads to gain of knowledge and vision, Calm, Enlightenment, Nirvana and Insight. However, the gains in this path can only be achieved with cessation of suffering that leads to wisdom and inner peace recommended by Buddha. The teachings also describes noble eight fold path, which aims at helping humans perfect their training in discipline, wisdom and meditation. Rahula also explores the training that can be used to understand the aspect of the noble eightfold path. Similarly, Conze takes the same approach as Rahula in bringing out the simpler meaning of Buddhism and the concepts behind it. Though he describes the tenet of truth and ideas of Buddhism like Rahula, he also seeks to clarify how these ideas are developed under the different schools of thought. The schools of thought are Theravadin, Mahasangikan, Madhyamika and Yogacara, which all count as an essence of Buddhism. Therefore, this aspect of linking the ideas with the schools of thoughts differs with the strategy used by Rahula. Illustration of Conze’s idea on the Four Noble Truths and linking with schools of thought can be exemplified by his presentation of the doctrines of the madhyamilka (Conze, 1975). Madhyamka is a school of philosophy, which believes that all phenomenons are empty of essence or substance since they are co-risen dependently. The teachings declare, “Whatever is dependent arising .We declared that to be emptiness. That is dependent designation, And is itself the middle way” (Revatadhama, 1997, p.25). This means that the followers of this school upholds the concept of no independent reality, intrinsic of their own. This is the concept that Conze also focus on in exploring this school of thought. According to Madhyamika thinkers, focus on the mutation of human conciousness and ability to grasp reality, which allows humans to grasp also the ultimate meaning of the void. This understanding of the ultimate meaning, eventually allows followers and other people to understand the existence of suffering, its causes and how to manage it for a purposeful life. In addition, Conze also explains the concept of Two Truths according to Madhyamaka school of thought, which are absolute and relative. These truths can be used to refer to different goals in life, such that, it is more easier to understand. For instance, the two truths can represent the goal of commercial good (lower) and the goal of nirvana (higher) (Conze, 1975). Most of all, the highest goal that is explained in this text according to the school liberation from intellectual and material attachment, which in turn liuberates a person from things that cause suffering. Rahula and Conze both explore Buddha teachings and other concepts and ideas about Buddhism in a simple way that believers and non-believers can understand. They both philosophically, explicitly explain the concepts of the Four Noble Truths for a clearer and better understanding. However, while Rahula takes the approach of explaining these truths by looking at the definitions and interpretations, Conze explains these truths and relate them the different schools of thoughts and how the concept of the truths are explored according to the various schools of thoughts. Reading these two books one is sure to understand better and change his/her perception about Buddhism, perhaps from regarding it as pessimistic as many people believe, to recognizing its realistic and objective nature. References Conze, E. ( 1975). Buddhism: Its Essence and Development. N.Y: Harper and Row. Rahula, W. (1974). What The Buddha Taught. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. Revatadhama, B. (1997). The First Discourse of the Buddha: Turning the Wheel of Dhamma. Wisdom Publications. Read More