General Knowledge - Buddhism Test 1

Question 1

what are two possible civilizations buddhism descended from?

Answer 1

vedic traditions - and brahmanism

• a theory that Buddhism emerged from the wandering movement that rejected orthodox beliefs of Brahmanism
• theories of ethiopian begginings due to racialization of Buddha
• in the Indus valley civilization (2,500 and 1200 BCE )
• tribe in indus river - depict animals and gods
• showed sacred trees and people in yogic positions which could have been passed onto indian religions
• had an emphasis on body, purity, and yogic ideals

Question 2

Does buddhism have a creation myth?

Answer 2

No specific creation myth. individuals are reborn into the new world once it has become evolved. have translucent bodies as fabric of reality becomes more real. people elect a king and start of social and political life begins.

Question 3

Samsara levels

Answer 3

lower levels of samsara are considered to be worse, and higher are better.
- some believe rebirth is immediate but others that there is a state of bardo which acts as a buffer for 49 days before rebirth
- the demigod realm is a struggle between good and bad as they have violent impulses but aren’t considered super important
- Hell is considered the equivalent to christian purgatory
- Ghost Realm is a special suffering - for people who were greedy or selfish,can only eat food left out at night
- animal realm was considered physical suffering to be hunted by other animals and humans
- mostly mammals in this realm
- heaven is the realm of gods - or angels
- human realm is hard to get to as it allows for both suffering and pleasure so its easier to follow buddhist teachings - easier to then attain nirvana

Question 4

how are gods treated in the realm?

Answer 4

gods are revered but not worshipped in a traditional fashion. heaven is not a permanent salvation and gods also must follow rules of karma
- they can become complacent in heaven

Question 5

karma

Answer 5

• moving people from one realm of rebirth to another - pictured as a kind of elevator that takes people up and down inside a building
• not random or fate - natural sequence of causes and effects
• means “action” - results in the outcome
• bad motivation = greed, hatred, delusions - opposites are non-attatchnment, benevolence, and understanding
• not everything has karmic cause, some events are random

Question 6

what is the merit of Buddhism?

Answer 6

merit is a commodity like money - can be earned and spent
- making donations to monks - or supporting religious services

Question 7

Bodhisattva?

Answer 7

Buddhist in training

Question 8

Buddhas familly?

Answer 8

Yasodhara (wife), Fetter (son)

Question 9

When did Buddha live?

Answer 9

buddha was said to have lived 80 years - from either 5663-483, 490-410, or 480-400.

Question 10

Why are early buddha scriptures known as canons?

Answer 10

from oral tradition that has been preserved through communal chanting

Question 11

What were important events in Buddhas life?

Answer 11

birth, enlightenment, first sermon, death
- now sites of pilgrimages

Question 12

birth of buddha

Answer 12

his mother (queen maya) had a vision of a baby elephant - and knew her child would be a great religious leader. her prenancy is easy and she holds onto a tree and gives painless birth. there is said to be an earthquake. He has a supernatural birth where he walks and declares he is the chief of the world.
- born in nepal.
- divine beings are present

Question 13

When did buddha leave his royal home?

Answer 13

left at 29 and was shocked by humanities vulnerabilities outside the walls, saw ageing, sickness, death. when he finally sees a sramana (religious person) he is inspired to embark on spiritual quest. he leaves his wife and chld to become a wanderer and renounces his past life.

Question 14

what was the problem with meditation?

Answer 14

Buddha only considered it a temporary escape. he also tried extreme starvation before understanding moderation was key.

Question 15

where does buddha achieve awakening?

Answer 15

• under the tree of the bodhi he enters his fourth state of trance and becomes concentrated and purified.
• attains four noble truths
• all his defilements are destroyed
  (sometimes retold as a psychological battle)
• now called bodhgaya - center of pilgrimage

Question 16

where does buddha go after enlightenment?

Answer 16

goes to holy city of benares - finds five companions where he preaches his first sermon marking inauguration of dharma and sangha. the companions attain advanced spiritual understanding and dharma eye - where they can see the truth of the rebirth wheel.
- they become ordained as monk
- when he talks about no self ideal - they attain nirvana and become arhants

Question 17

when can title of buddha be given?

Answer 17

only those who discover enlightenment on their own rather than from others

Question 18

where did buddha die?

Answer 18

• he laid down between two sal trees where his mother had given birth to him
• trees bloomed and gods were in attendance
• he became cremated and relics divided into eight portions to be distributed among local rulers

Question 19

what does Almond, P. discuss in his reading?

Answer 19

• the interest in Buddhism from orientalist perspective as interest grows in late victorian England
• western classification of buddhism limits, defined buddhism
• no conception of buddhism and historical connections to specific locations
• saw buddhism as a textual object to be interpreted - didn’t see difference between hinduism and buddhism
• scholars saw arrival of sanskrit texts as birth of buddhism - determined they comprised all of buddhist scriptures

Question 20

What are the three jewels?

Answer 20

“triatna”
- Collectively comprise the essence of the Buddhist religion

Question 21

theory of causation, or dependent origination?

Answer 21

all phenomena arises in dependence on causes and conditions - cause and effect
- there is nothing that comes into being through its own power, there are no entitities, or metaphysical realities like god or a soul that transcend this

Question 22

four noble truths? (“arya-satya”)

Answer 22

1. life is suffering (duhkka)
   - some biological things are associated with suffering, age, sickness, and detah
   - also physocological states
2. suffering is caused by craving or “arising”
   - any kind of desire for gratification of senses
   - only way to fix is through therapy and understanding
3. suffering can have an end - cessation
   - Once craving is removed suffering will cease
   State of being free is nown as nirvana - “blowing out”
   - individuals evolve into saints and leave behind fear, doubt, worry and anxiety
4. there is a path which leads to end of suffering
   - eightfold path
   - overall diagnosis of the ills which affects humanity as a remedy for all sickness

Question 23

concept of no self? “anatman”

Answer 23

• our human nature is constituted in a way that makes it impossible for us to ever find complete happiness or fulfilment in in samsara
• Fundamental instability - happiness will never endure
• Some view this as very pessimistic or realistic

Question 24

Three levels of the eightfold path

Answer 24

1. Morality. “sila” - the foundation of religious practice
2. Wisdom “prajna” - knowledge and understanding of nature or reality to see how awakening is achieved
3. Meditation “samadhi” process of calming and self-integration that takes the deepest level of the psyche.

Question 25

Is the eightfold path a series of stages to get nirvana?

Answer 25

should be seen as a continuous program that develops cumulatively
- progressive spiritual makeover

Question 26

who are holy persons?

Answer 26

• higher level of following eight paths are called saints or holy people who are belived to be destined to achieve nirvana
• there are four categories of holy persons - “stream winner” - person who experienced sufffering, impermanence, and no self is able to see stream that takes them to nirvana
• once-returner - “returns only one time to the human world”
• non-returner - never reborn in the human realm.
• arhant - freed himself from any belief in self (eliminates all personal defilements and destroys desire for rebirth) meaning they will attain nirvana.

Question 27

what is the light of asia?

Answer 27

published by sir edwin arnold in 1879, 8 chapters of poetry which cover the extensive life of buddha.

Question 28

What are five categories which buddha calls human nature?

Answer 28

the five aggregates
- human subjects as one spiritual (nana) and other material (rupa)
1. Vendana - capacity to respond to stimulus
2. Sanjana - perception and conceptual thought
3. Samskara - mental formations or character
4. Centana - decion making - how karma is produced
5. Vijnana - sentiency of functioning - fuses new form to a being with a physical body but carries karmic profile from a previous life

• defined as form, feeling, cognition, mental formations, consciousness.
• no concept of eternal self aside from these components

Question 29

where did monks and nuns settle down in rainy season?

Answer 29

in self-constructed huts or Arama (donated huts)
- lasting monasteries contradict buddha’s injunction about permanent dwelling

Question 30

pratimoksa ?

Answer 30

inventory of offences organized into several categories classified according to gravity of offence (nuns only have seven categories) was a tool after buddhas death to implement purity in monastic order

Question 31

what vows do lay community adhere to?

Answer 31

pancasila - don’t take a life
- dont steal, dont drink, dont lie
- also regulates ethical conduct in social intercource

Question 32

viharas?

Answer 32

huts constructed for monks residences - came to designate whole monastaries later

Question 33

bhiksuni sangha for women?

Answer 33

established when prajapati asked Buddha to establish a sangha for woman. woman must accept additonal rules, however some join because want to follow husbands, avoid marriages, or are widows.

Question 34

Pali canon?

Answer 34

sutras that provide biographical details and accounts for latter part of buddha’s life

Question 35

what are four sights buddha witnesses outside of the palace?

Answer 35

1. old age
2. sickness
3. death (of a corpse)
4. renunciation and practice (holy man)

Question 36

myth of buddha leaving?

Answer 36

flees on a horse with his friend in the middle of the night
- was said that gods made household fall asleep so he could escape
= cuts off hair as a show of renunciation
- meets people undertaking extreme ascetic practicies to control their senses and desires

Question 37

Sujata is a figure who

Answer 37

offers the starving buddha food which he accepts to eat a proper meal and realized moderation is key

Question 38

is buddhism text based?

Answer 38

no, it is memorized through generations - not written in Sanskrit or palli

Question 39

what was the theosophical society?

Answer 39

• founded in NY in 1875
• Henry steel olcott, and helena petrovna blavatsky
• fascinated by religions of south asia
• Olcott was important for initiatives in Sri Lanka (fighting against missionaries and helps buddhists) (organized buddhists to fight against british missionaries)
• founded new age movement (against orientalist beliefs, into the spiritual aspect) (believed society was sickened by rationality and science, and industrialism)
• helena believed all laws of the universe come together and we are governed by one set of laws of the universe that can be discovered learned and shared
• spiritual medium who would translate spritual beings teachings
• tibetan masters, or ascended masters

Question 40

Purpose of Cosmology and Karma

Answer 40

Provide us with existential orientation - where do we come from? what is our universe?
- meaning to human life

Question 41

What do buddhist think of all sentient beings ?

Answer 41

• that every living thing has a mind

Question 42

fun things around the god realm?

Answer 42

• no sickness, live thousands of years, when you start to smell your expiration date is coming, you can only achieve this realm as a result of cumulative positive deeds

Question 43

buddhist sangha?

Answer 43

• Generally is reffered to monks and nuns
• Can refer to any buddhist group community loosely organized around spiritual ideas
• A group of people living together for a certain purpose = broadly refers to any community of people practicing Buddhism as lay or ordained

Live according to the rule of the buddha (sasana) - accept his diagnosis of being sick/suffering. They are living in a way to reduce and eliminate suffering and its cause

The followers wander for most of the year but remain in one place during the rainy season (vassa)

Question 44

Sangha of the four quarters?

Answer 44

• Two groups of monastic disciples/sangha
  1. A fully ordained monk or non (bhiksu)
  2. Novice (sramanera) - first level of ordination (10 or 36 vows)
  (Refrain from killing, stealing, sex, harmful speech, taking intoxicants, singing and dancing, eat after midday, touching money)

Two groups of lay disciples
1. Lay person (upasaka) - worshipper, lay practitioner, pancasila (five vows//precets)
(Refrain from taking life
Refrain from taking that what has not been given
Refrain from false speech
Unmindful states of intoxication)

Question 45

Arhat/arahant

Answer 45

Accomplished practitioners who achieve the destruction of the 3 defilements
- can calm their mind and behaviour under the guidance of the buddha

Question 46

Bodhissatta

Answer 46

“awakened being”
- protagonist of Jataka stories is “the bodhisattva”
- goal of full awakening and teaching the dharma in an age when it no longer is prevalent
- undertakes path on basis of compassion and altruism