1.2 Three Marks & Five Khandas - scholars Flashcards
how Huntington Jr explains anicca
there are no stable, well-defined ‘things’ or ‘people’, only a ceaseless, ungraspable stream of events’
Huntington Jr: how to ‘see things as they are’
focus on the structure rather than content of experience, and realise how our assumptions about reality contradict the reality of experience
Huntington Jr: why things appear stable
most change happens slowly, below the level of normal perception
Huntington Jr’s example of death to illustrate anicca
death is always around us, but we do not, or choose not to, notice it is a slow process or because we assume it unpleasant
in reality, relief is found in encountering and accepting death as a universal truth
Huntington Jr’s description of anatta
there is no difference between the impermanence of things outside of us and inside us. ‘I too am nothing but a mental construct, a phantom’s mask covering the reality of change’
Huntington Jr: evidence our assumption we are the agents of our own thoughts and action is false
- no conscious control over internal functions
- if in control of our bodies why make them susceptible to disease and death
- if in control of our thoughts why dwell on worries and regrets
Huntington Jr’s description of Dukkha
no english word captures the full range of meaning of dukkha. dukkha is a subtle, all-pervasive dis-ease accompanying all forms of suffering, but is in itself none of them
Huntington Jr: how denial things that make us happy will end causes dukkha (referencing Freud)
takes a psychological toll - comes at the price of an ‘all pervasive anxiety… making it impossible for us to experience any genuine happiness’
Huntington Jr: ‘dukkha is not a suffering experienced by…
… the personality, dukkha just is the personality … to be somebody- anybody- is to continually suffer’
Huntington Jr: ‘underneath all my pleasures…
…the dark current of dukkha flows … polluting everything with the stench of an insatiable hunger and fear I cannot afford to acknowledge’
Huntington Jr’s translation of karuna
love - ‘more complex and intimate than a simple feeling of compassion’ ‘commitment to ones dharma’
Huntington Jr: through voicing the dharma, the Buddha gave ‘a new idiom for…
…an ageless, universal law of self sacrifice’
Huntington Jr: the Bodhisattva vow as an example of self-sacrifice
starts with: Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them all.
ends with: The Buddha’s way is unattainable; I vow to attain it
full commitment, sacrifice of all else, to something seemingly impossible
Barbara O’Brien’s interpretation of the chariot simile
judgements we make as to when something composed of parts starts or stops being that thing are subjective - there is no essence of the named object that somehow dwells within the parts, it is just a concept we project onto constituent parts
Side: effects of meditating on the aggregates and anatta
balancing and harmonising personality factors leads to the realisation we are not a unitary ‘person’, but changeable. this transforms understanding of anatta from a philosophical idea to a practical truth
Side’s description of ‘conventional truth’
what is true of empirical experience; what those with deluded understanding of the way things are take to be true
Side’s description of ‘ultimate truth’
the truth of how things always really are, not just under certain circumstances - transcends the empirical and appears to those with enlightened understanding
Side: what is meant by the Mahayanan statement ‘there is no sufferingl’
it is a conventional not ultimate truth - it is only real under circumstances of delusion, and can be ended
Side: sandcastle example to demonstrate that dukkha is not real
child upset when sandcastle washes away as under delusion it was permanent. parents not upset because they understood it was not impermanent. dukkha is not real to the parents
Mahayana Heart Sutra ‘the mantra that calms all suffering…
…should be known as the truth, since there is no deception’
Nagarjuna: how things ‘come together’
in a synchronic process, through mysterious interplay of dynamic energies and forces
Nagarjuna’s description of shunyata
all things are always subject to change, so have no intrinsic essence
Nagarjuna: why nothing that exists can be called a cause or an effect
no unitary entities exist at all, we can never find a definite starting point to our analysis
Goldstein: overview of the first two links in the Law of Dependent Origination
have to do with causes in the last life which condition this one. ignorance conditions volitional activity which holds karmic force
Goldstein: the third link in the Law of Dependent Origination - rebirth consciousness
the first moment of consciousness in this life, occurs at conception. the sprouting of the seed planted by previous volitional actions
Goldstein: mind-body phenomena and the sense spheres
mind-body phenomena and consequently sense spheres arise during embryo development. 6 senses, 5 typical ones + the mind
Goldstein: how the idea of consciousness is created
coming together of an object through its appropriate sense door creates perceptions of objects and feelings of pleasantness, unpleasantness, or neutrality
Goldstein: what is craving and what does it condition
it is desire, hankering after objects. conditions desire, grasping, and attachment which results in karmic formations
Goldstein: the cycle of samsara explained ‘because of these karmic actions…
…there is birth. because there is birth there is … decay, pain, suffering, and death. and so the wheel goes on and on, an impersonal chain of causality’
Goldstein: how the chain of Dependent Origination can be broken
sever the link between feeling and craving, learning to consider, detach, and let go of cravings
no desire means no grasping means no volitional activity means no karmic fruit means no rebirth
‘every moment of awareness is a…
…hammer stroke on this chain of conditioning’ striking it with wisdom and awareness weakens chain until it breaks
Amy Miller: the areas of the mind
gross, subtle, most subtle
all generate kamma
Amy Miller’s definition of karma
action, movement of the mind
Amy Miller: what factor karmic outcome depends on + tooth brushing example
the intent and motivation of the action.
many actions are neutral eg brushing teeth, but karmic outcome can be generated through choosing to engage in positive or mental actions while engaging in this action
Amy Miller: ‘if you create a negative action with your body,…
…hit someone with your speech, yell at someone with your mind’ the act ripens in suffering for you in the future
Peter Harvey: Theravadin description if kamma
intentional action, & natural law that we are ‘heir to our actions’ - they leave traces on the psyche which grow into future outcomes
Peter Harvey: what are kamma vipaka and kamma phala
the karmic fruit, or maturation of karmic outcome
Peter Harvey: Theravadin view of the relationship between kamma and future lives
kamma directly governs the state of rebirth to match our outer state to our inner state developed by previous actions. can determine species, social class at birth, general character
Peter Harvey: the significance of thinking in relation to kamma
constant source of opportunity to generate karmic fruit, can greaten or lesson the impact of karmic outcome of negative thoughts
Peter Harvey: significance of giving in relation to kamma
always karmically fruitful no matter the intent, and enables us to share joy, so many benefit from one act ‘lighting many lamps from one’
Rinpoche: explanation of the six realms
depictions of states humans can live in - ‘confused projections of the mind’, not physical places
Rinpoche: explanation of the six kleshas
what defiles ‘out capacity to recognise our original wisdom’ - investigated through the six realms
Rinpoche: overview of the hell realm
the lowest realm in which we are gripped by ‘blind rage’, incapable of seeing its destructive effects, in too much agony for the aspiration to recognise one’s buddha nature to come forth
Rinpoche: overview of the hungry ghosts realm
one of the lower realms in which we are gripped by insatiable greed, grasping, and desperation, unable to consider the harmful impact. ‘too consumed by the force of their insatiable need to benefit from dharma’
Rinpoche: overview of the animal realms
one of the lower realms in which we are driven only by instinct and preservation, we are deluded and ignorant. ‘do not possess the intelligence to recognise their Buddha nature’
Rinpoche: overview of the demi-god and god realms
higher realms in which complete satisfaction leads to drunken complacency. ‘seductions of luxury and leisure overwhelm the aspiration to wake up’ and establish a false sense of security and happiness, setting us up for devastation when this changes
Rinpoche: overview of the human realm
one of the higher realms in which suffering is caused by the 3 poisons, but fleeting happiness exists and we are ‘endowed with the intelligence to make better choices… to overcome destructive patterns’
Rinpoche: why one can only awaken from the human realm
‘suffering and happiness together create the perfect conditions’ fleeting happiness confirms suffering is not permanent, allowing the aspiration to awaken to arise, but ‘our happiness does not cloud the aspiration to awaken’
Hoden: Zen Buddhist view on rebirth
the natural flow of energy in which all of the energies that compose us come from the same source, to which all returns and something else is made
Hoden: rebirth water simile
if you put a drop of water into a glass you cannot take out that same drop again, but you can take out a new one
