Zen Tradition
The forefather of Madhyamika Buddhism was Nagarjuna. T.P. Kasulis writes in his book, Zen Action, Zen Person that Nagarjuna was a predecessor to the development of Zen Buddhism. Nagarjuna is regarded though as a patriarch of the Zen tradition. He was the affecting principle to demonstrate logically the "emptiness", or rather sunyata of philosophical distinctions. Kasulis also explores Nagarjuna's "Logic of Emptiness."
The Buddhist claimed that "to be concerned with speculative questions is like being concerned with the origin of a poisoned arrow while it is still in one's flesh, contaminating the bloodstream." Kasulis writes that a conflicting group supposed that nothing at all continued from the cause into the effect, that the two where completely distinct. The Abhidharma Buddhist scrutinized the principles behind the Buddhist teachings. Zen Action, Zen Person states that these became almost as important as practicing the teachings; that is the scrutnization of the principles. With all this wrangling over the principles and the debate on them, Nagarjuna came up with his "Logic of the Middle." The origin of this came from the doctrine of sunyata or rather emptiness, which Kasulis states is the "Logic of Emptiness."
Nagarjuna showed what was wrong the Abhidharma argument. He stated that the multiple philosophical divisions of Buddhism were created on "distinctions that must be seen as tentative rather than absolute." Kasulis writes that Nagarjuna came up with a resolution to this argument. This solution was pure and simple. Nagarjuna wrote down all the key distinctions that the diverse philosophical "groups" assumed. He then took these distinctions and went through them one by one and show...
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...ese points on causality that I definitely have to agree with Nagarjuna on points three and four. It is almost as if Indian logic says something about causality and then in the very next sentence they state something about causality that is a direct contradiction to what they previously said.
Kasulis writes "emptiness, which is the logical interdependence of opposing terms, lies at the basis of all philosophical distinction." Nagarjuna believed that we could work inside the world of duality while we identify its relativity. Kasulis says that we should "consider Nagarjuna's emphasis on the nondifferentiating, nonobjectifying insight or wisdom."
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WORKS CITED
Costello, Robert B. ed. Random House. Webster's College Dictionary. Random
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Kasulis, T.P. Zen Action. Zen Person. The University Press of Hawaii: 1981.
Buddhism’s approach to ethics and practices are centred upon the principal beliefs of; the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path and the Five Precepts. By adhering to these guidelines, Buddhists are ensured that they are taking a step closer to escaping Samsara, and attaining the revered state of Nirvana,
This paper will explore the question of how to understand the nature of perceived ultimateity in Zen Buddhism. This will be achieved through providing a justification for why this question should be of any interest and then hypothesizing about possible implications of the results. Next, the framework that is to be used in categorizing the core beliefs in Zen will be explained and made clear. After this description is complete, the author will proceed to fit Zen Buddhism into this framework and will demonstrate that the Zen religion is no exception to the employed framework. Finally, the author will describe the perceived ultimacy of Zen Buddhism.
Suzuki, D.T. An introduction to Zen Buddhism. Ed. Christmas Humphreys; fwd. C.G. Jung. London: Rider, 1983.
24 Amore, Roy C. and Julia Ching. The Buddhist Tradition. In Willard G. Oxtoby, Ed. World Religions: Eastern Traditions. P. 221
In The Heart of Understanding, Thich Nhat Hanh’s uses simple but powerful words and real world examples to illustrate the profound Buddhist philosophy from the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, an important representative of Mahayana Buddhist literature. The Mahayana school of Buddhist teachings emphasizes the doctrine of Sunyata- emptiness. The doctrine of emptiness, one of the most important Mahayana innovations, focuses on the relational aspect of existence. Thich Nhat Hanh coins and introduces a new word- interbeing to explain the state of emptiness. This idea of interbeing not only illustrates emptiness well but also provides understanding of other fundamental Buddhist ideas such as No-Self, impermanence and non-duality.
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My group and I were fantasied by the Buddhist culture because of its architecture and that is known to be culture that means of changing oneself in order to develop qualities such as wisdom, kindness, peace, as these qualities would led a better life. We can to observe if this is displayed in a Buddhist ceremony and the best way to observe Buddhist culture was by going to one of their ceremonies. We visited a temple called Fo Guang Shah to witness their every Sunday prayer. In this essay, I analyze the power displayed in the ceremony because ideology and ruling class by looking at Athusser’s interpellation and theory of hegemony by Antonia Gramsci. The power demonstrated by Buddhist ceremony shows how people and the environment is controlled.
History proves that as Buddhism spread throughout the Asian world in the early 1st century, it was occasionally altered to fit the specific needs and beliefs of people it touched. Mahayana Buddhism is one such example of this gradual evolution. It was primarily a movement started and kept alive by monks that slowly gained popularity amongst lay people but was in no way a unified movement. Mahayana Buddhism still adheres to the basic fundamental beliefs presented in the Pali Canons, however, it Sutras often expand upon these basic ideas and traditions in order to answer the questions of a later generation. After closer study of the Mahayana texts the “A Sutra for Long Life” and “The World Universe as a Sutra”, it seems evident that, although Mahayana Buddhism is based on the teachings of the traditional Pali Canon, it places a larger emphasis on philosophical inquires; and ultimately creates a more accessible version of enlightenment, and the Buddhist faith in general, for all.