A VIEW ON BUDDHISM

• Buddhism is started in india about 500 BC,

and called after buddha (the enlightened
one), shiddharta guatama, the buddha as
traditional founder and profounder of its
doctrines.
 WHAT IS MAN?
• A “person” can be described as a
number of phenomena into a single
working unit. In wesrtern philosophy
man can usually refers to the body,
mind and soul or spirit. In buddhism,
the five aggregates (skandas in
sanskrit) are used to analyze a person .
• The form – the body (rupa in sanskrit)
• Primary consciousness or Perception – the
five consciousness (smell, touch , taste,
seeing and hearing), and mental
consciousness in other words direct perception
(samjna is sanskrit).
• Feeling – Refers to the mental separation of
perception into pleasant, unpleasant and
neutral (vedara in sanskrit).
• Recognition, consciousness, discrimination, or
distinguish awareness – in many ways similar to
the discriminating intellect which makes us
realize the differences between a chair and a
flower (virjana in sanskrit).
• Compositional factors, volition –These are all
other remaining mental process; In general
“thoughts” (Samskara in sanskrit).
• To begin with, it is interesting to see that
four out of five aggregates are concerning
the mind, the reason for which, Buddhism,
is to point out how to obtain liberation from
human suffering like old age, death
sickness and others. In order to get away
from suffering it is their idea that man must
learn to cut off the radix of suffering which is
craving.
• Simply said, in Buddhism, the
brain is regarded as part of the
body, it is not regarded as the
'factory of thoughts'; thoughts
are purely a function of the non-
physical mind.
This energy is then picked up by
the primary consciousness
perception which is an aspect of
the mind. In buddhism this is
actually called contact – the contact
between the physical and the
mental aspects.
 Next, the mental process of
feeling evaluates the perception
and decides it to be pleasant,
unpleasant or neutral.
 Simultaneously, recognition and
discrimination gets to work in finding out
what the things is touchihng my hand, is
it pressure or heat and is it related to
other information maybe I see a table
near my hand and consider it likely that
my hand must be touching the table.
• Based on the feeling and discriminating,
the mind creates the compositional
factors/Volition which are for example the
reaction to the hand to windraw if it is
unpleasant, and instruction to the refer to
check what is touching the hand possibly
projections /thoughts like “I am touching
the table”.
 THE MIND
QUOTATIONS FROM THE BUDDHA

“ALL THINGS PRECEDED BY THE MIND, LED

BY THE MIND AND CREATED BY THE MIND”
 What is the mind?
• Mind is defined in buddhsim as a non-
physical phenomenon which receives, thinks,
recognizes, experiences and react to the
environment. It is a phenomenon that is not
body, not subtantial, has no form no shape
no color, but like a mirror that can be clearly
reflect objects – according to lama zopa
rimpoche.
• The mind is describes as having two
main aspects: clarity and knowing:
meaning that the mind is clear,formless
and allow objects to arise in it, and that
the mind is knowing , an awareness, a
consciousness which can engage to
objects.
 • “About this mind…. In truth there is nothing
really wrong with it. It is intrinsically pure. Within
itself it’s already peaceful. That time is not
peaceful yet, because it follows moods. The real
mind doesn’t have anything to do with it, it is
simply (an aspect of) nature. It becomes
peaceful or agitated because moods deceive it.
The untrained mind is stupid. Sense impression
come and trick into happiness, suffering,
gladness or sadness into the mind, but only a
mood coming to deceive us.
 • The untrained mind get lost and
follows these things, it forgets itself.
Then we think that it is we who are
upset or at ease or whatever. But
really this mind of ours is already
unmoving and peaceful…really
peaceful! Just like a leaf which is still
as long as no wind blows. If a wind
comes up the leaf flutters.
• The fluttering is due to wind – the “fluttering”
is due to those sense impressions; the mind
follows them. If it doesn’t follow them,, it
doesn’t flutter. If we know fully the true
nature of sense impressions we will be
unmoved. Our practice is simply to see the
original mind. So we must train the mind to
know those sense impressions, and not get
lost in them.
 ON BODY AND MIND

• Another essential distinction is made between

the different levels of subtlety of body and mind.
Distinctions are made between.
• Gross Body: our “normal” physical body of
muscles, fat, bones, etc.
• Gross mind: our “normal” observed continuation
of thoughts and feelings etc.
• Subtle body: the “energy” within our body as it
flows in our energy channels, similar to their
description in Chinese acupuncture of or Indian
yoga.
• Subtle mind: the state of the mind that we are
normally unaware of, and which becomes
noticeable during deep meditation. This is not really
identical to our western concept of sub- conscious,
although some aspects may overlap. It may be
more similar to intuation and inner wisdom.
• From the “songs of spiritual change” by his holiness the 7 th dalai
lama (trans. By Glenn Mullin).

“No matter where you prepare your last bed:

No matter where the sword of death falls,
The terrifying messages of death descend,
Horrid and giant; and glare with thirsty eyes .

friends and family, surround you

Eyeing your wealth and possessions,
They offer prayers and enshroud you
Unprepared, you pass away;
Helpless and alone.”
• Death in Buddhism is defined as “the
separation of the most subtle body and
mind from the more gross aspects of the
body and mind”. As this separation is a
gradual process, death is not a point in
time, like in westrern thought, but it
describes a period during which this
separation occurs.
• During the death process, it is said that we have
a sequence of experiences. What these will be
exactly, how long they last and their exact order
may depend on the individual person and the
death cause. Generally they7 are described as
“visions”, which appears when the experience of
the various physical elements dissolves and
sense awareness diminishes.
In common sequential order they are.
• Mirage vision: vision becomes blurred, mirages and
dark image appear, the sense of seeing dissolves. The
body becomes weak and powerless, a feeling of
sinking or falling.
• Smoke vision: feeling absorbed in smoke, the sense of
hearing dissolves, feelings of pleasant, unpleasant or
neutral cease. The bodily fluids dry up.
• Fireflies: feeling surrounded by sparks of fireflies, the
sense of smell dissolves. Memories of friends and
enemies fade away.
 - Butter-lamp: appearance of a dying flame; the sense of taste
dissolves and the body cannot be moved anymore. No more
thoughts of worldly activities or purpose etc. the breath ceases.
Somewhat around here, one would become “critically dead”
according to western science.
• White vision: appearance of a vacuum filled with white light.
• Red visions: appearance of a vacuum filled with red light like at
dawn.
• Black visions: appearance of darkness, slowly losing
consciousness
• Clear light of death: appearance of an empty vacuum. Few people
have sufficiently trained awareness to experience this clearly.
ON THE ISSUES OF REBIRTH

• Ayya khema:
“From contact comes feelings.
From feeling come’s reaction. This is
what keeps us in the cycle of birth and
rebirth. Our reactions to feeling are our
passport to rebirth.”
• According to Buddhism, we cannot only
be born as human beings the next time,
but also as animal, “god”, “half-god”
“hungry ghost” or even in “hell”. But no
one is assumed for permanent stay.
After a life in “god-realm” one could be
reborn in the “hell-realm” ,it all just
depends on our karma ripening.
1. God – realm : Life must be happily experienced
virtually without any problems whatsoever. The
largest problem of this realm comes when the
times is near to die, one begins to experience
suffering as one can see the next rebirth coming
up, which is usually much less than pleasant.
The concept god does not refer anything like
“God” in the Judeo-Christian-Moslim traditions;
maybe more like greek words.
2. Demigod - Can see the perfect life that the
gods are experiencing and become
jealous,as the gods somewhat have better
lives.They want to fight the gods,but always
defeated.
3. Human Realm - Life is more or less a
balance between happiness and suffering.
4. Animal Realm - Life is ruled by ignorance.
5. Hungry Ghost or Preta(Tib.)Realm - Life is
marked by suffering,especially the attachment
and craving,without being able to satisfy one's
needs.
6. Hell Realm - Life is descibe as suffering
virtually without any happiness whatsoever.
 7. Form Realm - Achieved when one has
attained high levels of concentration with
which one focuses in clarity and non-
conceptual awareness.
8. Formless Realm - The highest state of
Cyclic Existence,Achieved when one has
attained high levels of concentration with
which one focuses on non-conceptual
awareness.
• Human Rebirth
• -is often called precious in
Buddhism,as one has unique
possibilities to free oneself from
the cycle of rebirth.
 THE FOUR NOBEL TRUTHS

• 1. THIS IS SUFFERING
• -according to Buddha,whatever life we lead,it
has the nature of some aspects of some
aspects of suffering.
Suffering can be distinguished in three types:
 Suffering of suffering-fear and mental distress
Suffering of change-problems that change.(like
joy disappears)
All-pervasive suffering-the fact that we always
have the potential to suffer or can get into
problematic situations.
NOTE:Suffering is a most inadquate translation of
the word “Dukka”,but it is the one most commonly
found.”Dukka” means “imperfect”.
• 2. THE CAUSES OF SUFFERING
• -our main mental problems or root
delusions are:attachment,anger and
ignorance.With every negative
action(karma)we do,we create a
potential for negative experiences.
• ATTACHMENT
• -attachment to life keeps us in cyclic
existence or samsara,which does bring us
continous suffering.
• ANGER
• one of the main reasons we create harm to
others.
• IGNORANCE
• -”If only i known this earlier...”
• -reality is not what is seems to us.
• 3. SUFFERING CAN END ,NIRVANA
IS PEACE
• -although suffering is always
present in cyclic existence,we can
end being in cyclic existence and
enter Nirvana(state beyond all
suffering).
• -the reason behind this is the fact that as
suffering and the causes of suffering are
dependent on states of our own
mind,then if we can change our frame of
mind,we can also eliminate suffering.
• when this process is complete,we can
leave cyclic existence and enjoy the state
of Nirvana,free of problems.