3.1.13 The Nature of Life

Question 1

What are the 2 main Buddhist traditions?

Answer 1

• Mahayana Buddhism
• Theravada Buddhism

Question 2

What are 2 beliefs that all Buddhists share?

Answer 2

• The belief of anatta - there is no fixed or permanent self.
• The belief that people are made up of five separate things, known as the Five (s)kandhas, which are constantly changing.

Question 3

What do Mahayana Buddhists believe in regards to nature of human life?

Answer 3

Mahayana Buddhists accept the ideas of anatta and the Five (s)Kandhas but go further - they believe all things are empty. This is the concept of Sunyata.

Question 4

What is Sunyata? (3)

Answer 4

• Sunyata is often translated as “emptiness”.
• It reinforces the belief that humans do not have a fixed, independent, unchanging self.
• It also stresses that all things are like this.

Question 5

What does it mean if something is empty? Why are things empty? Why do things exist? (3)

Answer 5

• To say that something is empty means that a thing has no true/fixed/stable form or essence.
• Things do not have a true/fixed/stable form or essence because they do not exist independently.
• All things exist because of other things and are changed by other things => everything depends on and interlinks with everything else.

Question 6

Is the idea of emptiness positive or negative and why?

Answer 6

Rather than being negative, the idea of emptiness is seen in a positive way. To be empty or without a true/fixed/stable form or essence means to have freedom and openness.

Question 7

What is the Buddha-nature and who believes in this?

Answer 7

• Mahayana Buddhists believe in the Buddha-nature
  (Tathagatagarbha).
• This is the belief that Buddha-nature lies dormant within each individual and provides the potential for Buddhahood.

Question 8

What is Buddhahood?

Answer 8

Buddhahood is the ultimate spiritual status.

Question 9

Why does the Buddha-nature begin as dormant inside people? How do Buddhists explain this? (2)

Answer 9

• This Buddha-nature is hidden by desires, attachments, ignorance and negative thoughts.
• Buddhist tradition explains this as being like the honey that cannot be seen because of the bees which surround it. It needs stimulation or awakening.

Question 10

How do Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists differ in their beliefs of becoming a buddha/having the Buddha-nature?

Answer 10

• Theravada Buddhists would say that all people have the potential to become a buddha.
• Mahayana Buddhists would disagree; instead they would say that the buddha-state or nature exists in everyone all the time.

Question 11

Do Mahayana Buddhists believe that people become buddhas or achieve enlightenment? (2 bullet points)

Answer 11

• People do not become buddhas or achieve enlightenment, they reveal the buddha nature that has always existed within them.
• Being enlightened to the ideas of anatta and sunyata reveals the buddha nature.

Question 12

Where does the term Tathagatagarbha come from?

Answer 12

The buddha-nature is called Tathagatagarbha;
* Tathagata refers to buddha.
* garbha means ‘womb’.