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.
"You know, my friend, that even as a young man, when we lived with the ascetics in the forest, I came to distrust doctrines and teachers and to turn my back to them. I am still of the same turn of mind, although I have, since that time, had many teachers. A beautiful courtesan was my teacher for a long time, and a rich merchant and a dice player. On one occasion, one of the Buddha’s wandering monks was my teacher. He halted in his pilgrimage to sit beside me when I fell asleep in the forest. I also learned something from him and I am grateful to him, very grateful. But most of all, I have learned from this river and from my predecessor, Vasudeva. He was a simple man; he was not a thinker, but he realized the essential as well as Gotama, he was a holy man, a saint" (141).
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.
Suzuki, D.T. An introduction to Zen Buddhism. Ed. Christmas Humphreys; fwd. C.G. Jung. London: Rider, 1983.
In this paper I will present an argument I have found in the Second Analogy for the necessity of presupposing the causal determination of each event. I will begin by briefly describing Robert Paul W...
Zen Buddhism teaches a concept called wu-nien, or “no-thought”. This, of course, is not a literal absence of thought, but rather a detachment from the thoughts of one’s own mind.... ... middle of paper ... ... During the relatively peaceful Tokugawa period, the samurai were not as occupied with waging war as they had been in the past, and as such they had begun devoting their time to other things.
Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, a Zen master? The Tin Man an enlightenment seeker? “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” a mantra?
Like Jesus, Buddha is the founder of his church, having founded Buddhism in the late sixth-century BC, some years before the birth of Jesus (Violatti). Unlike Christianity, however, Gautama Buddha, upon creating the institution, recognized himself as a mortal being with no relationship to a divine power. Along with this belief, Buddha insisted that there “is no almighty, benevolent God” that corresponds with the Christian beliefs. Rather, Buddha founded his religion on the principle that one can be “enlightened” and understand the concept of “dhyana,” or meditation as a means to seek peace and achieve a perfect balance and state of mind. The practice of dhyana is credited to Buddha, and while Buddhists across the world do not worship him for his intelligent teachings, they do hold him in a very high regard and attribute a divine like aura to him, recognizing his greatness and importance to the practice of Buddhism (Violatti). In addition to dhyana, Buddha has many other teachings emphasizing peace of mind and spirit that are still relevant to today’s Buddhists, but these teachings differ from Christian teachings in that they are often disputed by scholars and different types of Buddhists. For example, while Christians have the Bible as an absolute point of reference, the Buddhist teaching of “The Four Moral Truths,” or guidelines on
My own personal commentary shall emphasize the ultimate truth about emptiness is realizing all is empty, even the knowledge and practices that allow us to realize it. In this way, Buddhism turns in on itself, negating the existence of its own essence. I also pay special attention to the training of the bodhisattva, who has gained superior insight, and therefore practices the perfection of wisdom in a particular way.
Throughout the early years in many East Asian countries, there were many people who were looking for answers to this world’s, and otherworldly, questions. When Gotama became enlightened, and began preaching the practices of Buddhism, it came at such a time when the Han dynasty was collapsing, citizens were tired of Confucianism and looking for a new ideology that they could put there hearts and souls into. Over the years, Buddhism proved to be much more than just a religion; it became a way of life. But over time, the powerful orthodoxy transformed, and many different Buddhist sects emerged. One of the more popular sects, Ch’an, or Zen, Buddhism, has become one of the most influential religions in China and Japan, and is still flourishing today.
The study of Buddhism over the past century or so has resembled the encounter of the blind men and the elephant in many ways. Students of Buddhism have tended to fasten onto a small part of the tradition and assume their conclusions held true about the whole. Often the parts they have seized on have been a little like the elephant's tusks a striking, but unrepresentative, part of the whole animal. As a result, many erroneous and sweeping generalizations about Buddhism have been made, such as that it is 'negative', 'world-denying', 'pessimistic', and so forth.
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.