Danny Kwok lectureTuesday, June 10, 2008

Someone ask about the characters for "crisis" (危机weiji；机会jihui)

BUDDHISM:

Pie chart of religions of the world (Buddhists, 6%)

B an impossible religion to teach, talk about

Beginnning with portraits of 2 monks, 1 Japanese, 1 SE Asian monks

Map of Theravada and Mahayana traveled from India throughout Asia…the spread of B

[one exercise about the spread, including an okay map:

Spread easily, rich in the number of languages which carried it…

  • Gautama Sakyamuni 566-486 Siddartha
  • Part of the 2nd caste, satriya
  • Symbols: Lotus—birth (beauty, purity coming out of the muck); Bodi tree (Pipal tree)—life; stupas; wheel of law/teaching (his first sermon)
  • Taught for 45 years
  • After death, ashes collected and covered in a mound (stupa)…developed later into pagodas later
  • Major points of early Buddhism
  • Four Noble Truths: life is full of suffering; root of suffering is desire; release from suffering is from riddance of desire; by the eight fold path one can get rid of desire
  • Eight Fold Path: right belief; right aspiration; right speech; right conduct; right means of livelihood; right endeavor; right memory; right meditation.
  • Five precepts: not to kill, steal, lie, drink intoxicants, be unfaithful or unchaste.
  • Kharma, dharma, sangha, nirvana, Karuna (compassion, the central tenet for Buddhism)
  • Transmigration, samsara…all heavily influenced by Hinduism…
  • Meditate, living, taking refuge in the three jewels (dharma, sangha, )
  • Impermenance
  • Buddha, not a religious figure, but a teacher…
  • Point of reference was the human being and how that person could deliver himself from the chaos and problems of life
  • 483 b.c.e. the first world council of Buddhism
  • Teachings compiled by his disciples after his death (tripitaka, "three baskets")…the three baskets in order of importance:
  • Basket 1: sutras, the Buddha's own teachings and sayings
  • Basket 2: the vinayas, rules of conduct for the Buddhists
  • Basket 3: abidharma, the discussions of his students and disciples
  • 240 b.c.e. the second important world council of Buddhism…sponsored by the emperor Ashoka (converted from Hinduism to Buddhism)…sponsored lots of temple building and encouraging monks to go through India and preach…with his impetus, monks traveled to Ceylon and took the Hinayana tradition to SE Asia
  • vernacular tradition (Pali)
  • fourth council of Buddhism Kaniska (Pushan empire coincides with the Han empire)…in Kashmir…great debate at this council about how Buddhism should be taught, spread…great attempts to try to fuse Buddhism and Hinduism…
  • role of central Asia and the silk road…
  • talk of Alexander the Great…pillar "Alexander the farthest" thought he was at the end of the earth…
  • tribal movements (Xiongnu [the Huns], Yuezhi [camped in the NW part of China])…Xiongnu pushed the Yuezhi to the West and out of their position…
  • Han, emperor Wu (the martial emperor of China, became emperor in 140 b.c.e.)…took war to the Xiongnu…in 119 b.c.e, sent an emissary to find the Yuezhi to use them to fight the Xiongnu…Yuezhi has changed from a nomadic people to an agricultural people and didn't want to fight the Xiongnu…POINT: warfare caused the Yuezhi to switch from being nomadic to being agriculture.
  • Chinese moved westward and established military outposts and hoped to open up the Silk Road
  • Greek influence in Kashmir by the time of the fourth council
  • Buddhism became anthropomorphic…took human form…first portrayals show Greek influence…Gandara Buddha
  • Doctrinally, agreed upon there being 2 schools: Hinayana and Mahayana

Mahayana—greater wheel—Sanskrit was the primary language

Hinayana (Theravada)—lesser wheel (tighter)—Prakrit, Pali were the main language

  • Not so concerned with converting people…
  • Focus on monks/nuns
  • Theravada's "Thera" means "elder"…probably the oldest surviving school
  • dominant in Sri Lanka and SE Asia, minorities in SW China
  • lots of variations between schools, locations
  • rituals important
  • social action important
  • mediation (solo???)
  • magical practices
  • Buddhist Nationalism
  • No notion of sin, but of defilements, things that corrupt you: anger, ill will, aversions, greed, jealousy, hatred, obsession, passion, anxiety, ….
  • Three levels of defilements
  • Defilements harm oneself and the others around you, and therefore it is important for the self to avoid these and get rid of them
  • Can achieve Nirvana in one life time.
  • Various sutra preferences
  • Way of monastic life important
  • Concept of temporary monkhood (only found in certain places, not in Sri Lanka)

Vajrayana (Tantric)—e.g. Tibetan (Bhutanese, Mongolian, some parts of Russia) and Japanese Shingon (the two major sub-groups)—sometimes called the Diamond vehicle—esoteric, secretive ways of teaching

  • Tibetan Buddhism began to thrive in the 7th c., corresponds with the Tang dynasty
  • Shingon 真言(Kukai)…don't like to share with the other Mahayana schools
  • 4 purities: to see one's body as the body of the deity, seeing one's environment as the mandala or the deity (the Pure Land), perceiving one's enjoyment as the bliss of the deity (free from any other attachments), perfoming one's actions only for the benefits of others (altruism)
  • techniques (come from concentrated meditation, Samadhi)—guru yoga, deity yoga, death yoga…all have to be guided by the leader (guru)

Boddhisattvas, Tripitaka

Each area has various schools with variations (hard to generalize)

  • Reference to a book by the Dalai Lama that lays out an easy to understand version of Buddhism (see the list of resources???)
  • What about the non-monks? ...someone who may not understand the teachings…
  • Differences between Buddhism and Hinduism
  • Buddhism reaches out to more levels of society
  • B more democratic
  • B rejected the sacrificial ritual of early Hinduism
  • B goes beyond India, larger spread
  • B influenced Hinduism

Made Hinduism an axial age –ism

Made Hinduism more humane

Negated some of the aesetic traditions of Hinduism

  • Made Indian culture exportable as B became a world religion

BUDDHISM IN CHINA

  • No exact route or date for the entry into China…probably the Silk Road, sometime in the 1st century
  • Until the 19th century, the only important foreign influence
  • Until the 13th century, the only major things linking China and the outer world (before the Mongols)
  • Enriched Chinese culture, made China kinder
  • Created reciprocal importance…spread from China into Korea, Japan, and SE Asia…and therefore it helped to link China and these other areas…monks traveling back and forth, etc.
  • What are the traditional reasons for explaining the movements/spread of world religions?
  • Warfare (sword)
  • Missionaries and Merchants…economic and nationalistic elements (imperialism)
  • Differences in cultural levels (flowing from more civilized to less civilized peoples)
  • Timliness…people want to spread and others are ready to receive it
  • Pilgrims…different from missionary…carries the religion himself, not preaching to others…
  • For the spread of B to China, basically due to timeliness and pilgrims
  • Contrast of B and its otherworldliness to China and its this worldliness…celibacy vs. family, mendicancy vs. responsible life, …
  • Timeliness…period of disunion in China, C not strong
  • B became anthropomorphic, images, pantheon of buddhas and bodhisattvas, textual tradition…all more acceptable/appealing to the Chinese
  • 3 major periods of B in China
  • To 400 c.e.—Mass borrowing An Shigao (1st c.), Kumarajiva (344-413), Fa Xian trip 399-411

Initial translations not good, as a result Sanskrit studies began to flourish

A Sythian brought to Loyang…translated a lot

401 Kumarajiva, captured and taken to Changan, the greatest translator…the most and most accurate

Chinese monks, like Fa Xian, began to travel to India to learn and gather sutras, brought back many, wrote a memoir:

374 c.e. the entire Korean Kingdom was converted to B

  • 5th and 6th centuries—Resistance and Refinement—Toba Wei (Turkic) support—time of the great caves: Yungang and Longmen, Dunhuang

In the South, persecution

confiscation of monstatic lands and property

forcing monks and nuns back into lay life

by 517, the entire Tripitaka had been translated into Chinese

  • After 6th century—Buddhism domesticated. Travels of Xuanzang (629-645) 28th Patriarch; dhyana/chan

Part of Xuanzang's writings:

Development of schools

Prince Shotoku

  • Huiyan (334-416)—Pure Land (Jingtu, Jodo, O-Mei tofuo, Amida
  • Tiantai—Zhiyi (538-597)…the first real Chinese school of B (Tendai, Korean: Cheongtae)
  • Three tiers…one focused on scholastic
  • Huanyan—Flower Garland Sutra (also distinctly Chinese)…5 founders…Japan: Kegon; Korean: Hwaeom
  • Highly metaphysical teaching…mutual containment and interpentration…all phenomenon are contained in each other and interpenetrate each other…one thing contains all things…good and evil, too, contained in and penetrate one another…paradoxes similar to Koans (related)…Four Dharmadhatu (四法界)
  • Xuan…mystery 玄
  • Chan—Bodhidharma (dhyana, turning inward without reliance on teachings), developed in China by Zhu Daosheng (397-434)
  • Non-cultivation…teaching is not to teach…indirectness, teach by shocking
  • Merged with Daoism as one of the great stimulants to many fields
  • Major influence in Chinese art, literature…
  • B in Japan
  • Kamakura Shogunate
  • Reaction to the Fujiwara; Taira & Minamoto a response to the effete Fujiwara, warriors invited to Kyoto
  • This period, the Japanization of Japan…
  • Yoritomo, devout Buddhist.
  • Zen paramountcy, Noh, Bushido, architecture, scrolls, landscape paintings (influence of B: simplicity and strength)
  • Switch in Japan from scholar monks to the more common people in this period

Pure Land (Jodo)…Honen, Shinran (True Pure Land)…crucial to Noh drama…simple way to salvation

Nichiren (1222-1282)— the only one is purely Japanese…nationalistic, militaristic (word to be spread by the sword)… taught national unity,

Zen…the religion of the warriors, overshadowed the other two…also enriched/enlivened Japanese culture…brought by monks who traveled to China…Chan masters in Song China taught Japanese Myozen Esai (1141-1215) who introduced Rinzai Zen—emphasis on Koan; and Dogen Kigen (120-1253), who introduced za zen—sitting mediation. The Soto sect. Dogen the most noted Zen figure in Japan.

  • Strong in Japan, but died out in China

Buddhism traits

  • Carried in many languages
  • Tendency to mix with local traditions, which leads to great variation
  • Mazu religion (the mother religion), big in SE coastal China…Daoist influences, Buddhist influences, by the object of worship is a woman (Lin Mo-niang)…a goddess of fisherman
  • Incarnations of Guan Yin or Guansiyin (Kannon & Kanzeon)…twin track of names through different languages…originally a male Bodhisattva, but becomes female in China…multiple manifestations…doesn't differentiate the sexes…goddess of mercy/compassion…the original person in India was a Prince…in China often seen with a boy and a girl, sometimes with a basket and a fish (South Seas Guanyin, associated with the oceans, but not Mazu)…also seen as a fertility goddess…sometimes draped in Tang dynasty robes…
  • Guanyin of a 1000 arms and eyes…never resting from saving people…given her more arms and eyes by Amitaba Buddha to be able to help people better.
  • Legend of Miao Shan…Guanyin as the daughter of a cruel ruler who wanted her to marry a rich man, but she only agreed to do so if 3 conditions (misfortunes ) could be met: aging, being ill, dying…the father then asked her how these could be met…only by a doctor (meaning she would only marry a healer)…treated cruelly thereafter, she begged to enter a temple, okay, but the father told the monks to work her hard, which they did, but she was such a good person that the monks began to help her, this angered the father, who then tried to burn down the temple…she put it out with her hands and suffered no burns…the father was scared and had her killed…but she was saved by a supernatural tiger, taken to hell, where she played music, got flowers to bloom, and turned hell into paradise…variations…stories of compassion and kindness…

One copy of the legend:

POINT: the spread of Guanyin, and the mixing of her story with local legends

Birthday of 19th day in the second lunar month

  • Story of Shan Zai and Long Nu

Shan Zai…an invalid boy sent to Guanyin to get help, saved from falling off a cliff and was cured…story of a Dragon King when his son (a fish) was thrown on a shore, Shan Zai saved the fish and put it back in the ocean

Long Nu…sent to Guanyin to present her with the pearl of life, but Guanyin didn't accept it and instead helped her????

  • Buddhist and Art and Literature
  • Theravada variations
  • As unifying or linking factor?

Buddhism in the modern world?

What is happening with Buddhism in Communist and former-communist nations…freer in China (alive but not completely), Mongolia, and a little in Vietnam

Fa long gong (Daoist, Buddhist)

A major force in Sri Lanka and Myanmar

Korea, Taiwan, Japan thriving in its traditional forms and in new forms as well…

In the West…Shopenhauer (influenced), Thoreau (simpatico), Hesse, Theosophical Society (1875, Alcott?)…Alan Watts…